How I Learned to Stop Worrying (About Body Image) and Love to Lift

Oh, god. Here’s that body image post that you’ll find on EVERY Crossfit blog.

Yup. This is it, where I tell you about where I started, where I thought I wanted to be where I am now, and what I think everyone ought to be striving for. You might be asking *why* I’m writing it. Well, basically, there’s this super bigoted (and also ill-informed) tendency of lesser minds to discourage women from lifting any substantial weight under the impression that they’re going to be manly or unfeminine or something. I can’t rightly say I understand their argument, but then again, I have a difficult time understanding arguments that are patently stupid. I’m not really losing sleep of it. Lots of great people in Crossfit have been speaking out against those losers (I’ll link a few of em after the post.) In any event, I read some articles and they really got my ire up.

I think a lot of people have a mindset going into the gym that they want to look good. I totally understand that (I’ll leave the discussion of the issues with the existence of standards of beauty alone; that isn’t what this post is about.) That’s why I started going to the gym in college and is the motivating factor in why I initially signed up for Crossfit. The problem is that “wanting to look good” isn’t an actionable goal. It’s much too subjective. I think one of the strongest things about Crossfit is the emphasis on numeric improvement.

Soon after seriously starting though, I stopped really caring about how I looked, trusting more that I’d probably get more-or-less where I’m going as long as I’m diligent in my training. Before, I was in it for the aesthetic gains. Now, I’m primarily focused on the numeric ones, with aesthetics being a distant secondary concern. From my perspective, that has been the focus of my training efforts. Improving at the sport is actionable, and a Crossfitter’s mindset (or indeed, any athlete’s) should be and often is on the actionable goals.

And here’s where I ask you to take a leap, since I have no way to verify it. I suspect that lots of people have the same sort of mindset change. I think that most firebreathers who started like I did (not coming into it from a sport, but as an exercise regimen) at some point had a similar realization — that Crossfit isn’t about what you look like and it isn’t trying to help you achieve any particular physique, and that the focal point should be your numbers. What’s more, I suspect that this realization isn’t specific to a gender.

I can count the times we’ve done isolation exercises designed to improve aesthetics (as opposed to those designed as auxiliary exercises to prevent injury; think curls rather than dumbbell external rotations.) It’s hanging at a solid zero. Crossfit programming doesn’t give two shits about making your biceps pop or getting you toned. Crossfit programming is about you getting stronger on some foundational, compound lifts and movements (squats, deadlifts, snatches, cleans, presses, etc.) Put simply, if you’re a practicing Crossfitter and you have any strong opinions about aesthetics in the context of the sport, regardless of gender, you’re focusing on the wrong thing. Serious Crossfitters have the same considerations as any serious competitor in any sport, and that’s improvement at their sport-specific motions. A practitioner’s aesthetic is a total non-issue.

I recognize that there are probably more people judging from *outside* the sport than from within. Those who compete and make aesthetic judgements of other athletes should be ashamed of themselves for missing the point so egregiously. Which brings us to those who are just judging without being actual practitioners themselves.

Aesthetics are first and foremost subjective and should be treated as such. Openly speaking about a competitor’s body is tantamount to judging them based on their hairstyle or tattoos or manner of dress; they’re entitled to be however they are. You may personally find a certain hairstyle less appealing than others, but you don’t get to offer your criticism to people who choose to have that hairstyle. Neither should you offer your opinion on a competitor’s body to them. It’s a private opinion you can keep to yourself. If you’re looking at them within the context of a sport, you’re entitled to judge only one thing: their performance at the sport (and I’d even be pretty reserved with that!) If you’re not looking from the context of the sport, you’re just judging them as a person. At which point, I’ll make my own judgment and hazard that you might be something of a bigoted douchebag. If you’re judging something other than that persons Crossfit Total numbers, you’re doing it wrong and should feel bad.

Judge not lest ye be judged, run your own race and all that crap. As long as you’re squatting and deadlifting, I don’t give a damn what you look like, and I hope you feel the same way. As far as I’m concerned, those two things alone make you better than those judgmental assholes on the interwebs, and you can feel secure in the knowledge that you’re probably strong enough to break them in half as a result!

Those links I promised you:

Keeping Women Down – Lift Big, Eat Big (Bonus – the first couple pictures are at Xplore!)

Strong Women and the “Men” Who Fear Them – Life According to Brian