Mary Spencer's Blog

Effectively coaching and training women is about more than understanding the anatomical and physiological differences between men and women. It’s also about understanding the psychological and emotional differences, including what women are conditioned to believe and say about their bodies and how it relates to their worthiness. With a community of over 600,000 women from more than 70 countries around the world, we have been able to glean really powerful insight from our community members about their experiences working with a coach or trainer, and how these experiences have impacted them personally, as well as the effect these have had on their relationship with that professional. In 2017, we surveyed the Girls Gone Strong community and asked women about negative experiences they’ve had with their coach or trainer — here’s what we’ve found. Of the women we surveyed: 97 percent eventually fired their trainer. 16 percent left that gym all together to avoid seeing their trainer aga

If you’ve ever had an issue, experienced intense feelings, or otherwise felt human at some point in your life, you’ve probably wondered, “ Should I go talk to someone? ” For many of us, the follow up to that initial thought is something like: “But what would talking to someone actually do ?” “How is seeing a therapist going to help anything ?” “What’s the point of paying someone to just sit there and listen to my problems?” If one of those latter thoughts convinced you to just let it be, and then the issues, feelings, and human-ness of your situation continued to cause you trouble, you may have escalated reasons not to go talk to someone with one of the following thoughts: “I’m just being lazy.” “I can handle this myself.” I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. “All I have to do is just cut it out. Suck it up. Get focused. Then everything will be fine.” Here are some answers to your questions about therapy. And hopefully some reasons to change your thinking, and get yours

What does it mean to “find your voice,” and more importantly, how does someone actually do that? How do you put beliefs and values into words and then take it a step further and have the courage to express them publicly? If you have ever found the concept of “finding your voice” difficult, I understand. For a long time, I didn’t share a lot of my experiences or truth online. The main thing holding me back was fear. I was terrified to share my views on fitness (and the need for more inclusivity), race, and feminism because the last thing I wanted to be labeled as was another “angry black woman.” As a recovering perfectionist, I found the idea even more difficult because I really wanted people to like me. Over time, I grew increasingly discontent because I found myself saying all the things I thought I should be saying and less and less of what I wanted to be saying. Although I wanted people to like me, I realized that people could only like the real me if I showed them who I re

Name: Steph Ondrusek Age: 30 Location: Philadelphia, PA What does being a Girl Gone Strong mean to you?  Being a Girl Gone Strong means embracing possibility. It means knowing that each one of us has a purpose in the world, waiting for us to find it. It means showing up as you are and allowing others the space to do the same. It means acknowledging that we may have different experiences of the world, but there is room for all of us to listen, learn, and grow together, with all of us becoming stronger and more whole as a result. How long have you been strength training, and how did you get started? It depends on what you count as strength training! I started competitive swimming when I was six, and we started lifting weights to supplement when I was fourteen. I wasn’t allowed to do much then, because I trained with an older age group. I wasn’t technically “supposed to” be in the weight room at that age, so it was mostly dumbbells, medicine balls, and bodyweight training. I

Are you working with clients who are survivors — of trauma, of negative experiences, of stress? If your clients are human, then you likely are. Laura Khoudari, a Manhattan based trauma-informed personal trainer puts it best, “If you are working with people, you are working with trauma.” Khoudari provides somatic-based treatment specifically for women and genderqueer individuals suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, and chronic pain, and she sees strength training as a powerful tool for restoring healthy nervous system function, building resilience (in addition to strength), and improving quality of life. Some clients will come to training with common, negative-but-non-traumatizing experiences, while others will come with more severe and impactful pasts. As creatures highly adept at learning, humans process their own thoughts and feelings about life experiences, come to conclusions about how to avoid future negative experiences, and then apply those conclusions just like rules, i

While it may sometimes be challenging to see immediately how some resistance exercises translate in real life, it certainly isn’t the case with step-ups. After all, we do some on an everyday basis simply climbing up stairs, don’t we? Yes. And no. Step-ups seem like a really simple exercise, but there are a couple of tricks to performing them properly, which not only makes them feel a lot harder, but makes them much more effective too. What Are the Benefits of the Step-Up? Overall, step-ups help develop strength and stability through your lower body and core. You can choose to perform step-ups with different goals in mind, depending on your overall technical ability and skill level, the amount of added weight you use, the set and rep scheme you select, where the step-ups are placed in your workout, what other exercises they’re paired with and what your rest periods are. In general, step-ups can be used to do any or all of the following: Build lower body strength. Build muscle.

“You’ve lost so much weight! Tell me your secret!” There is a woman — we will call her Cindy — that I’ve seen at the gym for the last eight years. I don’t know her well; only enough to exchange a friendly “hello” when we see each other. Recently, I was in the locker room when Cindy walked in, and I suddenly realized it had been a couple of months since I had last seen her. It was impossible not to notice that she had lost a significant amount of weight. As usual, we smiled and exchanged a hello, and then I walked over to the bathroom sink as she started to change her clothes. Another woman walked into the locker room, and it was clear that she knew Cindy but hadn’t seen her in a while either. As soon as the woman saw Cindy, she went wild. “You look AMAZING! You’ve lost so much weight! Tell me your secret!” Cindy paused for several seconds and then said, “Well… I was laid off from my job of twenty years, and then my husband left me. I’ve been very stressed, and haven’t been able to

Name: Meryl Alappattu Age: 35 Location: Gainesville, FL What does it mean to you to be part of the GGS Community?  It means a lot to be part of an organization aimed at uplifting and encouraging women to be strong, confident, and embrace who they are, and who they want to be. As a physical therapist, it’s refreshing to step outside that bubble and interact with fitness professionals and others who work with women in the health and wellness world. It’s also pretty cool that so many individuals who are not healthcare providers or health and fitness professionals are part of the GGS community. I think we have a lot to learn from the clients and patients with whom we interact, and I have valued hearing their stories and perspectives through the different GGS groups with which I’m involved. How long have you been strength training, and how did you get started? I have been strength training since high school with organized sports but really only started lifting heavy weights a cou