Strength Doesn't Have a Gender (article/blog post)

emjaycazz

My apologies if this is repetitive, but I really liked this article so much that I posted it on Facebook, and also wanted to share it here:
http://articles.elitefts.com/training-articles/a-lion-in-iron-strength-doesnt-have-a-gender/

A fair warning--quite a few four-letter words and expletives but for some reason I didn't mind them because they convey how frustrated Alexander (the author) is with the "women have to be skinny" mindset. This quote at the end of the article was my favorite: "Strength is a human right, so claim it."

The related links also lead to other similar articles, so check those too!

jstout365

Awesome article!!!!

kirabob

I liked most of the article. Especially the 'strength is a human right' claim - but the assumption that men (or women) cannot be mentally (and therefore emotionally) strong without being physically strong is a faulty one. I have a few other thoughts rolling around, but I need to sit with them for a while before sharing. Thank you for posting the link!

jstout365

I agree that mental strength is inherently independent of physical strength, but I do feel that it can be improved as physical strength improves. The way he has it presented makes me think of the chicken and the egg paradox. So you can't be mentally strong without being physically strong, but you can't be physically strong without being mentally strong. How do you obtain strength in either if you don't have more strength in one area first? I would side with the idea that most people start with mental strength and then can train to obtain physical strength.

I do agree that at some point the two do become intertwined and rely upon the other for continued progression. In a way I feel that is what is playing out in my own progression right now. I know I am stronger, but my head just isn't in it. I can't get my brain to push my body to do the lifts. I am moving slower and with less power than I was just a few months ago. For me, the mental strength does play a role in my physical capabilities, but my body can't get my head to be in the game. I can't just "dial it in" so to speak and rely on just my known strength.

cats847

I mostly like the article and I like the author's encouragement to women. However, I feel a bit uncomfortable with the tone the article takes toward those who choose not to strength train. I don't think calling people who don't meet the author's own strength standards "weak pieces of *kitten*" is cool.

Surely, we in this group strive to be a strong as we can, but all have friends and family members -- male or female -- who don't share our goals. Is it fair to look down on them and call them "pieces of *kitten*" because of this? I don't think that's the best way to get others interested in weight training.

I don't like the self-righteous and condescending attitude on display in this article. It's too typical of strength training articles in general, although at least this one is not sexist like many others. No wonder so many people are afraid to enter the weight room for the first time!

I say -- let's make our lifts big but keep our egos small! :flowerforyou:

However, the author is certainly very passionate about his thoughts, so maybe I'm just misinterpreting his tone!

cats847

So you can't be mentally strong without being physically strong, but you can't be physically strong without being mentally strong.

Did you mean to type that you CAN be mentally strong without being physically strong, but you cannot be physically strong without being mentally strong? If so, I agree!

jstout365

So you can't be mentally strong without being physically strong, but you can't be physically strong without being mentally strong.

Did you mean to type that you CAN be mentally strong without being physically strong, but you cannot be physically strong without being mentally strong? If so, I agree!

I was pointing out the paradox the author had created. Like the chicken and the egg. What comes first in his equation, mental strength or physical strength? If you cannot have one without the other, what comes first? Mental strength or physical strength. He fails to acknowledge that most people can gain mental strength from life experiences not related to physical strength.

I do believe that mental strength is most often present before one works to obtain physical strength. A person needs to have determination to pick the weight up the first time.

cats847

So you can't be mentally strong without being physically strong, but you can't be physically strong without being mentally strong.

Did you mean to type that you CAN be mentally strong without being physically strong, but you cannot be physically strong without being mentally strong? If so, I agree!

I was pointing out the paradox the author had created. Like the chicken and the egg. What comes first in his equation, mental strength or physical strength? If you cannot have one without the other, what comes first? Mental strength or physical strength. He fails to acknowledge that most people can gain mental strength from life experiences not related to physical strength.

I do believe that mental strength is most often present before one works to obtain physical strength. A person needs to have determination to pick the weight up the first time.

You sum it up well.

DaniH826

Anybody who can give birth is not weak. I have no idea where women get this idea of "weak" from. It's ridiculous. That's just a bunch of mind games we've collectively bought into for the sake of "being skinny" and/or "being beautiful." I'm just as guilty as everyone else for letting this ridiculousness take up space in my brain.

I'm not even going to try analyzing whether mental or physical strength has to be a priority, because obviously the two are closely enough linked to where it's difficult to draw clear lines, and probably for good reason because people can't really be compartmentalized into parts that easily. Our minds and bodies are so closely linked that physical and mental strength should both have equal attention, IMHO.

There are certainly days where I don't think I can lift an ounce, and do just fine in the weight room. Then there are other days where I have to pull myself mentally together to lift anything to speak of. It all really depends. I'm a whole person, not parts of a person. We lift together, or we don't lift at all. I have to be mentally present through the entirety of my lifting session, regardless.

Fullsterkur_woman

I love a lot of the ideas, but let me make sure I have this right... Stephen Hawking is mentally weak? Let's not go making unduly general statements. I also wonder how many minors he works with, such that he has occasion to refer to "girls" versus "women". Does something magical happen that upon reaching maturity the women can no longer do pullups? Because he only says "girls" and he didn't mention any boys, at all. Or maybe he just has that utterly irritating habit of referring to adult females as "girls", which turns me right off an author's point every time I read it.

Anyway, it makes more sense to me to say "physical training is important (to the extent possible) and mental training is important (to the extent possible)." Also, I'd like to see "she's strong compared to how strong she used to be", because (speaking solely for myself here) nothing good can come of comparing me to someone else, regardless of what's swinging between their legs.

I have a neck injury right now and can't squat at all, and when I can I'll probably be using a pad for a while. Is he going to judge me all harshly too while I build up my range of motion? He kinda gives the lie to the old saw about people not paying attention to what you're doing in the gym. Actually, if I was his client, I'd be kinda pissed that he was ogling some dude on my nickel.

I'm all in favor of encouraging strength training for everyone, but I'd be kind of embarrassed to put some of the attitudes expressed in that article onto a public blog post.

zanyzana

I read a few of his other articles. In one of them, he said he was 23. That might explain some of his ideas and language...

neandermagnon

So you can't be mentally strong without being physically strong, but you can't be physically strong without being mentally strong.

Did you mean to type that you CAN be mentally strong without being physically strong, but you cannot be physically strong without being mentally strong? If so, I agree!

I was pointing out the paradox the author had created. Like the chicken and the egg. What comes first in his equation, mental strength or physical strength? If you cannot have one without the other, what comes first? Mental strength or physical strength. He fails to acknowledge that most people can gain mental strength from life experiences not related to physical strength.

I do believe that mental strength is most often present before one works to obtain physical strength. A person needs to have determination to pick the weight up the first time.

Someone absolutely can be mentally strong without being physically strong (Stephen Hawking is a great example), but in my experience, physical strength *does* increase mental strength a great deal. Basically, I found this in recovering from PTSD. PTSD leaves you feeling very weak, vulnerable, terrified, all sorts of weak and negative feelings basically.... and while things like therapy have of course helped, the pure fact that I can lift really heavy weights has gone a long way towards eliminating this feeling of being weak and vulnerable and replacing it with feeling strong, powerful and capable. It's impossible to convey on the internet just how much of a positive effect this has had. Even when I first started doing strenuous exercise for the purpose of symptomatic treatment of PTSD (i.e. getting rid of stress hormones and replacing them with endorphins) I really thought all I was doing was compensating, you know like how some men compensate for a lack of penis length with a big car, i.e. that I was only ever going to compensate for a total lack of mental strength by being able to squat and deadlift a decent amount of weight, and all it would ever be is like having a big car to compensate for a lack of something else very important................... but it didn't work out like that. Being physically strong actually does help to build up mental strength. Just knowing you've succeeded in lifting x lbs of barbell, and then being able to do physical tasks like carrying in big bags of shopping or changing the canister on the water cooler, it makes you feel strong, because you are strong, and that changes the mental belief that you have. Then you have the fact of what you do when lifting weights gets hard, do you drop the weight because you think you can't lift it because your legs hurt a little bit, or do you keep pushing (or pulling) and prove that you can... that builds mental strength too. Physical strength really does build mental strength.

Also, discussing things like Stephen Hawking and people who are injured is IMO totally missing the point. Of course overcoming adversity, illness, disability and so on builds mental strength. Some of the most mentally strong people I've come across in life have had to deal with some really adverse things in their life, including (but not limited to) trauma, injury, disability and adverse life situations..... those things build mental strength too. But what the writer of the article is talking about, is how women are repeatedly, systematically told (directly or indirectly) that 're physically weak and can't do this, shouldn't do that, dangerous to do this, and how strength is the antithesis of femininity... you know all the "I can't lift weights I might get bulky" - "bulky" = strong/muscular= not feminine = not an acceptable way for women to be.... and if any human being grows up repeatedly being told that they're not strong and not supposed to be strong, this will affect their mental strength, and being physically weak and unable to do things like carry a few heavy bags or boxes, if you're that way because you've always been told that's how you're supposed to be, is going to sap your mental strength as well. There's a huge difference between being physically weak because you've been told that's how you're supposed to be (whether directly or indirectly through media messages etc), where you're conditioned to ask people for help because you don't feel capable (even though you are), like how women aren't supposed to be able to carry boxes into their house and should ask a man to do it for them.... and being made weak by an illness, accident or disability, then spending your life getting on with things in spite of it, which will build mental strength.

I'm sure you're all right about how the writer phrases stuff and maybe he could have made his point better, but I can totally see where he's coming from, with regards to the messages women and girls are constantly being given, that strength is not feminine. Women are supposed to be strong and are supposed to have muscles, that's a biological reality (and as Dani said, we give birth. The uterus is actually the strongest muscle in the human body. The quadriceps is the strongest muscle in the male human body.) ..........being pigeon holed into a role in society where you're supposed to be weak, isn't good for mental health. And absolutely strength doesn't have a gender. You've only got to study just a little bit of palaeoanthropology to know that we'd never have evolved if women were weak.