If your social media newsfeed is all fitness, all the time–welcome to my world–you’ve likely seen this post and many of the responses to it. Most of the women’s strength groups I follow have shared it, with rebuttals in favour of deadlifts and functional strength, and against aesthetic thinness goals.
And yes, I’m also on Team Strong over Team Skinny, though, truth be told, skinny was never on the menu for me. Strength is, and I delight in it, and in the way I feel when I’m strong, Muscles!
So regular readers know both that I’m a fan of muscles, and also that I pledged here on the blog not to skinny-shame. See (from many years ago) Fear of frail? In which Sam pledges not to body shame skinny runners…
Here’s some of my thoughts about the image and this issue.
🏋️ First, lots of thin women might also care about beating their deadlift PR. There is no reason to think the woman in this picture doesn’t care about strength.
🏋️ Also not everyone who “fits” into a bandeau at 76, worked for it or had it as a goal. Some people just are thin, just like others are fat.
🏋️ What do you mean “fits into a bandeau” anyway? Doesn’t that matter what size the bandeau is? We would all fit into bandeaus if they were large enough, right?
🏋️ Ah, what they really mean is “fits into a bandeau’ and looks a certain way. What way? Skinny.
🏋️ Skinny is having a moment right now. I didn’t blog about Demi Moore and the debate over her “toned” arms, but that certainly fits into the same context. See my post from a last spring, Thin being in again and the rise of authoritarianism.
🏋️ There is something to the idea that at 76, if we care about not breaking bones when we fall, we ought to be strength training. It’s not necessary to care about your weight-lifting PRs though, but it is necessary, if you care about retaining muscle, to train for strength some of the time.
As usual, there’s a lot more nuance here than Team Skinny versus Team Strong.
Where do you land? Does framing this as “different goals” let the original post off the hook too easily, or is that the right response?
Also, whatever your goal, remember it may not be something you have control over. See What does 74 look like? And how much choice do we have really?
