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<\/p>\nOn a Tuesday evening, people are gathering in a renovated railway arch turned muscle gym in Peckham, south London, for a class called \u201cWeights, Weights, Weights\u201d. Not your sweaty singlet bros, though \u2014 10 of the 12 participants are women. One keeps her Gen Z bandana on throughout the programme of squats, deadlifts, rows and \u2014 ugh \u2014 raising dumbbells while maintaining a plank.<\/p>\n
Some have tattoos and piercings, others sleek ponytails. They are chatty, smiley. The female instructor has a sheet of black hair down to a bottom that looks as if it was carved by Michelangelo and then inflated. At 40, I am the oldest there, and also the weediest.<\/p>\n
Deliberate bulking is not my scene \u2014 quite the opposite. I was a teenager during the Nineties, when a celebrity vogue for size zero went even further than heroin chic in glamorising skin and bones. I have been on a diet since the age of 12 and long saw exercise as a sort of Dantean punishment for earthly pleasures. Last year, however, I tried weight-loss jabs for six weeks (prescribed privately and legally), lost a stone and am healthier and more active. I thought my kitchen kettlebell routine was building muscle nicely, but at this class I am very much the runt of the litter.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Influencer Jessica Bickling, who has 1.4 million followers on Instagram<\/p>\n
@JESSICABICKLING\/INSTAGRAM<\/p>\n
It is clear that none of these young women are here to get thin \u2014 not that they are at all fat. They are just\u2026 built. Their shoulders and backs ripple like horseflesh. Their powerful flanks assume Marvel superhero stances almost instinctively. Gym-going generations below me prize thighs the way mine did protruding hip bones; they show them off in selfies, cycling shorts and thong bikinis.<\/p>\n
The instructor spends the session moving to each station before me to adjust loads that the others have lifted with ease but which I can barely move. I think of the various personal trainers over the years I told squeamishly not to make me \u201cbulky\u201d and realise what hard work that would actually have required.<\/p>\n
Forget old stereotypes<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t going to the gym to be skinnier or get a \u2018summer body\u2019,\u201d 27-year-old Flo tells me afterwards. \u201cI do it for how it feels \u2014 the mental health benefits. I like feeling stronger. It\u2019s been a real boost.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps with your posture too,\u201d says Abby, 33. \u201cI feel empowered. I hate running and cardio. I needed something that didn\u2019t leave me breathless.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boutique studios used to mean sinew-stretching reformer Pilates and ballerina-style barre, or high-intensity spinning and circuits with matching high-octane price tags for ladies in Lycra who wanted to feel the burn. Yet the latest crop offers the age-old pursuit of pumping iron, now rebranded as \u201cstrength training\u201d \u2014 and not to roidy Rambo types. Lift Studio. Strength House. Even more tellingly, the Girls Spot in Wandsworth, south London, founded this year by the 26-year-old fitness influencer Natalee Barnett.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Ilona Maher \u2014 5.2 million followers \u2014 walking the runway at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit show in Miami in May<\/p>\n
GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a huge shift in how women think about \u2018losing weight\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cNow they want to \u2018tone up\u2019 or \u2018build strength\u2019. They think, why would I want to be skinny when I can be strong as well?\u201d<\/p>\n
A study from 2000 found that fewer than 10 per cent of women were doing any regular strength training; in 2023, a global survey of almost 400,000 women showed that had increased to 40 per cent. At the Olympics last year, there were more women lifting weights for Team GB than men.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the same in high street gyms: women-only rooms, yoga studios converted to make space for more weights. Natalee Barnett has only two treadmills and two StairMasters; this isn\u2019t what women are coming for. The hip Los Angeles fitness chain Barry\u2019s, famous for gruelling high-intensity interval training classes, reports a \u201csurge\u201d in women doing weights instead. The Club Company has added 40 per cent more strength stations at its branches since Covid; female attendance at its weights classes is up 7 per cent since last year. Peloton, which made its name streaming spinning classes to at-home bikes, last year launched a Strength+ app for gym-lifters.<\/p>\n
\u2018Ladies who lift\u2019 and \u2018swole girls\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything we publish on lifting goals or achieving a personal best does really well. Strength training is a huge part of women\u2019s social identities now; they go to the gym to make friends, spot each other and trade tips,\u201d says Bridie Wilkins, fitness director at Women\u2019s Health magazine.<\/p>\n
Across social media, the tags \u201cladies who lift\u201d and \u201cswole girls\u201d (meaning muscly) proliferate across Instagram and \u201cGymTok\u201d, as do influencers such as Jessica Bickling (1.4 million followers on Insta), the Olympic rugby medallist Ilona Maher (5.2 million) and 30-year-old Krissy Cela (3.3 million followers), who came to Britain from Albania aged eight as an asylum seeker and has since built an \u00a380 million fitness empire out of her passion for strength training.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had my heart broken at 18,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI thought if I was skinnier, I\u2019d be happier. The first time I went to the gym I walked straight out, but I became obsessed with why men went to the weights but women went to the cardio machines.\u201d<\/p>\n
That kicked off a research spree that led to a personal trainer (PT) qualification and a focus on weights a decade ago when little of the information out there was either aimed at or about women \u2014 or even beyond professional bodybuilders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018Why is no one else doing this?\u2019 There was this sense that muscles made women look manly, so they felt insecure about having muscles. But they\u2019re like armour: they make you feel powerful. Every woman should be lifting weights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even the kit wasn\u2019t right. So, in 2020, after developing an audience through Instagram and YouTube (where Cela\u2019s tutorials have had more than 10 million views), she launched a fitness brand, Oner Active (\u201cOner\u201d is pronounced \u201chonour\u201d).<\/p>\n
\u201cMost brands used to put seams across the bum or up your private parts, which worked on slimmer women but made the rest of us feel self-conscious,\u201d Cela says.<\/p>\n
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Krissy Cela, the founder of Oner Active. \u201cMuscles are like armour: they make you feel powerful. Every woman should be lifting weights\u201d<\/p>\n
@KRISSYCELA\/INSTAGRAM<\/p>\n
Instead, the waistband on Oner leggings acts as a lifting belt, with three tiers that go from stronger to weaker, while a \u201cscrunch bum\u201d stretch stitch enhances the glutes to make cheeks \u2014 according to the lingo \u2014 present as \u201cpeach\u201d rather than \u201cpancake\u201d.<\/p>\n
There is a whole vernacular around strength training: \u201cleg day\u201d, Amrap (as many reps as possible), Doms (delayed onset muscle soreness); ripped, stacked, shredded and yolked (see swole); and, my favourite, \u201cego lifting\u201d, which is when you attempt heavier than you\u2019re ready for, with terrible form.<\/p>\n
It is changing how women feel about their bodies<\/p>\n
Several of the women I speak to, in their late twenties to late thirties, tell me they started ten years ago, around the time Instagram and YouTube began to take off. They reel off female trainers, athletes and influencers, such as Cela, whose routines they follow. Yet few name an A-lister whose body inspires them.<\/p>\n
In that decade, scientific studies discovered the many benefits weights have for women of all ages, from metabolism-boosting to menopause-easing and life-prolonging bone health. In 2019, NHS guidelines were updated to include \u201cmuscle-strengthening activities\u201d for all adults at least twice a week. Then, in 2020, government advice encouraged it for pandemic home workouts. In 2023, a review showed weights helped with polycystic ovary syndrome and reduced hot flushes. As a 40-year-old woman, it is hard to open Instagram now without someone telling you to start lifting before you lose 10 per cent of your muscle mass along with all your oestrogen.<\/p>\n
Gen Z and younger millennials have already made strength training a habit, many with an eye on future health. Yet it is also changing how the next generation of women feel about their bodies now.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019d rather focus on strength than skinny\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI got fed up of trying to be thin,\u201d says Hannah, 31, who started lifting at university ten years ago. \u201cEating as little as possible takes up all your headspace. Having more muscle mass requires you to eat more \u2014 you can\u2019t train if you\u2019re empty.\u201d<\/p>\n
A friend who uses a university gym tells me that Gen Zers come in wearing their Crocs and Birkies because none of them are using the cardio machines, and the only skinny girls are \u201cthe ones on the treadmill with eating disorders\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve lost 3st [lifting at the gym] in two years,\u201d says Olivia, 27. \u201cBut I\u2019d rather focus on strength than skinny. I will always be a curvy girl, but I\u2019d like more definition.\u201d<\/p>\n
None of the women I speak to want to be thin: the words they use are \u201ctoned\u201d, \u201cdefined\u201d and \u201clean\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat that means is they want to build some muscle and drop fat,\u201d says Sarah Spence, 31, a personal trainer. \u201cBut they soon realise this isn\u2019t a vanity project. It\u2019s an investment in themselves \u2014 more confidence, more energy, more resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to look in the mirror after lifting heavy weights and say you don\u2019t appreciate your body for what it just did.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is transformational for female self-image. I felt something similar after I gave birth \u2014 then went back to pinching and prodding and cursing myself for not being able to fasten my pre-baby jeans. Friends my age and older admit to still feeling trapped in a mindset they know is problematic: glad of the body positivity movement of the past ten years, but unable to apply it to themselves. Still pursuing thinness but not talking about it, with the added guilt around being unsisterly for doing so.<\/p>\n
As anyone who has tried weight-loss jabs will tell you, resistance and strength training are key to success both during and after. Now many are realising that strength training in and of itself is a means of channelling issues around food into something that rewards consistency with visible progress \u2014 and fast.<\/p>\n
Cathy, 49, started a weights programme a few years ago. \u201cI ran for 20 years and began to feel I was doing damage. Now I\u2019m stronger and not in pain \u2014 haven\u2019t had a bad back for ages and don\u2019t have sciatica any more. I can\u2019t believe it took me until I was 45 to understand that the more muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolism is.\u201d<\/p>\n
An end to dieting<\/p>\n
In her book A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting, Casey Johnston talks about her journey from cardio and counting calories (1,200 per day during her twenties) to \u201ceating like a big beautiful horse\u201d to power her new love of lifting.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I started eating properly, the cravings I\u2019d fought vanished,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have to fling myself around doing burpees any more,\u201d Hannah says. \u201cI don\u2019t even go to classes any more. I basically do the same exercise now that my brother did as a teenager, back when I was desperately not eating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amy, 39, who recently lifted her own body weight of 62kg, agrees. \u201cAt school, the boys had the weight room and we were in our netball knickers. We\u2019ve come such a long way, but I\u2019m acutely aware of the pink tax. You can spend \u00a335 per month, go to your local leisure centre, and with the money you save not going to a bougie gym, have a PT session once a week to check your form.\u201d<\/p>\n
The women I speak to are intelligent and above averagely health-literate, yet all of them feel the same: how can we not have realised something so fundamental about our bodies? That if you train your muscles, you don\u2019t need to diet.<\/p>\n
Krissy Cela tells me she feels \u201clike a superhero\u201d when lifting. \u201cI feel totally in control, doing it for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMen in the gym don\u2019t mansplain [any more],\u201d Sarah Spence says. \u201cBut they often assume I\u2019m not going to use certain equipment. So I smile at the other women there and make sure I take up space.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taking up space, bulking, \u201cthick\u201d thighs \u2014 all a world away from Kate Moss\u2019s \u201cNothing tastes as good as skinny feels.\u201d Swole girls have no interest in Ozempic culture or waif-like bodies.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy boyfriend would break up with me if I got really thin,\u201d Hannah says. \u201cWe go to the gym together, but I\u2019m more into fitness. I like that power balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re never going to be skinny when you\u2019re weight-lifting,\u201d Amy says. \u201cBut you see how fantastic your body looks with a bit of muscle on it instead. I really hope skinny jeans don\u2019t return \u2014 they\u2019d never go over my thighs now.\u201d <\/p>\n
Start at home<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep it simple and consistent,\u201d says Sarah Spence, a London-based and online PT (@sarahspence_pt<\/a>). Aim to repeat twice a week for 6 to 8 weeks, trying to increase the weights or reps each week. For more information, go to sarahspence-pt.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n Opening images: EasyLift sports bra, \u00a338. Unified high-waisted leggings, \u00a356. Go To seamless top, \u00a335. Effortless seamless shorts. \u00a344. All oneractive.com<\/a><\/p>\n
You will need
\u2022 A pair of dumbbells (anywhere from 2-5kg is good).
\u2022 A 5-minute warm-up to ease out any stiffness. You don\u2019t need to break a sweat here, just wake the body up.
Then you\u2019re ready for a beginner strength circuit (resting for 60 seconds between sets)
\u2022 Squats: 3 sets of 10 reps.
\u2022 Seated overhead press: 3 sets of 12 reps. (Try to brace your core here too.)
\u2022 Glute bridges: 4 sets of 8 reps. (Pop your heels on a chair to make it harder.)
\u2022 Bent-over row: 3 sets of 10 reps.
\u2022 Reverse lunges: 3 sets of 8 reps each side.
\u2022 Incline push-ups: 3 sets of 6 reps. (Put your hands on a chair or the edge of your sofa.)<\/p>\n