To think some women could lift heavier in the gym?

[Ilostallthepens]

I go to a strength training class a few times a week. It’s almost always all women, class size is about 15. I’m not especially strong or experienced at lifting weights but I notice I’m always lifting the heaviest (sometimes by a long way) than every other person there. I’m also working to my maximum capacity for the 8-12 reps we’re doing. I’m huffing and puffing and sweating doing bicep curls with an 8kg dumbbell in each hand and I look over and the woman next to me is lifting a couple of 2kg dumbbells with no visible effort at all. I see this in a lot of the women there. They don’t seem to push themselves to their limit or even that close to it. I’m talking about women a similar age to myself that have been going to the gym for at least as long as me. I get some people may not want to push themselves to their max effort for whatever reason, eg. an injury, but I’m seeing lots of women seemingly not putting in half the amount of effort that they seem capable of and over a long period of time. So this makes me think the reason must be they don’t believe they are capable of lifting heavier, or they don’t want to lift to their max ability for some reason. Why do you think this is? Have you experienced this? Do you not work to max capacity in the gym? If not, why not?

’Toning’ isn’t a thing BTW. Adding some weight to your cardio work out will burn more calories (slightly) but you won’t ‘tone’ anything.

8kg for multiple reps of bicep curls is quite heavy if you're doing them properly ( as in isolating the muscle, not just using momentum to swing them around)

Most women probably can't do an 8kg bicep curl for multiple reps. And lots of untrained women won't even be able to do a single rep of 8kg.

I've mentioned this until I'm blue in the face but it still gets bandied about. I just let others paddle their own canoe these days.

I don't care what you want to call it I'm just avoiding bingo wings and flabby thighs, it's working. I do high rep low weight sets separately to my cardio. I'd really like to get back to spin but my cardiologist says it's a step too far for now.

I should have specified for bicep curls. I also tend to go quite light on lateral raises as it niggles my tennis elbow otherwise.

Why does it bother you what people call it. You dont need to go blue in the face.

This thread is split into two - people judging others for not working hard enough and those trying to outdo each other about being exercise experts 🤣

And the third group… those of us who think the OP (and others) should just fuck off and mind their own business!

Yes indeed - i am in that group so lord knows how I forgot to include it 🤣

It's just a shame when someone due to decades old erroneous advice won't reach their goals.
When people say they want toned look, they mean they want to be relatively slim, but don't want to look flabby, right? That's how I understand it.
For this, you need muscles. So they do actually want muscles. Best way to grow muscles is to put some effort in and challenge your muscles - casually and comfortably swinging the same tiny weights for months and years is a very inefficient way of doing it.

So many people who have a certain goal are purposefully avoiding the more efficient way to get to this goal, and doing things minimally beneficial. It's like saying I want to get better at swimming but as I'm worried I will accidentally beat Phelps, I will just tip my toe in the water and no more.

It's this kind of shit that puts me off using the gym.

Twiddling the 0.5kg weights is the easiest way to do yourself an injury as well. Slow controlled movements are needed to grow muscle, flinging arms around with no resistance will just pull a muscle! Completely agree with you!

For anyone thinking lifting heavy makes women “bulk” I suggest going and watching some of the videos on social media from Natural Strongman. The women in these competitions are lifting very heavy. They are all shapes and sizes other than what people see as “bulky”

Speaking as someone who has gone to the gym for years to lift weights.. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

Everyone has their own journey, let them be.

Most “strength” classes with high reps are mainly cardio so lighter weights are more suitable. Fitness classes are for fitness, not ego lifts.

Oh its such a shame. Tilts head patronisingly.

Wont reach their goals. Sad face.

Due to a heart condition I can’t lift heavy weights and will never be able to do so because of strain and stress on my knackered heart. Knowing I’m probably being judged and watched just using lighter weights will definitely not be helping me. It’s taken a lot to join a gym to regain some sort of fitness. So OP mind your own fucking business.

well yeah, I've been there and still quite pissed off over all the years I wasted doing some useless 'toning' stuff. So no, I'm not exactly gleeful when I see other women falling into the same trap.

I like lifting heavy, but don't question why others don't. What they do and why is their own business.
They're in the gym, regularly by the sounds of it. That's better than nothing! Good for them!

There is a split, but it's more between people who understand what strength training is and women who are scared to exercise because for some reason they've been conditioned to think women shouldn't do certain types of exercise.

I am established, go regularly and there are various reasons I stick with lower weights.

I wouldn’t like to think someone else is looking at me and negatively judging me for

1. not working out as hard as I could
2. not following advice as well as them
3. not keeping up with the size of their weights!

But they are grown adults who are capable of finding things out. It’s fine if you really have to ‘educate’ strangers at your gym (although to be prepared to be told to fuck off) but starting a thread sneering at people for not doing more is disgusting. And you can see that this attitude is actually preventing some people from actually engaging with exercise.

But you know nothing about them so save yourself the brain strain

Hmm, not sure I judge others as such, but I do compare. I started at the gym end of last year lifting 4kg bicep curls, now on 8 kgs, but that's 8 reps so probably should go higher on less reps. I'm competitive, with myself and others (hate getting on a machine and having to put the weight down). I'm also very overweight, so I'm sure I get judged in a different way when I'm there!

There are lots of women on the thread who have explained why they don't lift heavy weight, lots of reasons. Very dismissive of peoples experiences to write those reasons off as scared to exercise in case they get big.
There are also lots of women who do lift heavy on this thread who understand that bodies and motivation are personal. You do not know how these people feel, any physiological problems or anything else really. This is why it's judgy.