Social media is stuffed with fitness trends. While a few of these are outlandish or verging on dangerous, others are literally helpful.
Take the “shy girl workout” trend. While this has been floating across the web since late 2022, it continues to be popular online.
The premise of shy girl workouts is straightforward. They are designed to make use of minimal space within the gym and only a few pieces of kit – reminiscent of a pair of dumbbells.
They’re targeted at women who could also be beginners or who’ve anxiety about going to the gym, but still need to get a superb resistance workout in without having to maneuver across the gym floor or use complicated weight machines.
While the initial advantage of these workouts is that they’ll provide help to recover from your fear of going to the gym, they may additionally have the more long-term advantage of empowering users and helping them feel more confident about being within the gym.
Gym anxiety
There’s an important deal of research showing that girls face societal pressures to realize the perfect fit and toned physique. This pressure is especially acute in exercise environments (reminiscent of the gym) where people’s bodies are the main target. Women who feel they don’t have the best body may subsequently feel uncomfortable going to the gym.
Many women often feel like they’re being “checked out” after they’re within the gym. This feeling is referred to as “hypervisibility”, and tends to occur when people think they’re different from others in a selected social setting.
In the case of the gym, hypervisibility occurs on account of the male-dominated nature of the space, making women feel like they stand out. This feeling of hypervisibility can worsen women’s existing body insecurities, and should encourage some women to avoid the gym altogether.
Weight stigma has also been found to be particularly prevalent in exercise settings. One study found that folks who were chubby experienced harassment and mock while exercising. As such, some women may avoid the gym entirely for fear of ridicule.
But body insecurities aren’t the one reason women feel intimidated by the gym.
Social scientists have long shown that the geography of the typical gym floor is very gendered. For example, one study found that gyms have distinctive gendered “zones”with the weights area seen as “masculine” and the cardio machines and stretching area seen as “feminine”.
Many women on this study also reported that they felt judged and even sexualised after they tried to make use of the weights area of their gym. So, it’s comprehensible why women may desire a workout that permits them to make use of weights in an area of the gym through which they feel comfortable.
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Research also tells us that many ladies find it hard to take up space in public places. “Taking up space” is about making yourself visible and feeling such as you belong within the setting you’re in.
When people don’t feel in a position to take up space, it means they don’t feel entitled or confident about being visible in a public or a social situation. Many women feel this manner within the gym.
Since shy girl workouts only use a small amount of space within the gym, it might help women to feel more comfortable while figuring out.
This, coupled with experiences of sexual harassment in gymscould explain why some women feel anxious in these environments – and why they’re keen to search out ways to be in these places without feeling intimidated.
Building gym confidence
While shy girl workouts won’t necessarily tackle the entire reasons an individual may feel anxious about going to the gym, there are still many positives to the trend.
These workouts are inclined to be aimed toward beginners, making them accessible to individuals who may otherwise find “gymtimidation” to be a serious barrier to them figuring out. It may additionally help women to get more used to the gym environment, and eventually get the arrogance to try different exercises or use recent equipment.
Another advantage of the shy girl workout trend is that it acts as a digital type of social support. When women share their shy girl workouts online, it not only helps give other women ideas in regards to the type of workouts they’ll do, it also normalises experiences which are common to many ladies.
These posts and the comments they attract create a forum where they’ll publicly discuss their feelings of hysteria and discomfort in exercise spaces. Having access to this support may help women feel more empowered and fewer alone of their experiences of gym anxiety, which can improve their overall wellbeing and confidence.
Importantly, the shy girl trend meets women where they’re by acknowledging the gendered pressures they face in gyms and offering practical solutions. Addressing the underlying causes of ladies’s gym anxiety stays key.
But shy girl workouts are also a collective response to inequality in exercise spaces that will provide women with a sense of support while they grow more confident about going to the gym.
