She's a Beast

Muscle does not weigh more than fat. It is denser than fat. Five pounds of muscle on one scale will weigh the same as five pounds of fat on another scale. If I hear one more person say that muscle is heavier than fat, I will beat them with a PVC pipe.

So last week a guy I went to college with sends me a Facebook message asking me if I were running a half marathon that upcoming weekend. I was not. I told him I had pretty much given up running in favor of CrossFit. He then tells me that he went to Brick with his business partner 2 weeks before, had a great time, and was still sore. Now we all know that I love a run down play by play, of people's workouts. I find it genuinely interesting. You can spend 15 minutes telling me why you chose not to put an additional 10 pounds on the bar and I will listen enthralled and might even ask clarifying questions. This guy I went to college with wasn't really able to articulate what they did that day but he knew it was hard.

Now I like this kid just fine. I wouldn't consider him to be a close friend or anything, but I've known him for many years and I think he is good stuff. So the transcript below of the next part of our conversation is not to be viewed as my opinion of him or an indication that I am mad at him or anyone else. I thought it was interesting that he chose the words he chose and the reaction that I had.

GUY: never been into lifting actually...always had lotta of natural muscle so more into cardio and sculpting

GUY: even tho my biz partner is adamant that lifting is still the best for cardio

ME: what the fuck is sculpting?

ME: lifting is the best cardio

GUY: haha

GUY: guess i was wrong

GUY: u know what sculpting is

GUY: u sculpt

GUY: ...u appear quite sculpted

ME: I do not sculpt. I lift

ME: I have a 100# clean and jerk


When I saw the word sculpting I immediately thought of the skinny fat and some just actually fat girls I know who talk about their sculpting workouts. Babe, you're flapping your arm around with a 3 lbs weight. I've seen women in Yves Maco's old "sculpting" classes (can we blame Equinox for this stupid word?) build some pretty sweet looking arms but they were using 15 lbs weights, so they were lifting 30 lbs, which is awfully close to the weight of a 33 lbs lady bar used for, wait for it, Olympic lifting. I used a baby bar and two 10 plates for the first months of CrossFit, so you can totally see results if you're lifting that weight.

just a casual Google search that generated a lot of useless crap

As he proceeded to tell me that I know what sculpting is - I do. I was just curious what it meant to a full grown man who last I saw was in decent shape - because I sculpt, I was like, "Allie. He knows not what he says. He is trying to be nice. Look! He has decided to add what he believes to be a compliment." I'll take that I look sculpted but like a beast is better. I got defensive. I was even a little offended. And then because I will drop in my clean and jerk PR in literally any conversation, I had to throw it in there. He didn't know what a clean and jerk was, but he said he was impressed anyway.

I absolutely love CrossFit and that is no secret, but I didn't think I would love clean and jerks as much as I do. They might just surpass lateral box jump burpees as my favorite thing to see posted in a WOD. I am really into the strength and barbell gymnastics portions of our programming and that was the part that intimidated me the most at first. My two proudest moments in 2013? Being one of the few people to earn a raise at my level during our annual salary increase period and graduating from the baby bar for snatches. This shit is important to me.

So as much as I appreciate people's compliments on how great I look, I get ticked off when they add, but don't get any bigger or don't look like a man. I want a 225# clean. I want the muscles that will get me a 225# clean. If I can get my arms to look like Miranda Oldroyd's, I will be so fucking proud and I will bust out of my coat with pleasure.

Miranda is a beast, which to me and many other women, is an incredible compliment.
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And the number of guys, but not my friend from college, who have said that they wouldn't be attracted to me  if I got arms like Miranda's, they were genuinely surprised when I said, "Good. I could never be attracted to a guy who couldn't lift more than me." Was I supposed to give up something I love so a past his prime frat boy would find me hot enough to bang?

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One of the reasons I stopped talking about my ultra running on dates was that men couldn't leave it alone. What was I running from? Why did I run so far? Wasn't it boring? He would never run more than a half marathon because anything more was bad for his knees and running an ultra was just like doing back-to-back Soulcycle classes. I kid you not. A man on a date with me once tried to tell me that his 90 minutes of Soulcycle was the same as running 31.02 miles.

Also, those fitness models you see in those "sculpt and tone and lose 6 inches in 3 weeks by the time it's summer and your boyfriend proposes" spreads? They don't do those exercises to get their bodies. They lift. I'm not saying everyone needs to lift (although if you've got working arms, you really should), but stop lying to yourself about this sculpting nonsense. 

And I would like to give an extra special shout-out to my friend Ryan who talks about lifting with me every single day on Gchat and gets really excited for me when I hit PRs. Ryan is part of the 1000# Club, which means that the combination of his bench press, squat, and deadlift are over 1,000 pounds. He is the definition of beast. And he's super sweet too, and he can build stuff, and he's single. Sooooo, direct message me if you'd like me to pass on your info.