You don't have to be young to build muscle: how women are breaking fitness taboos

When Anna Jenkins, 50, founder of We Are Fit Attitude (Wafa), a women-only health and fitness club, searched online for images of older women exercising, she was irritated by the pitiful size of the weights: the archive image is of a gray-haired woman lifting a 1kg weight, as if it were some kind of milestone. My personal scarecrows are the photos in which there is a personal trainer with an expression of infinite patience next to the older woman, as if the latter were weak and half-intelligent.

Stock photos are the internet's idea of ​​what the world should look like, sets of generic images meant to illustrate articles and advertisements, often revealing more of the worldview than they actually show had probably planned. There are plenty of photos of white women laughing over a salad, aimed at healthy eating, but also reinforcing senseless joy and self-sacrifice as cornerstones of femininity. If young fitness imagery is all about aspiration—six packs, muscle definition, and impossible body fat percentages—old age fitness imagery is almost anti-aspirational. His message is, "You probably can't do anything at all, but look over here, there's a lady running this little thing."

Jenkins running Wafa courses remote and in-person for women in their late 30s to mid-70s. On a Saturday during a class in Merton, south London, they decided to create a new series of photos, to repopulate the ecosystem of stock photography, so that when you search for "older women doing exercise", you can see what it really looks like. “These are appropriate weights,” says Annette Hinds, 60. "We don't make fun of ourselves. »

Jenkins switched to group work and coaching from personal training because she noticed than in the gym: "Women go straight to the cardio machine because they knew how it worked. It's a scary environment when you think you don't belong, when you're not happy with the shape of your body. But they didn't need more cardio - at 45+ your body needs some strength work. Especially during menopause. That's just a fact."

< p class="dcr-1b64dqh">As your bones lose density, the only way to protect them is to retain your muscle mass; building strength in middle age is part of what will define the shape and pace of your old age. But as 51-year-old Glenda Cooper, who usually takes this distance learning course five times a week, says, there's more to it. “Women at this time of life have parents that we take care of. I have two children. You don't want to take up too much space, you still feel invisible, you don't take time for yourself. It's so important to have a sense of your own strength, which I think is missing from the rest of our lives. "inline" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement" class="dcr-173mewl">