The Barbelles Society: Ladies Who Lift

Ok, now I have images of a wet, naked chick squatting

Yeh you sound a little over-worried. You def should have gone gym. Using the muscle again (gently at first - if it's the day after or whatever) will make it feel a little better, plus, the sooner you get your ass in there, the sooner you'll improve and increase your confidence.

EXACTLY. I am rather disappointed but I'm going with my best biatch tomorrow so I have no excuse NOT to go!

Back on track tomorrow! Good week planned, and it's weigh in day too!

Go work like nobodies watching. Even people who have been going for years cock up. And everytime you learn a new lift you have to be ready to look like a dick if you fail. - Power cleans today were not pretty!

Just get on with it and you'll feel way better really soon

Exactly- It's ok. I hate this time of year, i always have big pieces of coursework in within weeks of each other and it's really sunny..but being stuck infront of the computer means I just end up feeling guilty everytime i'm not at home doing work!

so will have a cheeky session to try out my lifting shoes which arrived!

That sounds horrible, I hate going into the weights area aswell because of similar reasons.

They just stare at me like I'm mad..and 'not meant to be there' which is why I'm waiting till 8pm to go the gym as it's quieter!!!

EDIT: on the other hand I also hate those silly little girls who come dolled up to the gym and spend 10mins on the bike on their phone with not a bead of sweat hitting their body and then wonder off to sauna...

One guy sat and stared at me the whole 10 minutes I was doing sit-ups (I was doing ****ty sit ups because he was staring at me so I didn't want to go into the weights area, load of good that did ) And then some other guy stood and watched me entirely while I was on one of the machines before making some smarmy comment and walking off. Just piss off and let me get on with my own work out without staring at me the whole time.

I need my own personal gym. I'm glad this gym is cheap because its a waste of money, everyone is so intimidating and just spends the whole time judging me

Indepth review needed (pretty please)


I think this has already been discussed, and I've commented, but unless you can set up your own garage/cellar gym, you just have to deal with it. While it might not be nice, I think it can in the long run be useful for building a tougher mental attitude. You are going to get judged throughout your whole life, and you its important to build up confidence, so that you can ignore the possible stares and comments, and know that you are doing what you want and what is good for you.
1.) Go to the gym with a plan; knowing what kind warm up, what exercises, set&reps etc. you are going to do will help you feel and look more confident.
2.) Ignore everyone else as much as you can, unless you have to ask someone if they are done with certain equipment etc. I get people staring at me and sometimes commenting to their buddies (a few nice guys have come to talk to me a bit, usually old ones that are confident in their manliness and not put off by me squatting the same as them, I imagine lol) whether in scorn or admiration, I don't care. If they want to come talk to me (insults would be dealt with swiftly, but polite chitchat is fine), then I acknowledge them, but otherwise I'm focused 100% on the barbell in my hands.
If I miss a lift, then I don't make a big show out of it, but after a pause of thought move to correct the situation with perhaps taking some weight off, or doing my next rep with extra concentration on a certain technical aspect of the lift etc.

Just keep going to the gym and training, and with hard work and some time you'll be probably outsquatting all of them, and doing respectable weights on other lifts, showing that you belong there.

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Thanks, I guess its just I have real confidence issues. I try really hard to pluck up the courage but its my worst nightmare really. It took me about 2 months to pluckup the courage to go pick up a dumbbell from the edge of the weight room and run off with it to hide round the corner in a gym usually packed with people so I could blend in, so its even more difficult now in a wide open gym with only around 3 people in there at a time and especially as I can't hide anywhere. Every time I go I try a little harder to get somewhere with it but I guess I just don't have the confidence you have.

Perhaps this answer to all this is I buy an iPod so I can't hear the tw*ts

Hello

And if you want to feel better about yourself here's what I did recently...

Walked through to the gym after changing, warmed up a little, went over to the squat rack. All as per usual. Stood reading a poster while I stripped the barbell of about 80kg. Just as I took the second 20kg plate off the barbell, it flipped off the squat rack and a good 60kg crashed down onto the fan. I'd completely neglected to balance the weight - I've only been going there over a year...

I was wondering if any of you want to join me in a challenge to improve your diets? I'm going to do a Paleo "challenge" for July to clean up my diet and experiment with what foods work for me (now is the time to do things like this, without the stress of uni/work interfering), as well as hopefully lose the ~5kg (hopefully fat) to get to my desired weight category for boxing.
In really simple terms, my diet will essentially not include any grains, sugar or anything man-made. I will also start off with not using any dairy or eggs, and then slowly re-introducing them back (I have a feeling that I will get confirmation of the fact, that while I like eggs, my stomach has some trouble with them, if they're on their own f.e. omelette).

So while a paleo-like diet might be a bit too challenging (I've been reading about it for a while and thinking what I'm going to eat etc.), you could just ditch sugar for a month, or eat clean (nothing that comes in a bottle or package, cooking from scratch, going completely organic would be a step even further) or something else. If you survive the month, you might find that it's much easier to just continue on the same path. I've experienced this many times, as I find total abstinence much easier than eating in moderation.

If you want you can read about my July challenge in my blog: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1665148&page=3
I'll basically be keeping a simple food diary, commenting on how I feel/possible effects on training etc.
I'll be mostly doing conditioning training for the next two months as I won't have access to a gym/weights

Oooo I've been looking at this recently. Not in a lot of depth but like you I'd rather go the whole hog with something than just try little changes. I'll check your blog out, I'm interested!

I'm posting a longer post about the diet in my blog, once I finish reading "Paleo Dieter's Missing Link" by Adam Farrah (recommended reading for getting started with paleo and adjusting it to your own needs and goals. There are other books that lay the foundation and scientific evidence to back up the diet, but Adam's book is more about different tools to actually implement the diet) this week.