It’s the year of the booty, the bottom, the buttocks, the butt…or whatever you call it. It’s a sign that I’ve lived in too many different countries that I never quite know which of the b words to use.
Blah blah blah.
In the world of popular culture, it’s all about that bass.
In the world of fitness and women’s bodies, it’s all about squats and dead lifting.
CrossFit has had an influence on women’s appearance goals and there’s lots that’s positive about “strong is the new skinny.” I love that lots more women are lifting heavy weights and that the panic about looking muscular seems to have gone away. I just wish we’d focus on strength as performance rather than strength as appearance, aka visible abs.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of muscular bodies. As a matter of personal preference I’ll take brawny of any gender over gaunt. But that’s me.
Moving beyond personal preference, I recognize you can’t tell strength from shape. Just like you can’t judge how much a person exercises from their BMI, you can’t tell how strong a person is by their size. Rebecca Kukla, for example, is pretty small and pretty strong. I envy the weights she lifts.
Likewise, some people look muscular but aren’t strong. They’re just lucky on the appearance front but it’s not the result of strength training.
So, one more time, you can’t judge fitness…strength or endurance….on the basis of the way someone looks.
You can’t actually tell on the basis of the bodies below who runs and who squats.
