Today’s Hoyden is courtesy of guest poster “Dita”, who is otherwise A. Lurker (and who occasionally sneaks up on me in Facebook). “Dita” lives and studies on the west coast of the USA. (~ tigtog)
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Now you’re probably scratching your head a little because, wait a minute, women don’t lift weights!

Well earth to you, sweetie, because they do and they do it well. Blazing a path through the legions of leg-lifting ladies who “just want to get toned”, these guerilla grrrls of the gym are tossing aside the tyranny of the tiny pink weights to find out what fun the boys have been keeping under wraps.

That’s the hoydenish voice that grabs our attention, and leads us through the weightlifting website of today’s hoyden, Krista Scott-Dixon. Krista’s website, Stumptuous, is a valuable resource for both women and men of all experience levels who are interested in becoming strong.

Stumptuous is overflowing with health-related info aimed at women, stripped away of the misogyny and negativity that pervades most popular diet and exercise programs. Krista debunks common myths about women and weightlifting, such as:

* The Toning Myth

I’m sure we’ve all heard before that women should “tone”, i.e. lift small weights a million reps. I personally hate ‘toning’, and was very gratified when Krista wrote:

“To be serious about strength training, eliminate the T-word-“tone”-from your vocabulary. Lifting a tiny weight for a hundred reps is a waste of time and energy, plus it never really stresses your muscles enough to make them much stronger. As the good Sgt. Robo says, “More isn’t better, better is better.” In fact, according to one study in which men and women trained the same muscle group 3 days a week for 20 weeks, “the women made significantly greater relative increases than men in strength.” (MacDougall et al, McMaster University)”

* Weight training will make you huge and masculine.

Good thing Krista debunked this one, otherwise I might have to clutch my pearls!

“Probably the worst lie ever. People look at women bodybuilders and say, “Ohmigawd, they’re huge and if I lift anything heavy I’ll look like that too.” Nope. In general, women are not able to build monstrous muscle mass in the same manner as men, due to a number of physiological factors. It’s a rare woman that can become a competitive bodybuilder, and to get that big she has to combine genetics, extensive long-term training, strict diet, and supplementation (legal or otherwise).”

You can see more sense knocked into the nonsense here: [link]

Krista has a great reference page for our nigels who would like to encourage women in weight-training pursuits: [link]
She also has an excellent anti-diet philosophy, and an equally excellent recipe for protein bars!

Krista Scott-Dixon has a Master’s and Ph.D. in Women’s Studies. In addition to strength training, she also has an interest in boxing, kick boxing, and Brazillian Jiu Jitsu. She lives in Canada with her partner Chris.

Categories: health

Tags: feminism friday, hoydens