Something depressing that I always kind of knew but never fully realized
I pick up opinions quickly, but I hope this is countered by a tendency to quickly put them down again. It's in this spirit that I want to relate that in my brief initial foray into the world of fitness, I have concluded that the idea of "toning" is bunk.
Toning means different things to different people, but my first encounter with the concept was in high school gym class, where it was opposed to "bulking up." If you did few repetitions of lifting heavy weights, you would get huge, strong muscles. If you did many repetitions of light weights, you...wouldn't. So back in those days, nobody tried to hide the gender theory, so the message was explicit: bulking was for boys, and toning was for girls. Toning was too tedious and required too much scheduling for my poor brain, so I basically decided that fitness wasn't for me.
Since getting I to derby, though, I've been giving myself a crash-course in all those fitness topics I'd so fastidiously ignored for so long. And after twenty-five years, I'm finally asking, what istoning good for? And the answer I've come to (tentatively) is "not much."
Toning doesn't really build strength. Nobody thinks that doing forty reps of twenty-pound weights will ever allow you to do even one rep of seventy. It's designed to prevent muscle growth. So what, then? On the extreme edges, it seems that it builds endurance. (Always a good trait for a lady, I suppose.) That's it. It's basically glorified cardio. If you have zero strength and size, it will give you some minimal amount, but unless you're already super skinny, no one will notice. It's better than no exercise, but if you're looking to change your body, look elsewhere. And it's also a huge waste of time.
But that's not the depressing part. In reading up on all this, I found an article explaining the benefits of real strength training for women. It basically said the above, and added that while you will gain definition, you probably won't get big, and also if you're looking to lose fat, increase muscle mass changes you metabolism in your favor. (This last bit I'm skeptical of, but whatever.)
And in the comments came replies from women-women who were already on board with this idea and were doing their own strength-training workouts-expressing the serious difficulties they were having with persevering in this approach. Basically, the difficulties took three forms. 1) "Seeing the number on the scale go up freaks me out, even when I'm losing inches and gaining muscle." 2) "Seeing my pants size go up freaks me out, even though I'm totally ripped." 3) "Eating enough to build muscle feels wrong, wrong, wrong." And these were women who weren't afraid of being fit and strong, who wanted to be athletes, not supermodels.
It really brought home to me in a new way how our conventional wisdom and folklore about food and fitness have little to do with women's health. The scale, the pants size, your height-like any number, they don't tell you very much except how deviant you are.
It is scary. I decided to go the strength-training route, and while I've found great satisfaction in doubling the weight I use for certain exercises in about six or eight weeks, I can't say I'm not afraid when I see a discernible biceps muscle. My impossible skinniness was always the one thing I thought I had going for me, but I'll probably soon go up a pants size (and also a bra size; how weird is that?). What's scary is not knowing how it will all turn out, when appearance has always been this hugely important thing you've felt you've had so little control over.
And you've tried not to give a shit about appearance, or maybe to learn to appreciate "unconventional beauty." But can there be adequate compensation for ugliness? Can being ugly not matter? I never thought so before, not deep down, but now I wonder if maybe, yes. Power, strength, confidence, respect can be worth the trade, and most of all, belonging.
Toning means different things to different people, but my first encounter with the concept was in high school gym class, where it was opposed to "bulking up." If you did few repetitions of lifting heavy weights, you would get huge, strong muscles. If you did many repetitions of light weights, you...wouldn't. So back in those days, nobody tried to hide the gender theory, so the message was explicit: bulking was for boys, and toning was for girls. Toning was too tedious and required too much scheduling for my poor brain, so I basically decided that fitness wasn't for me.
Since getting I to derby, though, I've been giving myself a crash-course in all those fitness topics I'd so fastidiously ignored for so long. And after twenty-five years, I'm finally asking, what istoning good for? And the answer I've come to (tentatively) is "not much."
Toning doesn't really build strength. Nobody thinks that doing forty reps of twenty-pound weights will ever allow you to do even one rep of seventy. It's designed to prevent muscle growth. So what, then? On the extreme edges, it seems that it builds endurance. (Always a good trait for a lady, I suppose.) That's it. It's basically glorified cardio. If you have zero strength and size, it will give you some minimal amount, but unless you're already super skinny, no one will notice. It's better than no exercise, but if you're looking to change your body, look elsewhere. And it's also a huge waste of time.
But that's not the depressing part. In reading up on all this, I found an article explaining the benefits of real strength training for women. It basically said the above, and added that while you will gain definition, you probably won't get big, and also if you're looking to lose fat, increase muscle mass changes you metabolism in your favor. (This last bit I'm skeptical of, but whatever.)
And in the comments came replies from women-women who were already on board with this idea and were doing their own strength-training workouts-expressing the serious difficulties they were having with persevering in this approach. Basically, the difficulties took three forms. 1) "Seeing the number on the scale go up freaks me out, even when I'm losing inches and gaining muscle." 2) "Seeing my pants size go up freaks me out, even though I'm totally ripped." 3) "Eating enough to build muscle feels wrong, wrong, wrong." And these were women who weren't afraid of being fit and strong, who wanted to be athletes, not supermodels.
It really brought home to me in a new way how our conventional wisdom and folklore about food and fitness have little to do with women's health. The scale, the pants size, your height-like any number, they don't tell you very much except how deviant you are.
It is scary. I decided to go the strength-training route, and while I've found great satisfaction in doubling the weight I use for certain exercises in about six or eight weeks, I can't say I'm not afraid when I see a discernible biceps muscle. My impossible skinniness was always the one thing I thought I had going for me, but I'll probably soon go up a pants size (and also a bra size; how weird is that?). What's scary is not knowing how it will all turn out, when appearance has always been this hugely important thing you've felt you've had so little control over.
And you've tried not to give a shit about appearance, or maybe to learn to appreciate "unconventional beauty." But can there be adequate compensation for ugliness? Can being ugly not matter? I never thought so before, not deep down, but now I wonder if maybe, yes. Power, strength, confidence, respect can be worth the trade, and most of all, belonging.