[vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text]When Kris and I stepped onto the turf for the Women & Weights class, we had different mindsets. She was there for growth. As a 56-year-old widow, she wanted to gain strength in order to carry bags of water softener salt down to her basement, do yard work, and one day hold grandbabies. I, on the other hand, was on my fourth week of half marathon training, and I was unsure introducing strength training a third of the way into my plan was the right move.
I didn’t want to be sore. I didn’t want to learn I actually wasn’t strong at all.
So I approached our instructor, Linda, and introduced myself. Linda was confident and kind, and some of the walls that I built started to come down.
Linda led our group of twelve women through a dynamic warm-up before diving into the workout for the day. She demonstrated each movement, including modifications and proper form, helped us select our weights, and coached us through the exercises. I found my hamstrings and shoulders burning, but, as Linda explained, the fatigue I felt – and when in our sets I was feeling it – was good. The body must first tear itself down to rebuild itself stronger. It’s a paradox. It’s also a process that innately requires trust.
We don’t get to see the inner workings of our bodies. We don’t see the muscles breaking down, nor the healing process that follows. But it happens. We trust it happens. And eventually, we experience the fruits of our labor, the benefits of that belief.
And so I learned to trust Linda too, as well as the strength training she led us through. Through the first two weeks of class, I experienced soreness, but it was localized to the muscle groups I knew we had worked. It was a good sore – a reminder of my ability to say yes to difficult things and a call to trust the process. To trust the woman I can become.
Kris is trusting the woman she’s becoming too. For the first time, she pushed a sled across the turf and back. Through this, she adds another word to the qualities we possess, the athletes we are becoming: powerful.
We are all these things – stronger, faster, smarter, better, fearless, powerful – because of how it all starts. Trust.
– Natalie Weiss[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”5114″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” qode_css_animation=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”5113″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” qode_css_animation=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”5116″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” qode_css_animation=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”5115″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” qode_css_animation=””][/vc_column][/vc_row]
