{"id":471763,"date":"2026-06-02T04:23:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T04:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/471763\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T04:23:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T04:23:14","slug":"from-pilates-to-powerlifting-the-rise-of-women-in-weight-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/471763\/","title":{"rendered":"From Pilates to powerlifting: the rise of women in weight training"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNow drag the dumbbell toward the target,\u201d the coach shouts at us in a sweaty room filled with the smell of iron mixed with a faint aroma of Lululemon leggings. A dozen women, all in plank position, try to drag a weight across a rubber floor toward a target point. Who has time to think about wording when it\u2019s 15 kilos that must be moved with one hand toward the groin line while the other hand prevents the body from collapsing? Technique is what matters, precision is everything, and don\u2019t forget to breathe.<\/a>But let\u2019s pause here for a moment, because language creates reality or at least suggests that something about it has changed: in the strength training class<\/a> at the Tel Aviv Port, open to both men and women, there is not a single man who might feel embarrassed by the coach\u2019s command simply because there are no men here. The testosterone-soaked atmosphere that characterized weight rooms since the early 20th century has been replaced by something else: not soft, not polite and not cute like step aerobics. Just feminine. Women lifting, pulling, pushing and pressing weights wherever needed.<\/p>\n

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Women lifting, pulling, pushing and pressing weights wherever needed <\/p>\n

(Photo: Jonathan Bloom)<\/p>\n

Only a decade and a half ago it was quite alone in the weightlifting scene, women were forced to deal with annoying questions such as: \u201cBut what will happen to your uterus?\u201d or \u201cWon\u2019t you turn into Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s daughter?\u201d Today it can be said calmly: I did not become Schwarzenegger\u2019s daughter, and the two children my uterus produced sometimes come with me to strength training sessions and see how all the mothers lift.<\/p>\n

It is official: women have taken over weight spaces in Israel and worldwide. A series of studies and reports from recent years shows a sharp rise in the number of women turning to strength training. A study published last year in Sports Medicine and Health Science journal showed that more women are lifting weights in gyms. The annual report of the American College of Sports Medicine named weight training the leading global fitness trend among women, and a Business Insider article from the same year described how gyms in the United States have become \u201cgraveyards of elliptical machines\u201d due to the rising demand for strength training among women. In Israel too, more women are adopting weight and strength training as part of their workout routine, and a space once seen as masculine is becoming more mixed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started training 12 years ago I worked with athletes and bodybuilders, and today 90 percent of my studio is women,\u201d says Aviram Bohbot, owner of \u201cAbility,\u201d a strength training studio in central Tel Aviv. \u201cIn the past five years more women have come to the weight lifting. We have 80-year-old women<\/a> and 18-year-old dancers. My mother is 78 and does deadlifts (straight-leg weightlifting), squats and lunges.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you explain it?
\n\u201cThere is more awareness and knowledge, and women understand that everything starts with strength training. There are no shortcuts, and it\u2019s not just Pilates once or twice a week, but weightlifting and working hard. That\u2019s what really builds you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Aviram Bohbot, owner of Ability, a strength training studio in central Tel Aviv <\/p>\n

(Photo: Jonathan Bloom)<\/p>\n

You\u2019re insulting Pilates instructors here.
\n\u201cAll the yoga and Pilates instructors in Tel Aviv train with me. The world is changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

These changes are happening now, after years of stagnation. \u201cAt 16 I wanted to start strength training because that\u2019s what I was required to do as an athlete on Israel\u2019s karate national team, but there was not a single woman in the gym,\u201d says Yarden Shavit, 36, a trainer and founder of a strength training app for women from Kiryat Motzkin. \u201cI stood alone in the weight area and I will never forget a coach touching my trapezius muscles and saying, \u2018You don\u2019t need this, you\u2019re already muscular enough.\u2019 That was the mindset then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen CrossFit arrived in Israel in 2011 I was exposed again to weightlifting. I walked in, smelled the rubber and said, \u2018Wow, I\u2019ve found my place.\u2019 I became a trainer, and in the past seven years I see how super-busy women, with children and careers, are obsessed with strength training. It is the best gift women have received in recent years. Finally you are not measured by how you look but praised for your progress, your consistency, your strength. When you deadlift 100 kilos it captures an entire year-long process, physical and mental. It shows who you are. It is a much deeper world than another abdominal cube.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Yarden Shavit, a trainer and founder of a strength training app for women <\/p>\n

(Photo: Amit Parnas)<\/p>\n

Karina Laufer Dayan, a 51-year-old entrepreneur from Ramat Gan, discovered the power of weights five years ago. Since then she trains three times a week and no one can stop her. \u201cThere comes an age when you understand its power. It\u2019s not just about looking good, it\u2019s much deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sorry for the tactlessness, but isn\u2019t it hard to lift heavy weights at 51?
\n\u201cListen, I don\u2019t yet have menopause symptoms, and I feel it\u2019s because of sport. My friends are sweating at night like horses and I sleep like a baby. I think it\u2019s because of strength training. I also walk more upright, probably since I started back exercises.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorney Maya Calev from Modi\u2019in does deadlifts with 80 kilos at age 49. \u201cI started lifting during COVID. I discovered you can work with very heavy weights and not bulk up, but get toned. Gradually you realize there are so many women in their 20s and 30s lifting insane weights, looking amazing and mostly glowing with confidence and capability.\u201d<\/p>\n

What did it do for you beyond the sense of capability?
\n\u201cMentally, when I arrive at work after training I\u2019m in a completely different energy. Sharper, more alert, I start the day differently. I can also jump with my kids, climb stairs while carrying a child, and I\u2019m not destroyed. I also think about how my life will look in 20 years, what my capacity will be as a grandmother. Hormone-wise I feel in the zone, it has become my oxygen. Forget gold and diamonds, give me dumbbell.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hormonal balance described by Calev and Laufer Dayan is no coincidence: strength training has become, to a large extent, a prescription for women entering their fifth decade of life. This contrasts with prevailing beliefs in the previous century, when doctors warned that intense physical activity was dangerous for women and could, as published in a German journal of physical education, \u201clead to uterine detachment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn recent years, there is a clear trend of women in pre-menopause and menopause shifting to strength training, sometimes at the expense of flexibility and posture-based training like Pilates,\u201d confirms Dr. Iris Yaish, senior endocrinologist at Ichilov Hospital and head of a multidisciplinary menopause clinic. \u201cThe main reason is the understanding that menopause is associated with loss of muscle mass, decreased bone density, increased abdominal fat, slower metabolism, and reduced strength and function. Resistance training is one of the most effective tools to address these changes. I have patients for whom hormone therapy was not an option and this really saves them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Attorney Maya Calev does deadlifts with 80 kilos at age 49 <\/p>\n

(Photo: Courtesy)<\/p>\n

What does the medical literature show?
\n\u201cThat strength training helps preserve and even increase muscle mass, improves strength and physical function, may help maintain bone density, improves insulin sensitivity and body composition, and is also linked to improvements in mood, sleep and quality of life in some women. Professional bodies such as The Menopause Society (formerly NAMS) and the American College of Sports Medicine include resistance training as a central recommendation for women in menopause. That doesn\u2019t mean Pilates is bad. It is still excellent for flexibility, balance, pelvic floor strength, back pain and posture. But Pilates alone usually does not provide a sufficient anabolic load to muscle and bone compared to progressive resistance training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bottom line?
\n\u201cI think a gym with weights and load is the foundation of healthy aging. I recommend every woman in pre-menopause and menopause combine strength training with Pilates or yoga. You just need guidance at the beginning to avoid injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The recommendations of doctors and the availability of research online are already visible in the field. \u201cMore women come to me and say \u2018I need strength training,\u2019\u201d says Gita Weiss, 40, owner of the \u201cElement\u201d strength studio in Binyamina. \u201cThey spoke to a doctor or read articles and understood that what needs investment now is muscle. This is a turning point where many women start seeing themselves differently. There is a mental aspect alongside the physical\u2014the feeling of \u2018I am strong\u2019 is the feeling that I am doing something important for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strength craze is not reserved for women in their 40s and up. Gen Z girls are also lining up for weights, thanks to Neta Alchimister. \u201cI started strength training between 7th and 8th grade because I wanted to be like Neta Alchimister and saw that this is what she does,\u201d admits Yasmine Shalosh, 20, a Pilates and Pilates-bar instructor from Tel Aviv. \u201cYou see what celebrities do online and it influences you. At some point I got deeply into Pilates for a few years and was really afraid to go back to strength training, because Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber and all these girls were posting Pilates and there were claims that strength training makes you bulky, that if I do it I\u2019ll look like a man.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gen Z girls are also lining up for weights, thanks to Neta Alchimister <\/p>\n

(Photo: Amir Meiri)<\/p>\n

So what changed?
\n\u201cWhen I studied Pilates instruction and took anatomy courses, we were taught about the importance of strength in building bones, and I understood this is a long-term investment and that women must do strength training. Today I do weight lifting twice a week. Heavy weights, reps, sets, long rest between sets. Next to me train high school girls too, it looks like a summer camp. Everyone is lifting weights.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Bieber you went back to Alchimister.
\n\u201cYes. You see she did strength for years, even during pregnancy, worked hard on muscle mass and became a \u2018hot mom.\u2019 In the end we still live in a society that worships beauty, and women want to look good even when they become mothers.\u201d<\/p>\n

And maybe that\u2019s where the weight is buried. With generous help from social media, the beauty ideal has shifted\u2014not skin and bones anymore, but skin sitting nicely over well-built muscle. Even in cinema, patriarchal body ideals are being challenged as women finally get to play roles that are not fragile and tiny. Natalie Portman did it in Marvel\u2019s Thor: Love and Thunder in 2022, and Katy O\u2019Brien in Love Lies Bleeding in 2025, portraying a bodybuilder with a powerful physique and a character who dreams of competing in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Not only in fiction. Muscles have become commercial, with campaigns from Nike, Under Armour and Adidas, as well as lingerie brands like Kim Kardashian\u2019s Skims and Rihanna\u2019s Fenty, now featuring muscular women instead of petite ones. Serena Williams, whose powerful body was once criticized, became a sought-after brand ambassador. The hashtag \u201cmuscle mommy\u201d became a massive TikTok trend. \u201cIf the beauty model used to be Twiggy, today my daughter talks about \u2018being strong,\u2019\u201d says Maya Calev. \u201cKids love it. They tell me \u2018Mom, look at your arm muscles.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Laufer Dayan: \u201cWe used to just want to be thin, to burn calories no matter what, and today I want a strong body. When I walk in a tank top and see the muscle in my arm it excites me, and if Madonna\u2019s arms and thighs once repelled me\u2014today she does it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bohbot also says his trainees are tired of living on lettuce and rice cakes. \u201cWomen want to be present, not a hanger for clothes. They want visible muscles,\u201d he says. \u201cIf a decade ago women told me, \u2018Put me on 800 calories, I want the skinny sick look,\u2019 today there is no starvation. Women want to build muscle mass and understand that to handle life\u2019s intensity you need to be strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday the fashion is the athletic look,\u201d says fitness trainer Lee Talchi, known in Tel Aviv for two decades as \u201cPileplet,\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s fashionable to have muscle. And once women understood they can do strength training without getting big, the field exploded because they started entering gyms and weight rooms.<\/p>\n

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Lee Talchi: ‘It\u2019s fashionable to have muscle’ <\/p>\n

(Photo: Yaniv Cohen)<\/p>\n

And there is also the weight-loss injection trend, which has become fashionable in itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis does not replace strength training, on the contrary. With weight-loss injections people eat much less and there is a loss of muscle mass because the body loses weight in a non-natural way. To rebuild muscle and maintain the new weight you need to lift weights. When you do resistance training and maintain a caloric deficit, your muscle mass increases and you become toned. That\u2019s why resistance training preserves muscle mass and metabolism.\u201d<\/p>\n

So more women come because they are injecting Wegovy and Ozempic?
\n\u201cThey don\u2019t tell me they inject. They are embarrassed. But I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there is another heavy question: is this entire strength trend not just the other side of heroin chic? A way of regulating women\u2019s bodies, if not through starvation and thinness, then through protein loading and commitment to the gym. Endless work on appearance that requires time and money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a good question, and reality is complex,\u201d admits Prof. Esther Herzog, head of behavioral sciences at the Zefat Academic College, a social anthropologist and feminist activist who has studied gender relations in Israeli gyms. \u201cOn one hand it signals that women can excel at everything, which is good and important, and clearly there is positive change in the field. But does it mean patriarchy has ended? Not at all. Because there is still objectification. The objectification is not in lifting weights, but when advertisers use abs to make money\u2014that is objectification. It continues sexist messaging toward women and viewers.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other hand, maybe this represents a new wave of feminism. Women taking ownership of their bodies and insisting on occupying space.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a reflection of \u2018we can do everything, we want recognition, opportunities and possibilities.\u2019 It is part of a political strengthening of women in public space. There is something about women showing physical strength that sends an important message, even indirectly. Young women see that women have physical power and understand that women can be strong. It is an alternative image to the woman as victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this protein cocktail one must also add the security situation in Israel. There is still a lack of quantitative research and data on the issue, but the link between exercise, endorphin release and mood is well established. In the Israeli context, the interviewees say the lack of security and control has also pushed them toward strength work.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince October 7, I feel women come to train with me also from a place of wanting to create personal security,\u201d says Weiss. \u201cA woman wants to feel strong because things are hard out there. They want to release the enormous tension we all carry in our bodies. I feel like I am providing emotional support for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laufer Dayan: \u201cJust this past weekend we didn\u2019t know if war would break out. If you don\u2019t lift weights, how will you lift yourself in this country we live in?\u201d<\/p>\n

Talchi: \u201cMany women came to me not from aesthetics but from physical or emotional weakness. It is also connected to the war. People are in such a weak physical and mental place, and every psychiatrist alongside antidepressants will tell you to exercise. I see it more in women than men. Women tell me, \u2018I feel like I\u2019m deteriorating, like I can\u2019t lift my child.\u2019 They discover they have no strength in their body and want to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And do weights solve it?
\n\u201cWhen you start lifting weights and later realize they are light for you, you feel like you are winning against yourself. That feeling of strength and the understanding that you are not becoming a bodybuilder\u2014that is what makes women addicted. And in the end you can also run with your child on sports day. Isn\u2019t it worth it?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNow drag the dumbbell toward the target,\u201d the coach shouts at us in a sweaty room filled with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[589,163,85,46],"class_list":["post-471763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}