At Penance, our female clients outnumber our male clients almost 3-to-1.
And if you asked each woman what she gets from training in our gym, you would get a lot of answers that also have a common theme running through them.
We solve a problem for them.
There are 4 major problems that we solve – time, direction, inclusion, and independence. These are not small problems. Women come to us listing these problems as the barriers preventing them from reaching their goals.
Aging gracefully. Creating workout habits. Maintaining active lifestyles.
Each of these things can lead to a life-time of independence.
Most women striving for physical independence have a horror story that they want to avoid becoming. It could be the fear of turning into an older female relative who developed chronic health issues or a deformed body that prevented her from caring for herself in her old age. It could be a decades-long struggle with personal yo-yo dieting and weight loss, and they’re tired of their body feeling drained, fatigued or otherwise ‘not good”. It could be a history of on-again/off-again inconsistency that’s left them feeling hopeless about “what’s coming”.
No woman I’ve ever talked to WANTS her body to feel bad. She wants to look amazing in her 70’s. She wants to be able to keep up with her grandchildren in her 80’s. She wants her doctors to tell her when she’s in her 90’s that she has the health markers of a woman “30 years younger”.
These women want to live long healthy lives and be as independent for as long as they possibly can. They don’t want to have to wait for a man to help them get a box down from a shelf. They don’t want to have to hire someone to do their yard work or help around the house. They don’t want their bodies to “let them down”.
So, we help them train for “what’s next”.
We know that exercising for long-term physical health is much simpler than most people believe it is.
There are three types of workouts that support long-term general health. Those that focus on building muscular strength. Those that focus on developing bone health as well as strengthening tendons and smaller, stabilizing muscles. And those that improve cardio endurance. And we make sure that we incorporate all three types of exercise into our regular workouts.
We ensure that these workouts can be completed by any person, at any experience level, at any age.
That means that a woman in her 30’s can be in the same class as a woman in her 70’s, doing the same workout at the same time, with each woman getting her own best results. Then we continue to repeat these same patterns of exercises over a longer period of time so her body can develop strength and endurance to keep her performing at her personal best.
We do it this way for a reason.
Because when it comes to long-term health, repetition is best.
Repeating the same workouts over time helps to develop a woman’s competence in how her body performs. The more competent she feels, the higher her self-confidence rises. Women with higher levels of self-confidence not only stay more consistent with their exercise routines, but they also seek out opportunities to maintain higher levels of activity.
Strength training, weekly rounds of golf or games of pickleball, dancing, hiking and other forms of activity not only become ways to keep her body healthy. But they also become some of her favorite hobbies. They turn into a means of stress-release, and opportunities to socialize with friends.
And they help her to maintain her independence longer.
After a certain age, women tend to shift their focus from purely exercising to look good, to exercising to maintain a high quality of life and self-fulfillment. And we’re here to support them with that journey.
If these women sound a little bit like you, send us a message. Tell us what you’ve been struggling with and what goals you’re trying to achieve. We’d love to help you get there.