When women invade weight lifting training rooms: biosocial aspects of weight training and nutrition for women

Abstract

The belief in the biological vulnerability and in the innate fragility let the women out of many sports. Fragility, vulnerability and passivity are characteristics totally unfavorable to athletic performance requirement. Weight lifting nowadays known as a resisted exercise, was, for some time, considered a kind of sport not recommended for women. Today we know that this activity, allied with a suitable diet, is very important to firm the muscles up and besides that, for the reduction of corporal fat and acceleration of the metabolism. However, there are still some myths about female weight training, which are the reflection of those contraindications, like the idea of the women practicing would become a masculine image. In this research, we investigate which are the myths and knowledge that are daily involved in weight lifting participants training and diet. Thus, through a pilot-project, we made a data-collecting used techniques of a semi-structured interview and alimentary form to collect the data, then we made the analysis of the contents to evaluate the results found among the women who practice weight training intending for strength and hypertrophy, among the gyms in the city of Maringá, with the objective of verifying the myths and knowledge involved in the daily routine of training and diet of the practicing women.