the state of being a woman in the fitness industry
Two years ago at a work Christmas party, I told a man I was starting a personal training business.
His response was: "Oh, are you going to make clickbait videos of yourself doing cable kickbacks?"
No shade at all to the women making those videos. But the reductiveness of it — the assumption that this is the only thing a woman in fitness could possibly be doing — is what shocked me. What mattered to him wasn't the months or years of studying anatomy, programming, and nutrition. What mattered was content. Preferably in a good outfit, and preferably from behind.
What I spent years learning
My personal training course taught me incredible things. Anatomy (no small feat for someone who got kicked out of science classes as a teenager). Slow- and fast-twitch muscle fibres. Programming, exercise prescription, how to work with clients with certain health conditions. So much about macronutrients I thought my head was going to explode.
What it didn't teach me was what I picked up over 12 years of training and existing as a woman in the fitness world. The misogyny is real, it trickles into every aspect of health and fitness, and it isn't spoken about enough.
It shows up as HIIT for women, weights for men. Pink dumbbells. Women being told not to lift too heavy or risk looking 'manly'. A uniform that costs hundreds of pounds, while men show up in tatty shorts and nobody blinks. It's even in how we're taught to perform exercises — men's form taught as standard, with no account for differences in anatomy. Did you know women should squat with a wider stance to account for wider hips? Or form a 'W' shape with their arms in a push up to account for angled elbows? We are taught to train like small men.
So here's your call to action. Take up space in the fitness world in whatever way makes you happy. Pick up heavy weights. Wear trackies. Stop looking for workouts that target your bum without touching your quads. Work out for joy, strength, community, health. Put aesthetics lower down the list — or take it off entirely. Reclaim this space as your own.
A word on ai generated content
The fitness algorithm prioritises the clickbait videos our Christmas party friend had in mind. And though there are brilliant creators working on inclusive fitness and breaking the mold, they're rarely platformed as much as women who fit the specific aesthetic telling us ‘these are the four exercises you must do for glute growth'. The algorithm doesn't just reflect the problem — it amplifies it. And now, it's doing so with content that isn't even real.
Recently, a video of a woman skipping racked up millions of views on Instagram before it was revealed to be AI generated — stolen from an account called Jump Rope Sisters. This isn't a one-off. AI-generated fitness content is everywhere, from influencer posts to transformation videos, and it's becoming impossible to distinguish real from fake. The same impossible, narrow standards that have always been sold to women in fitness are now being generated by machines — bodies that don't exist, selling an ideal that never did either. If genetics, filters, angles, and editing weren't enough — now we have to contend with people who aren't even people.
More and more people are putting down their phones, and rightly so. Your phone is not going to make you feel strong, capable, or proud of yourself. It's not going to teach you to move intuitively. That happens in real life, in real bodies, doing real things.
Social media can be a great educational tool to use alongside exercise that is designed for you as an individual, but it can’t replace the freedom, joy, and happy hormones that you can reap by just getting out there and starting to learn your body. This is your invitation to go and move your body in a way that feels good to you.
final thought - addressing the elephant in the room
I say all this with the caveat that I am aware of the relative privilege I hold in the fitness space as a white, straight-sized woman. I know and recognise that the issue of misogyny intersects with fatphobia, racism, homophobia and transphobia, and ableism. This work is my drop in the ocean contribution to fighting systems that traditionally oppress groups in the fitness world and trying to create an inclusive, joyful space where everyone can access the benefits of exercise.