Muscle, The New Femininity (Part 3) :

👉 Muscle, The New Femininity (Part 2)

Muscle, The New Femininity (Part 3) :

Initially she could barely squat with an unloaded Olympic bar (45 pounds) for ten repetitions. Less than a year later she was squatting with 185 pounds for 15 repetitions. Doing full sets of seated over-head presses with 40 pound dumbbells, triceps dips with 100 pounds strapped to her. Her face changed, the cheek-bones emerging, the age vanishing. Her outlook's changed too, no doubt in part to the new-found male attention she's getting. "Too much?" Her YMCA cohorts are still huffing on the Stairmasters and treadmills, looking the same as always and staring at Leslie when she's not down in the weight-room out-lifting many of the men. And while she initially was looking to lose fat and get "toned" (I still don't know what "toned" means), now she even looks at the Fitness stars with some disdain: "I want realmuscle! Like the bodybuilders."

Just as dramatic is my friend Renita Harris, also a mother of two, formerly overweight. To escape an abusive(former) husband, Renita found solace in the rhythms and challenges of the weight-room. Years later she was competing in bodybuilding and Fitness championships on a national level and winning.

In addition to her regular personal training clients, she was training pro athletes like the NBA's Kendall Gill. And appearing in numerous magazines. She'd transformed herself into what Art Carey, an editor and columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer described as "a head-turning goddess...a walking aphrodisiac...a caricature of female form like the femme fatale in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Yet this tiny-waisted "walking aphrodisiac" has squatted with 405 for a dozen reps. She's now a Chicago cop. And, like Rachel, our powerlifting E-4 at Hurlburt Field, as feminine as ever.

How many more potential Renitas, Leslies and Rachels are out there? Millions. They just don't know it. Some of them are at your gym. Maybe you're one of them. There's one way to find out.