The Current State of Weight Training Among College-Age Females by Chinwendu Achonu
[Chinwendu Achonu is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is majoring in Exercise and Sport Science with a concentration as a Fitness professional, and minoring in Food Studies. She is taking part in the Athletic Lab Coaching Mentorship program.] From physical health to mental health—and everything in between—weight training serves as a powerful catalyst for improving internal & external health markers. With consistent weight training, women can increase measures of bone mineral density, fat-free mass, strength, and power, while reducing risk of chronic cardiovascular and metabolic disease, depression, and anxiety (Bachero-Mena & Moral-González, 2021). These adaptations are especially noteworthy given that women are disproportionately affected by bone mineral loss and osteoporosis, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, and generalized anxiety disorder (Kiley, 2019). And, these benefits are only a small subset of the notable adaptations that have been validated over the years. Benefits of Weight Training for Women The remarkable benefits of weight training for women have not always been so readily acknowledged by health experts however. In a 1925 interview with Dr. Thomas Wood, Director of Physical Education at Columbia University, he revealed that women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were “hindered in pursuit of athletic achievement by a general societal concern for the de-feminizing impact of sports as well as by the medical community’s belief that “strenuous” sports interfered with women’s reproductive capacities” (Todd, 1992, p. 4). The first two-thirds of the twentieth century was also marked by misinformation (Todd, 1992, p. 4). Athletic coaches and physical educators commonly believed that weight training would make athletes slow, stiff, and “musclebound” (Todd, 1992, p. 4). Athleticism is often associated with agility and speed. Thus, the notions [...]
