Women Gyms Put Weight on Muscle Tone
A growing number of women’s weight-training gyms are teeming, but few of their members resemble Lou Ferrigno or Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“One of the myths we’re trying to shatter is that women who lift weights necessarily get big, bulging muscles,” said Jim Mielke, owner of the Body Builders Gym for Women in Silver Lake. “They can get big muscles if they want to, but that doesn’t have to be what happens here.”
So why are women flocking to these gyms to wrestle with barbells, dumbbells and assorted machines made especially for “the weaker sex?”
Stay in Shape
Nancy Crank, 20, an instructor at Body Builders Gym for Women, where membership has grown from 30 in 1984 to 200 this year, said most members simply want to stay in shape, take off a few pounds or tone up and strengthen part of the body.
“We have women from all facets of the working world such as nurses, teachers, artists, housewives, mothers and students,” Crank said. “The majority are here to improve their appearance, but we do have a few women who are taking it one step further and are aspiring body builders.”
Penny Johnson, director of Women’s Tracc Sports Medicine, which caters to the female recreational athlete, said a combination of equipment is available at the facility, on Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles. She said Women’s Tracc opened in 1981 with 60 members and is now “at capacity” with 500.
“We have selected equipment--dumbbells, free weights and machines--that best fits and suits the sizes women come in. If a piece of equipment is too large for the user, there is too much stress placed on the joints,” Johnson said.
The emphasis at Women’s Tracc, she said, is on developing “strength from the standpoint of injury prevention and strength from the standpoint of performance enhancement. We’re not into body building or the social aspects of body building. We’re here for the serious individual who has a specific goal in mind and who is willing to make a commitment to it. We have dancers, we have women from every sport--women from age 9 to age 70.”
Johnson said programs are individually designed based on the results of a battery of tests determining strength levels, muscular balance, the endurance quality and stability of muscle groups, flexibility and body composition. A cardiovascular screening, dietary history and motivational profile also are completed, she said.
“Most of our ladies are just trying to stay in shape,” said Teri Magie, manager of Dee’s Gym in Glendale, which offers weight training in addition to aerobic and stretch workouts to its 500 members.
“We recommend a little bit of everything--weight training to strengthen and tone muscles,” she said. “Form is the most important thing to remember when using the equipment. Otherwise the exercise is a waste of time.”
Looking Toned
Magie said most of the women “want to look toned and feel good. Very few are here to try to build really big muscles.”
Maureen Boyle, general manager of For Women Only, counts “only about a dozen hard-core body builders” at the Woodland Hills health club and spa, which boasts a membership of more than 1,000. “The great majority of our members want to tone and firm, and they come in all shapes and sizes, from 16 to over 80.”
At least one mother-daughter team works out at the Body Builders Gym--Arlene Tiernan, 58, and Jerylie Gustin, 35, both petite, blue-eyed blondes. “My daughter talked me into weight training last year,” Tiernan explained. “I was always athletically inclined, but I’d never really lifted weights. Now I watch other women my age struggling to climb stairs and I just sprint past them.”
Gustin, whose weight-lifting goal is having “the perfect body,” came to the women’s gym after several unhappy experiences with co-ed health spas. “They were always packed with girls in $200 leotards,” she said. “This place is more serious and less crowded. Plus, I really prefer the fact that it’s just for women.”
Mielke said his gym’s atmosphere of seriousness and for-women-only policy are most responsible for its growth. “An awful lot of thought went into what type of equipment would best suit a women’s gym,” he noted. “Everything about this place is designed specifically for women.”
The room is stocked almost entirely with free weights rather than weight-lifting machines--partly because of Mielke’s preference for the “tried-and-true” success of barbells.
“Most weight machines are designed to accommodate men’s bodies,” he said. “Women simply don’t fit in them and, for that reason, they often fail to do for women what they are supposed to do.”
Specific types of weights and exercises are stressed at women’s gyms. “We have more lower-body equipment here than men’s gyms have because women tend to have goals involving their hips, thighs and tummies,” Mielke explained. “Men go to gym to build their chests, shoulders and arms.”
Increments of Weights
More increments of light weights are available at women’s weight-lifting gyms, said Boyle of For Women Only. “Since women aren’t as strong as men, there’s more risk of injury if they progress too quickly. The difference between 10 and 20 pounds is a lot greater for the average woman than for the average guy.”
Dr. Ronald Mackenzie, medical director of the National Athletic Health Institute in Inglewood, said “amazingly we don’t see a lot of injuries related to weight training. I’m not exactly sure why. Very possibly the ones who are serious are going to gyms where they get good coaching.”
Before beginning a weight-training program, Mackenzie said women 35 or older should have a general physical examination, including a “cardiovascular test with maximum treadmill.”
“The most important thing,” he added, “is to get good coaching and to go to a place with a good reputation.”
Said Catherine Lee, 29, who works out at the Body Builders Gym: “If you do find the light stuff in a men’s gym, there might be one 5 (pound bar), one 10 and so on. Here, you’ve got a 5, 6, 7, 7 1/2, 8 and so on.”
But perhaps even more than the selected equipment, it is the absence of male members that seems to attract women to these gyms. Reasons for preferring a sexually segregated gym range from not wanting to be “checked out while working out” to not wanting to “worry about appearance” to not wanting to “feel silly struggling with 25 pounds while some enormous guy next to me is effortlessly lifting 200.”
“I just can’t concentrate if I’m afraid some guy is watching me,” said Susan Ann Hall, who works out at For Women Only.
Mielke contends that despite the popularity of co-ed health clubs, serious weight trainers--men and women--prefer to work out with members of their own sex. “The guys at my other gym feel exactly the same way,” he said, referring to his Body Building Gym for men located one mile away. “They want to be able to curse and not worry about who hears them.”
As more women began inquiring about membership at the gym, and encouraged by the heightened awareness of fitness brought on by the Olympics, Mielke and two partners decided to open a weight-lifting gym for women. After two years of planning, the doors opened in March, 1984.
A staff of four female instructors alternates shifts so one is always on hand to offer tips or encouragement to members. The gym is staffed and run entirely by women, Mielke said, noting that he and his partners keep an intentionally low profile.