Hieu Truong’s previous work for The Toast can be found here.
Most women her age are usually doing weak things, like hugging family members, cooking for large groups of small children, or spending much of their waking hours trying to support themselves financially. This woman is different. She lifts heavy weights. Maybe she lifts more weights than you, presumably male reader of undetermined size and athletic ability. Isn’t that crazy, a mere woman lifting more than you? She must be cheating. Maybe you should make derogatory remarks in the comments section, or speculate whether or not she is using steroids.
*
“Strong is the new pretty,” she says, as she chalks her hands for her 120lb log clean and press. “However, I have to make sure I’m the old pretty as well or I won’t get any sponsorships or any significant financial support to continue in any sport I love.”
*
This female lifter is completely unlike the kind of woman you tend to think of when you think of female lifters, because she loves the color pink. She loves the color pink so much that she has painted herself entirely in neon pink prior to a meet, in order to blind the other lifters. Once, she painted the referees in the middle of introductions and was stopped by a weight loader before she got to the meet director.
*
Many girls her age are usually preoccupied by trivial things, like attracting boys, or following up on the latest celebrity gossip, or doing well in school so they can finally escape the clutches of their overbearing parents. This girl is different. She lifts weights. Doing this very masculine activity makes her 95% more interesting than any other girl her age, aside from all of the girls around the world who work on farms or often carry around their younger siblings or their own children.
*
“I think it surprises a lot of people to know this about me, but I’m just a girly girl, deep inside,” she gushes, and immediately pulls a 5-year-old girl in pigtails and bedecked in pink tulle out of her stomach to demonstrate. The 5-year-old girl is clutching a doll. Satisfied by this affirmation of femininity, the legions of Kreplath creatures that have been ominously gathering around her slink away to find a new target. Their last target was Serena Williams, who easily beat them all off with her tennis racket.
*
In response to critiques from both men and women that being strong and showing off one’s muscles was unfeminine, Eleiko Sport USA is announcing a new line of singlets made entirely of lace, tulle, and taffeta, while Rogue is announcing their new line of weight belts, complete with the bedazzled phrase “GIRLY.”
*
She is a Black woman who lives in the community and lifts a lot of weight, but because she is Black, she’s very definitely not particularly feminine to the assumed audience is (white people) so this is barely worth acknowledging. If she is below the age of 20 or above the age of 50, then the commentary will focus on her age. Let’s ignore the intersections between race and gender and how this might have influenced her experience of the sport. None of this matters, even if she sets a world record or two. It’s just not that interesting unless her interest in lifting is contrasted with perceived femininity.
*
Part of her pre-meet routine includes a manicure the day before, and an hour carefully doing her makeup. Although this may strike some as unusual for a sport usually associated with large bulky men like Russian Olympian Dmitry Klokov, she explains, “I love looking and feeling pretty when I’m getting ready for my lifts. Also, my mascara is made from purified deer antlers and my foundation is made from elk fur, which are known to add at least 5 kg to each lift.”
*
Typically, when the average person thinks about women lifting weights, they imagine female bodybuilders with large, bulky muscles. This woman is different: she’s not bulky at all. In fact, she has no muscles at all, and her existence and her ability to lift weights and compete is being investigated by biophysicists as we speak. However, she looks fantastic in haute couture!
*
Her nemesis is a woman who loves the color grey.
*
Unlike the large, burly men that are often associated with this sport, this female lifter is small and petite. Granted, this sport has over seven weight classes in the women’s division and other women in her weight class are also of a similar height and build, but they didn’t collect all of the Sparkle Unicorn Shards to rebuild the Adora’s Amulet, which grants +13 Cuteness. Everyone knows that 5 points in cuteness results in additional 10% protection against the Kreplath.
*
There is a local Asian lifter who can lift more than 10lbs. You might have overlooked her because she is awfully small and petite, and who would’ve thought that she would even be allowed to lift weights? Let’s focus on how small she is, and ignore that she also competes in a sport with weight classes and that she also has competitors of a similar height and build. Or that there are Asian lifters who set world records and dominate weightlifting at the Olympics.
*
Actually, let’s not. Let’s forget about her altogether and assume she doesn’t exist. The Asian domination of weightlifting at the Olympics doesn’t happen. This article doesn’t exist. Move on.
*
Unlike the large, burly men that are associated with strength sports, this female lifter is merely an athletically-built woman of above-average height. This is especially strange and surprising observation considering that she competes against other women, not men. Her size makes the large, burly men she trains with highly uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as they might be if they knew that she has been collecting bits of their hair, their used lifting chalk, and slivers of their lifting belts. She already knows their True Names, and merely awaits the Harvest Moon to commence with the ritual.
*
Contrary to the idea of a masculine-looking woman who typically spends her days lifting weights and eating men, this woman with long, flowing hair only eats young boys. Their flesh helped her fend off 15 pairs of possessed scissors. Once she defeated the ur-Scissor, the Avatar of All Split Ends, they gave up their fight and she’s been luxuriating in her soft hair ever since.
*
Unlike the stereotypes of other women that participating in strength sports, this woman is light-skinned, cisgender, and conventionally attractive. Sure, other lifters may love romantic comedies, design and sew their own clothes, shoulder the primary caretaking of their aging parents, or make less money than their male counterparts, but those traditionally feminine activities can’t easily be captured in a photo nor is it immediately obvious when they lift. Why bother acknowledging it?
*
Tags: feel the burn, fitness, hieu truong, humor, weightlifting
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Serena Williams, though. I find it astonishing that among all of the falls from grace and plucky young upstarts in American sports, tennis has this woman who just keeps winning shit for years, and we’re totally desensitized to it. Serena has another gold medal? She won WTA Finals again? Must be Tuesday.
You know what? You’re right. I hereby resolve to be more aware of the awesomeness of Serena. This is totally not sarcastic – the fact that she has continued to pretty much kill it her entire career is amazing, and I’m always like “UGH her AGAIN?!?” which is totally the wrong way to be.
I’m also all “UGH her AGAIN” because I remember the days when she and Venus were obnoxious to their fans and media. I have never gotten over that and probably never will (see also: why I loathe Tiger Woods).
I’m a longtime tennis fan, so I can think of a few others who have been and/or are obnoxious to fans, refs, and/or the media, at one time or another (and sometimes repeatedly):
Jimmy Connors
John McEnroe (famously)
Eugenie Bouchard (recently, refused to shake hands with an opponent)
Victoria Azarenka (also recently; threw a chair in the locker room after losing to Serena at Roland Garros this year)
David Nalbandian (kicked a chair & injured a linesman)
Novak Djokovic (put a hole in a bench with his racquet)
Andy Roddick (who, despite his long history of mouthing off at refs, will be commentating on Wimbledon this year)
Marat Safin (also famously)
And even the sport’s darling, Roger Federer (had you forgotten his famous “I don’t give a sh*t” to the referee in the 2009 US Open final?).
And that’s just off the top of my head, without doing any real digging.
The thing is, if the only athletes whose misbehavior you recall seems to be that of athletes who look like Serena and/or Tiger and/or Venus … then I’d submit that says more about the … shall we say, perspective of your recall than it does about their behavior relative to that of their fellow athletes.
What a kind and lovely thing to say to someone about whom (and about whose televised sports viewing interests/habits and recall) you know absolutely nothing! I do so appreciate your perspective.
Just about as kind and lovely as the comments to which I was responding, I’m thinking.
“I do so appreciate your perspective.”
I’m sure you do. About as much as your comments here were actually responsive to the substance of what I’d observed about what you’d said.
I’ll be attending to a family medical emergency this week so I anticipate this will be the last of my “perspective” on the matter.
Enjoy the rest of the upcoming grass season.
🙂
There’s an interesting discussion on MetaFilter about Serena, especially in relation to some of the outrages described in this Vox article.
I’m a fan, and this lady in France kind of summed up how some of us felt:
https://twitter.com/pampleyellow/status/607206907…
“Actually, let’s not. Let’s forget about her altogether and assume she doesn’t exist. The Asian domination of weightlifting at the Olympics doesn’t happen. This article doesn’t exist. Move on.”
And that’s when the article broke the sound barrier. They probably heard that BOOM at the South Pole.
Where can I find elk fur foundation? Will it be hot in the summer? I need a strength boost, but not at the cost of more insulation.
You may want to check out if Ray Lewis’ supplier has a makeup line: http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2012/story/_/id/8…
[I am a Ravens fan, btw! ;D]
Oh, I might just skip right to the holographic stickers!!
“Ross told SI he prescribed a program to help Lewis’ recovery that included multiple components, including holographic stickers for the elbow, sleeping in front of a beam-ray light, drinking negatively charged water, and taking a regimen of deer-antler pills and spraying deer-antler extract under the tongue every two hours.”
I’m not saying I wouldn’t wear a sparkly tutu thing to the gym to be honest
Right? I’m not gonna lie, tulle would make me less grossed-out by singlets (although I would still never wear one since I don’t plan to ever compete). I have a photo of a friend from one of those obstacle course races, jumping over a flaming pit, wearing a tutu and rainbow socks. It’s beautiful.
like for some reason I want all my gym stuff to be way more over-the-top girly than my regular attire, there’s something about lifting weights that makes me want to dress like a drag queen/7-year-old girl. I want rhinestones on everything.
I applaud you. I don’t even have “gym wear,” I just have incredibly ratty tanktops and boxer shorts that do double duty as dishrags.
I haven’t quite made it yet- can’t really find anything with the amount of rhinestones I want to wear that’s also in the discount bin because I am way too shitty of a gym-goer to justify spending more than that. I do have a neon pink top and pink shoes, and glittery hair ties. But rhinestone everything is my dream.
So many runners wear tutus! At the 5k I did in March it was tutus everywhere!
So far in my Tough Mudder/Warrior Dash/Valley Stampede career I have gone dressed as a ballerina (not recommended for anything over 5k – the mud weighs down the tutu too much), a flapper girl (A+ for feathered headbands, but again the weight of the mud meant a knee length dress ended up mid-calf by the end) and an 80s aerobic instructor (sparkly brightly coloured leotards, rainbow paddlepop leggings, and neon sweatbands PLUS actually comfortable to run 20km in? Perfect outfit, used it twice.)
Next up we’re thinking 1920s bathing suits. Forget training for my next Tough Mudder, my prepration is all about tracking down a workable pattern.
I would definitely be for it and let’s face it, it’s not like you’re really running in the weight room anyway! I just realized that I didn’t need to have high-intensity spots bras for lifting a month ago. Gym clothes could really be anything you want to be as long as you cab do the lifts without tearing them up!
I have to wear a high-compression bra when lifting or I tend to bonk my boobs coming up on a snatch. And that might be the greatest sentence I have ever typed in my life.
Ahhh. I am more modestly endowed (you can tell from the picture above) so bonking is not nearly as uncomfortable for me.
I am a small chested woman and yet I totally smoke myself on cleans, sometimes!
Yeah my boobs just …get in the way if they are not strapped down, even when doing things for which there is no bounce issue.
Never has the “feel the burn” tag been more appropriate.
I know we all say this every time there is gym content, but I love that the toast has gym content!
I request an open thread where we can all talk about our sports PRs. Actually, maybe I’ll try it out tomorrow during open thread and see how people feel!
Do it! Sometimes Gruntled Dave or Clever Manka opens up a thread, but it’s a bit inconsistent. Join us!
Contrary to the idea of a masculine-looking woman who typically spends her days lifting weights and eating men, this woman with long, flowing hair only eats young boys. Their flesh helped her fend off 15 pairs of possessed scissors. Once she defeated the ur-Scissor, the Avatar of All Split Ends, they gave up their fight and she’s been luxuriating in her soft hair ever since.
GPOY
A friend of mine who’s been lifting for a couple of years or so and has made impressive gains thereby still has dudes going up to her in the gym and giving her unsolicited advice, occasionally even putting their hands on her without permission to “correct her form.”
hopefully she is strong enough to swing a weight right into the crotch of a toucher.
A bro may find himself on the wrong end of a 45-pound plate one of these days.
Yes, this happens to me any time I go to a regular gym to lift, like while travelling (not my special lifting club’s gym). Actually, nobody has ever put his hands on me to correct me, Lord help him if he did. Just lots of wrong advice.
uuuugggghhh what. I have a male trainer for the first time in a while and for our first several sessions he asked for permission before he touched me, every single time. Which is refreshing and I’m glad he did it the first several times, but dude, it is your *job* to correct my form, you can stop asking.
Other people can step the fuck off though. If it actually looks like I’m going to hurt myself, tell me, don’t fucking touch me.
YES. If I see one more pink sparkly weightlifting and/or Crossfit shirt for women my vagina is going to explode. You don’t have to wear pink while weightlifting to still be a lady.
As an olympic weightlifter, yassss.
Not gonna lie, if Nike did release a singlet with lace I’d probably buy it. However my biggest problem is still being too small for their XS singlets. #bulkingforsummer
I’m really happy with my East Bay singlet! It’s a bit boring but pretty utilitarian. 😀 The nice thing about wrestling/track singlets is that a greater range of ages participate in those sports so you should be able to find a youth-sized one if that could work for you.
I’ll have to check them out, thanks! I just got my Nike 2.0 singlet though (and my team is sponsored by Nike…) so I’ll probably have to stick with it for a while at least.
My coach told me “either get it tailored or grow your legs,” so I’m taking her advice and eating everything, haha.
You’re sponsored?!? I really would love to know who you are then so I can follow your career!
Ahh not me specifically! One of my coaches is though (she and one of my other teammates are lifting at Nationals in August!) so our team gets stuff through them. I just started olympic weightlifting in January so my total isn’t near good enough (yet) for sponsorship. I dream of the day…haha.
That’s really exciting though, to get coached and train with national-level lifters! If you can go to watch, try to do so. I got to volunteer at the American Open last December and it was pretty awesome to check out. 😀
Oh hell yeah. Watching that level of lifting in person is incredible. Totally going to watch them, and since we live in Texas, we’re going to Houston to watch Worlds in November!! My coach has to man the Nike booth so she can get us special access passes that let us wander around. I’ll probably pass out from excitement.
whooooaaaaa AWESOME
BTW, I just have to brag, but I found out last night that my former coach/good friend John F. might get to be an announcer at Worlds! Keep an eye out for him in Nov. 😀 😀 😀
Yeah that’s amazing!!! In Canada, it’s much easier to qualify for nationals (I only need 16 more kg to qualify) but US National lifters are goooooooooooood!
Eeep you’re so close, keep working hard!
My goal is to qualify for Universities and/or Regionals by next year!
Hahahaha oh you guys, I hope you both qualify! I’m 31, so I’m holding out for “qualifying” for Masters if I ever decide to go back to oly. ;D
I’m super late to the thread, but there are Glamlets. Heather Snethen – one of the Catalyst Athletics lifters – sells them as a side business. I think they are USAW legal still.
OMG there are a couple of women at my gym who would be hugely interested in this.
Note that these are not USAPL legal, sadly. They have really strict requirements related to officially legal singlets; they just clamped down this year. 🙁
Yes I’ve heard of it, but my coach has advised me not to buy anything from that business because of shadiness. She definitely would not allow me to to lift in competition wearing one of those, hah.
First off your articles are so boss.
“Strong is the new pretty,” she says, as she chalks her hands for her 120lb log clean and press. “However, I have to make sure I’m the old pretty as well or I won’t get any sponsorships or any significant financial support to continue in any sport I love.” <—no but really this and it’s terrible especially for women in heavier weight classes of Oly lifting.
This preview for Lift the World which I like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlYhDfHVbc
I just watched Lift the World the other day and it pumped me up so much.
Where can you watch the whole thing?
I think this might be it: https://youtu.be/KAT26CL_cXU
thanks!
Thank you for reading all of my articles!
Also, yeah, so when writing this I had a lot of lady lifters and their stories in mind, including Sarah Robles competing in a UnderArmour women’s sponsorship/branding contest. :/
So I looked online and I saw stuff about Sarah Robles entering the UnderArmour branding contest but not what happened as a result – were people total jerks? Cause she is an amazing lifter and she could probably press them overhead and throw them.
I have friends who have experienced similar shit with sponsorship – (sponsorships for non professional athletes like competition fees/some training costs or whatever)
Sarah Robles is not just awesome, she’s the only reason we had ANY slots at the last OIympics for either gender (it is based on points from major international meets, and without her points, the US would have had no slots). She’s the raddest ever.
P.S. thank you for sharing Lift the World; I hadn’t seen or heard of it yet but it looks AWESOME.
YAY! glad to share
There is this especially great part with Dmitry Klokov where he says, “At first it was no fun at all but just about five years later it became fun .” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ssH3aWzEtg. Just five years of hard work and no fun. Nbd.
first of all i just wanna say this piece made me chuckle at work and i appreciate that because i’m kinda sick in the stomach today so everything’s just a bit blah
also! last night i thought to myself “i have a question about lifting and the toast comment section is the only appropriate place to ask it” so i figured i’d just wait until the next post came up about lifting. and here we are!
so. ok. i’ve done the 5×5 strong lifts program but i read that its primary focus is adding weights. i hate fiddling around with weights and i don’t necessarily need to see the continuing progression of little numbers in order to feel productive, i just want to lift mildly heavy shit. does anyone have any recommendations for very beginner programs i could follow that maybe have more room for “stagnation” than the 5×5 one? i appreciate any help 🙂
HALLO so I legit signed up just to comment on this article because hieu is my spirit animal
if you are not interested in a linear progression program, i’d look at bodybuilding programs or something like Strong Curves. Any “program” you do is going to end up making you stronger, though, so you might end up adding weight just because you can/get bored. You can also do some other things: do 5×5 or similar linear progression programs and just keep the weights the same or vary them less often, OR just do what i do in my offseason, which i have deemed “fuckarounditis”. I basically try to keep push (i.e. bench) and pull (deadlift/rows) at a relatively equal number of reps… i do something like D1: pull from floor (DL or clean pull) D2: bench D3: bro day D4: squats. basically just do your major “movements” at least once a week, and you can try some variations like front squats for fun too
I was going to add you could probably do strong lifts anyway, the focus is “here, start with a bar, add weight each session until you can’t complete, then keeping going until you can do that weight, then more weight next time” but if you already have an idea of how much you can do then just tell it you’re starting there (I use the app?) and if you want, ignore the ‘add weight’ just tell it ‘nah, I’m staying at XXlb and here I did another round.’ I do like SL because it is incredibly boring basic and straightforward, five lifts, two of which rotate out, five reps. So. much. easier. than adjusting weight machines or remembering a weird complicated routine that shifts (note: some people love the complicated routines! love away if that is your thing! if so maybe New Rules of Lifting for Women?)
NEW RULES OF LIFTING FOR WOMEN! Do this. Yes. It’s fab.
I’ve been following the Jaime Eason’s Live Fit 12 week program (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jamie-eason-livefit-trainer.html) for about 6 weeks now, and I highly recommend it mostly because its gotten me introduced to a bunch of different lifts. I’ve been changing up what I’m doing in the gym each day so much that I might not be making progress on, say, shoulder press, but my shoulders already look bigger and more awesome. I exercise as a way to stave off depression, and I think the dynamic quality of the program has kept me with it. Its a lot to think of all at once, so I just take it a day at a time and I’m having a blast trying out all of these new movements.
So, yeah, in summary, I’m not making huge progress in every lift but I’m getting in the gym every day with a great, balanced plan.
This is hilaaaaarious.
I may be dim and misinformed, but what does Jewish cuisine have to do with attitudes towards (awesome) female weightlifters ?
Kreplath. From context, probably not any kind of dumpling, which would be kreplach.
I googled “Kreplath” but the only result is “Did you mean: kreplach”, this page, a few nonsense pages and a (presumably misspelled) kreplach recipe. So the food seems to be called kreplach. The Kreplath, meanwhile, lurk in the shadows behind the dumbbell rack.
As everyone else suggests below, I had thought I made that word up but perhaps my subconscious was thinking about dumplings.
[I honestly am not familiar with the dish at all!]
Any similarities in spelling are coincidental, and are not reflective of my attitudes towards any cuisines! Although if I had known I probably would’ve made something else up. I haven’t met a dumpling I didn’t like.
I assume Kreplath are a kind of Leprechaun.
“she has been collecting bits of their hair, their used lifting chalk, and slivers of their lifting belts. She already knows their True Names, and merely awaits the Harvest Moon to commence with the ritual.”
yessssssss.
What a kind and lovely thing to say to someone about whom (and about whose televised sports viewing interests/habits and recall) you know absolutely nothing! I do so appreciate your perspective.
Holly shiznits, I just saw this! Hieu, amazing as always! Ten hojillion likes!
OMG there are a couple of women at my gym who would be hugely interested in this.
OMG what are the Kreplaths?
I hate the idea that lifting weights will make a woman look “manly”. It’s easily one of the biggest misconceptions in the fitness world, and is really holding women back from being physically fit.