Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.

Once, in high school, I remem­ber leaving the fitness center at my athletic club to follow the sounds of clunking metal and peek into the weight room. Though I recognized many of the contraptions and movements practiced there, looking at the bulky men, three times my size, pulling, lifting, and grunting, I got the distinct and overwhelming feeling that I did not belong there.

My feelings about those heavy weights have since changed. This past summer, while working at another ath­letic club, a co-worker encouraged me to try lifting. He pointed me in the direction of a website devoted to wom­en and weights called www.stumptuous.com, the title of which refers to the webmistress Krista Scott-Dixon, PhD’s pre-weight-lifting body – something between “stumpy” and “sumptuous.” I e-mailed Ms. Scott-Dixon to ask why lift­ing was so great for women (or people in general). She responded with an enthusiastic list:

“Functional strength for everyday life and sports. More effective movement. Better balance and coordina­tion. Better bone density. Better metabolic regulation—nu­trients do their jobs properly, and the body’s ratio of lean tissue to body fat is optimized. You’re stronger, leaner, and fitter for life, and everything just runs more efficiently and effectively.”

While I can’t vouch for what’s happening inside my body, since I started lifting about twice a week three months ago, I’ve felt stronger than I’ve ever been, able to do things, like rock climb and move heavy objects, that I once struggled to do. I can hike further in hotter weather. For the first time in my life, I can see muscles when I flex. And personally, the more I lift, the better I feel about my own physical appearance and attractiveness.

I know that probably none of this is news to girls who have participated on sports teams their whole lives and have coaches who push them to weight train. For some reason, though, weight lifting is far outside the social norm for women’s fitness, so for the rest of us, breaking in can be extremely intimidating.

One of the main things stopping women from lifting is a fear of how it will change their bodies. As Scott-Dixon puts it, “There is a persistent myth that weight training will make women huge and grotesque, even though I don’t think anyone’s ever actually seen one of these mythical beasts in person.” Many women have heard that doing any­thing more than “toning” with small weights will cause women to “bulk up.”

There are several problems with these notions: First, the only way to build lean muscle that is functional—as in, strength helpful for tasks outside the gym—is to lift heavy weights. Second, there are two things that women need to “bulk up” that almost all of us at Scripps lack:

1) Testosterone (and those of us on hormonal birth control have even less than the normal population) and 2) Anabol­ic steroids. Without those two, it is almost impossible for women to reach the unnatural proportions shown in Pump­ing Iron 2. Our best models for healthy women who devote their lives to lifting are reality TV stars Jillian Michaels and Jackie Warner, who claim to receive countless love letters for their muscular physiques. There’s simply no concrete evidence that lifting can have any considerably negative effect on physical attractiveness.

When we women want to lift, there are still many fears and obstacles towering menacingly before us. Lifting is something most of us have never done before, and per­sonal trainers are expensive off-campus and nonexistent in the 5C fitness centers. It’s a lot easier to use the weight machines (which interfere with natural body movement and stability and make it almost impossible to gain func­tional strength) or just stick to a solid 45 minutes of cardio. Also, when lifting heavy weights, we look funny. It can be embarrassing to stick your butt out in a strange direction or exhale audibly or make a straining face if your surrounding peers look like elegant gazelles, prancing along on ellipti­cal machines behind you.

I decided that to come to terms with this dilemma, I had to face my original fears about weight lifting and en­ter a weight room where, rather than having the comfort of blending in with my peers like at Sallie Tiernan, I simply did not fit in. I decided to seek out the weight room behind the gym at Claremont McKenna, where, even to my surprise, there was not a single Athena to keep me company. I found myself a lone doe in a sea of soccer-playing Stags. I went through my typical workout of squats, dead lifts, and overhead presses, and as I lifted my legs for the excruciating abs workout only a “Nelson Chair” can provide, I scanned the room and realized that not a single person was looking at me. I was invisible.

I realized that if I were invisible at a gym where I stood out by my gender alone, exhaling loudly under the strain of Tiernan’s dumbbells probably wouldn’t turn too many heads either. Now, there is nothing stopping me from getting as fit as I can with free weights, and I hope there’s nothing stopping you. So go, now. Be brave and lift weights so that when you say you’re a strong Scripps woman, you’ll have the (lean, gorgeous, powerful!) muscles to prove it!

Convinced? Check out www.stumptuous.com and startingstrength.wikia.com for workouts and tips on lifting form.