To find the gym attire of some women completely inappropriate?

[Apolo90]

I went to the gym with a work colleague after work; it’s the first time I’ve been to that particular one.

I was taken aback by the number of women wearing either the tightest leggings imaginable, barely there sports bra’s and/or shorts which wouldn’t look out of place on the beach they were that sparse.

Is this really appropriate? I’m far from a prude but I like to exercise without being forced to stare at someone’s bottom squeezed into impossibly tight clothing.

Maybe I’m just getting old.

I work out in a sports bra and - brace yourself - skintight leggings. Because extra fabric gets caught, impedes movement, and is restrictive. I find extra fabric on top hot and constricting and it reduces my ability to check my form. In the summer I wear biker shorts and a sports bra. When I run outdoors in summer, I wear running shorts, a sports bra, and a Flipbelt. All chosen because they are the most practical and effective choices for the exercise I'm doing. I have literally never seen anyone in a gym wearing a bra skimpy enough for comment. Either they have strapped them down for sufficient support, or they're lifting and lifters tend to be quite focused on their actual workout and their weights.

Also kind of hilarious that people think the scrunchbum leggings are a 'new trend'. They're not my thing, but it's no skin off my nose if people want to wear them, and my focus in the gym is on my own reps/Burpees/pushups.

I wish I could wear shorts and sports bra to workout. Genuinely.
Im a long distance runner and also bike and lift weights. But an unfortunate by product of having to share the world with men means I cover up far more than is comfortable and feel hot and constricted.
Sadly I was attacked twice as a younger woman so now I have a bit of a fear of men approaching me / asking me out so I purposefully look as uninteresting as I possibly can. I’m genuinely really happy for the women who are confident and comfy wearing whatever the fuck they want.
hopefully a female only gym opens near me soon so I can be happy wearing shorts and a sports bra too ☺️

I’m guessing the OP isn’t really talking about normal gym wear of leggings and tight top/sports bra.

There’s a girl who goes to my gym who wears what looks more like a belt than a bra, barely covering the bottom of her huge fake breasts never mind the top half, and tiny hotpants that only cover the top half of her bum cheeks, with the bottom half of her cheeks completely bare. It’s really off putting and makes me, and everyone else by the looks of it, feel quite uncomfortable. It’s really hard not to look or notice these 2 massive, effectively bare breasts, bouncing up and down. Or her bare arse cheeks if you’re behind her. That’s not being liberated or “comfortable” for the gym. It’s being a complete exhibitionist to an unwilling audience. I wear leggings and tight t/shirt, many other women there wear leggings/shorts and sports bra - absolutely fine. But there are most definitely some women that wear inappropriate attire to the gym.

Why aren't you focussing on your workouts rather than glaring at younger women at the gym?
I'm filled with envy at the younger generation that look so trim and healthy!

Try putting that misogyny away before you have someone's eye out with it.

That’s just nit the case at gyms I go to: the men are also skimpily dressed

The internalised misogyny is strong with this one ☝️

You mean they actually wear posing pouches? The men at the gym I go to mostly wear jogging bottoms or shorts and a t shirt. It’s pretty rare to even see a sleeveless vest.

I don't think we can blame individual women too much here. People just go along with whatever society normalises, and society has recently decided that super-tight, revealing clothes are appropriate for girls and women especially when exercising. And there are advantages, e.g. leggings genuinely are very comfortable for many people at least.

But you have to wonder - why has this mostly only affected women? Wouldn't we expect men to also find the same sorts of clothes comfortable? And then you start to see that on a big scale this has been pushed on women particularly. Instagram, for example, is absolutely flooded with pretty girls in tight gym clothes. It's mostly a male gaze thing, but females see this stuff too, and it subtly affects what they see as normal. And the extent to which these trends are popular amongst even very young girls is disturbing.

So while individual women probably aren't consciously choosing to sexually objectify themselves, society as a whole is trying to objectify females (both adults and children), and it's good to be conscious of that.

So,would I be right in thinking you feel it's acceptable & would have no opinion of women who flaunt themselves in sheer dresses with everything on show, including underwear. It appears that everyone who has an opinion on clothing that leaves nothing to the imagination is either a misogynist or jealous. In the majority of cases this is far from the truth.They basically don't think it's a good look.

They are actually, in objecting to what women are wearing in the gym by saying it annoys them or they can’t stand it or don’t want to look at it, certainly makes them sound angry. I very often see outrageous outfits on both sexes when I’m out and about, but it mostly makes me giggle to myself, it certainly doesn’t make me angry, that’s just plain weird.

Leggings/ shorts and decently fitting cropped tops that are cut to do the job, great, practical. Lycra stays in place while moving and is good for wicking sweat.

Scrunch bum leggings or hotpants cut too short to actually cover the glutes look bloody uncomfortable and highly distracting to the user with the irritating perma-wedgie, and bum cheeks sticking to vinyl machine seats. Ditto for the thong bikinis in the spa/ pools.
I wouldn't appreciate men adopting these fashions either!

Last year I was in the late stages of running a half marathon and spent about a km behind a woman in a pale neutral scrunch bum unitard. The scooped back meant the sweat poured down to the scrunch bum making it look like the sweat was coming up from her arse crack, emphisised by the pale colour 🤢 It's a stage of running where you mind and body are locked into a sustainable pace to get you to the last half km so putting on a spurt to overtake disturbs that balance and wastes the energy that you're saving for the final sprint so you don't want to needlessly pass people running at a similar pace to you because their outfit has too much detail about the unglorious details of human physique. A unitard of a stronger colour and not being wedged up the bum would have been fine and unmemorable.

This doesn't solve the mystery of the missing sports bra- presumably she was young enough to cope with a built in "bra" layer which are fine for light activity like yoga but inadequate for protecting the ligaments during prolonged high intensity movement (no, not jealous, I have those proportions and I'm glad I've spent the last 20+ years protecting my top half well with decent sports bras for the activity I'm doing)

Fashions come and go. Shell suits are burning in the infernos of history. Some fashions like gobal-hyper colour t-shirts are short-lived and unlikely to return because they're a bad idea. Anyone wanting to revive neon sweat patches?

(Bring back the slouch socks though, they were great for the strong of soleus and gastrocnemius!)

Fashions come and go. Shell suits are burning in the infernos of history. Some fashions like gobal-hyper colour t-shirts are short-lived and unlikely to return because they're a bad idea. Anyone wanting to revive neon sweat patches?

I don’t go to the gym to make a fashion statement, I go for my physical health and mental well being. I prioritise comfort and practicality over fashion and don’t give a rat’s arse what anyone else thinks of my look.

Pearl clutching much back there in the 1950s? It's a gym, it's gym wear.

Plenty of men in muscle tanks in mine... which, again, got their name for pretty obvious reasons. And it's legitimately helpful to be able to see your musculature when you're working on form.

What’s wrong with leggings? They are appropriate in the gym. Crop tops and sports bras don’t annoy me either. Some men wear leggings and small vests - don’t bother me either. When in the gym, surely comfort is more important. How do you manage in the pool?

You would only have to wonder that if you'd never seen a male fitness influencer on Instagram. Most of them wear less than the female ones. Male runners, cyclists and gym-goers tend to wear clothes that are minimal or tight-fitting or both, just like the women. The main reason is that, as people who exercise have repeated throughout this thread, it's more practical and comfortable. I'm a runner and in summer I just wear short compression shorts and a sports bra (and am still jealous of men who get to run topless).

I'm sure everyone who has an exercise-honed body is also aware that they look good in minimal/tight clothing - it's a confidence/motivation boost - but it's a secondary motivation. Vast majority of other exercisers are focused on their own workout. If a man occasionally "sees me in a sexual way" because of my sports bra, I certainly don't care. Occasionally I see male runners in a sexual way to (see aforementioned topless ones).

MN is a very strange place for finding the human body grim and, on threads like this, justifying it with some awful internalised misogyny.

I’m far from a prude

I love how every time someone on Mumsnet assures us that she isn't a prude, it is invariably in a post in which they are being a massive prude.

Being offended by another woman's gym gear is absolutely, categorically prudish. It's just someone's bum in a pair of shorts or a bare midriff. It's not like they're fucking each other on the treadmill.

Instagram, for example, is absolutely flooded with pretty girls in tight gym clothes

Instagram is also full of male fitness influencers, models and actors wearing very little clothing and posing shamelessly in nothing but a tiny pair of shorts and this is why I spend so much time scrolling my Posts You May Like feed.

Meh, I might briefly notice a very toned physique, of men or women, but I wouldn't notice what they were wearing as such. And I certainly wouldn't remember it! To me this is standard gym wear, and utterly unmemorable.

DS goes to the gym at least once a day (it's partly professional, partly for his physical and mental wellbeing) and will wear different things depending on what part of the body he is exercising. As a PP said, in some instances it can be useful to observe yourself during exercise,.any good PT will tell you this.

This

I think there are several people on this thread being deliberately disingenuous about the specific type of gym wear that the OP (and others are alluding to here). Very few people care about wearing snug leggings/shorts, spots bra / crop top etc. The vast majority of members at my gym wear this type of stuff and nobody bats an eyelid as they crack on with their exercising. But lets not pretend there is a branch of fashionwear masquerading as sports kit that seems more geared towards an overtly sexual 'look' that would not be out of place on a Love Island contestant. I remember several years ago when those flesh coloured 'skins' leggings started to be a thing, a few young women down my gym started to wear them and they can be only described as spray on, you could basically see a perfect vacuum imprint of their vulvas on display. Those leggings coupled with a super low cut cleavage heavy 'sports' bra that seemed to offer zero practical support it becomes hard to believe it is being worn purely for comfort considerations. Noticing such attire does not mean you are jealous, staring or gawping, it is just a basic human response to notice someone wearing such gear. Also, if you are on a bike/ treadmill/ erg that is facing in one direction it is pretty damn hard not to notice the person on the row in front of you if their arse cheeks are on display because she is wearing very high cut shorts or some scrunchy hungry bumhole leggings.

Very few people care about wearing snug leggings/shorts, spots bra / crop top etc

I think a disturbingly large number of prudes on this thread are pursing their lips at those exact things. Yes, prudes.

Noticing such attire does not mean you are jealous, staring or gawping, it is just a basic human response to notice someone wearing such gear

Noticing is one thing but peering and fixating on the "perfect outline of their vulva" (or the outline of a man's dick if he's wearing lycra) is what's strange and unnecessary. I've briefly noticed cameltoes and bulges on other people, and then I look somewhere else. It's easy. It's a non-issue because I'm not offended that other humans possess genitals, and I do not spend any time fixating on how much of her vulva or his penis I can see.

Why does prudishness go hand in hand with prurience so often? Why do prudes give other people's bodies so much disproportionate head space? They're just bodies.

I think the OP is right. I can't bear the wedgie / string swimwear people feel is appropriate to wear to my pool either. Put your butt cheeks away. My gym has a very nice spa and I don't want to sit in a sauna or a steam room after someone with barely anything covering their arse. Gross

Someone was wearing those scrunch bum things right in front of me in class the other day, it's pretty hard not to notice, especially when the arse is close to my face - pretty unpleasant

OP, the items you describe are designed for the gym.