Women and Weightlifting – What Are We So Afraid Of by Christine Ardigo

Many years ago, I belonged to an all woman’s gym. I’d strut in with my fluorescent orange leotard, tie dye bike shorts and perfect white Reeboks and head straight to the aerobics room. My friend and I parked ourselves in the front of the class to get a good view of the teacher. Freestyle music blasted from her Boombox and after carefully following her choreographed dance steps, our arms flailing overhead, we left thinking we transformed our bodies. One day, after many years, I strolled towards the aerobics room ready for my step class and spied the weight machines in the adjoining room. They laid there untouched, alone and abandoned. Why wasn’t anyone using them?

I looked around, no one was watching, and crept over to a funky machine with a bar dangling from the top. Dust consumed the seating bench and also the black rectangular weights that encompassed this massive machine. A small card demonstrated the procedure for performing this exercise.

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