Skip to main content

Functional... and mighty

The other day I was at the gym where I work, and one of my co workers made an interesting comment about my hands.

It was something like "oh wow, you have great hands, can I see them?" Which is probably a bit odd to most people, but we are like that.

The thing is, I've never really thought I had great hands. I have massive hands. When I was about 18 my boyfriend at the time told me he found it intimidating that my hands were bigger than his. I have long fingers, but also pretty solid palms. I also have massive feet, I'm a UK 7, but I'm not generally very big, I'm just under 5'4". I have always been self conscious about my "massive flappy hands and feet".

So it was a bit of a revelation to have someone make positive comments about my hands when the best anyone had previously managed was "you'd make a good pianist" (and they are right, I can play Shumann and that dude cut his finger webs to achieve his span).

My co worker is currently dealing with carpal tunnel, because of lifting dumbells with big rubberised grips that really aren't ergonomic for daintier hands. But my hands aren't dainty. I can grip those dumbells no problem. My hands are mighty!

I'm not sure what the benefit of having small hands was supposed to be for women. Unless you are trying to get something that fell down the back of the fridge, or if you are a farmer and your sheep is having trouble lambing.

Most of the time I'm pretty sure it's aesthetic, but why? Because we are supposed to be so substantially smaller than men? Because we are supposed to take up less space? Who says? Who gets to decide what shape and size my body is? How on earth did it ever get to be anyone but me?

I've said it before and I'm not going to stop: I am kind of fed up with this idea that femininity comes in a particular shape. I'm fed up with women being told they shouldn't train however they want in the gym because they might get "bulky" or "manly".

Many of us just don't have the genetics to be small and delicate. My mum is tiny and petite, but apparently I didn't get my share of that. I have always been heavy for my size (I think my bones might actually be solid iron, there's no other explanation for this much mass in this little space). But I am naturally strong, even without training, my relatively small 18 year old self was changing beer kegs in my evening job and carrying a 20kg bag of horsefeed under each arm in my day job. I'm a solid kind of girl. So why shouldn't I train to optimise that? Pack on the muscle, build up my functional strength, be super badass!

So I found myself looking in the mirror the other day, contemplating this issue. I thought to myself:

"I'm not petite, 
I'm not delicate, 
I'm not dainty,
I'm not willowy, 
I'm not ethereal. 
But I am functional as f**k"

And I'm pretty cool with that.

So much so that I am currently writing a programme just for women (or men, I'm inclusive) like me, who are no longer willing to work to take up less space, and just want to get stronger and more physically effective. I'll let you know how that goes, so keep an eye out. You can sign up to my mailing list or follow me on Facebook for updates.

FLASH UPDATE: Functional as F**k - the training programme is now LIVE! Check it out over here where you can see a little preview and purchase the programme in one of 3 formats.

Also, I made a shirt....


I'm being really inspired at the moment by the work Girls Gone Strong are doing, it's a great resource and community. Also check out Unapoligetically Powerful and The Bigness Project for some really cool programming for women who want to lift heavy stuff or build big muscles. The ladies behind these are completely awesome.

No one would ever tell her to lay off the pouncing...


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Managing Fibromyalgia flares

I've written before about living with EDS and Fibromyalgia ,  much of my personal fitness and health practices are geared around managing those conditions and keeping me as well as I can be. When managing a chronic health condition, particularly one that involves fatigue and potential flare ups, pacing, good nutrition, good sleep and generally taking care of yourself is always the first priority. Ideally we want to have as few flares as possible. But sometimes they still happen, and when they do, it's good to have a strategy in place. And I'm going to be talking in fairly general terms, because while EDS and Fibro are my personal experience, there is so little understanding of the mechanisms behind these conditions, that most strategies are going to be applicable to a number of conditions where crashes of exhaustion and pain are a feature. So what is a flare? A flare is a period where someone with chronic illness suffers increased symptoms for a short while. The

Wellbeing is not a competition

I want to have an in depth look at another aspect of the Free Living Fitness manifesto .  Wellbeing is not a competition. Sports are competitive by their nature, some fitness activities like body building are also competitive, but taking care of your body should not be, that's between you and your body. Often when I am in the gym, I see people lifting weights with bad form. They lift the weight, then drop it, not completing a full cycle of the rep. Or they lift too fast to properly get the benefit of using the whole muscle. Or they use form that reduces the isolation, for instance using more of their back than necessary in a shoulder exercise. All of these things achieve one "false" result: They allow you to lift a heavier weight.  Why lift in a way that reduces the efficacy of the exercise, gets you slower gains and potentially hurts you? Because the number on the weight is bigger, and being able to quote a big number puts you ahead in the gym competitio

Confused about your online fitness options? I'm here to help!

Isolation fitness is the new gym (for now) With Covid-19 measures limiting our movement at access to fitness, the internet has become a chaotic explosion of workout options. All the online retailers are sold out of home fitness equipment (ask me about my quest to find a pair of 20kg olympic plates...) and there is a definite shift in consciousness - I have never seen so many people talking about their exercise - and I surround myself with fitness people! In a way it is heartening to see a universal shift where people are becoming very aware of their health. It's necessary when, in all likelihood, many of us will have to fight a respiratory virus - the healthier you are to start with, the better your chance of a full recovery. Doctors have suggested we should prepare ourselves as we would for surgery. As a fitness professional it is always in my mind that I am "the front line of preventative medicine". Fitness, nutrition , recovery and a balanced mindset make measu

Step away from the scale. Why weigh ins and weight loss don't match.

I have a persistant bugbear when it comes to health coaching, and it's this issue of "weight". People are often talking about "losing weight", the number on the scale becomes a focus. "If only I could just get under 65kg" they say. Or worse I see advertised "buy this supplement and you can lose 20kg in a fortnight". I've found myself frequently sitting with a weight-focussed client and asking "if you were 2 dress sizes smaller, fit and toned, but you weighed the same as you do now, could you be happy with that?" You might be surprised how challenging a question that can be. For many people, particularly those who have struggled with weight loss, that number is the absolute key. They can wake up, feeling energised and full of life, slip into those jeans that used to live hopefully in the bottom of the drawer, check themselves in the mirror and love what they see... then they step on the scales, see the number is half a kilo

My top apps for supporting a healthy lifestyle.

The hardest part of making healthy choices and lifestyle changes is making it a habit. It's easy to make a decision to "eat better", "exercise more" or whatever your current plan is. It's a lot harder to stick to it on the rough days, for long enough that it becomes a habit and part of your life that you can't imagine being without. I love a bit of tech. I am a super geeky science nerd and finding ways to use technology to support my health and fitness makes me very happy. So with this in mind I thought I'd give a quick run down of my favourite smartphone apps for developing and maintaining healthy habits. Habitica I'm starting with this one because it's mad and I love it. Habitica is basically a to-do list app, but it's specially for the gamers among us. If you are familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, and all the games that grew out of that system and fantasy world, you will recognise Habitica. The app allows you to create 3 t