FIRED UP FOR FITNESS

Girls want to lift. It's not them that hinders it, it's the environment," junior Riley Cooper said.

Going to the weight room causes a lot of pressure for girls that are interested in fitness. The environment is very different, and there aren’t a lot of their peers there that they can exercise together with.

“I didn’t really go [to the weight room] at the beginning just because I didn’t really know is was an option and also, I didn’t know how to lift, and I was too afraid to learn, because I didn’t know any of the guys there and they were all scary seniors, Cooper said.

Before the Club

Two years ago, Cooper was a freshman playing on the girls varsity softball and basketball teams. Her love for athleticism and sports led her to spend as many of her lunch and eighth periods in the Jefferson weight room as she could. However, as driven as she was to learn how to lift, the weight room was never the most comfortable place for her.

“I was just a little freshman, trying to get a bench, some squats, maybe some free weights, and all these upperclassmen guys that were double our size and height would just stare at us. They wouldn't let us use a lot of equipment, some of them would just be shirtless all the time. It was just like a really intimidating environment,” Cooper said.

In the lifting station, junior Emma Cox spots for junior Camila Janada while they go through benching reps. “I’d only really benched once before so it’s nice that we taught how to bench and we also practiced squat form too.” junior Megan Enochs said.

Eric Feng

Cooper would often visit the weightroom with her friends Emma Cox and Damilola Awofisayo, who at the time were a freshman and sophomore respectively. The three of them faced the struggles of not only being new to lifting, but also being the only girls in the weight room majority of the time.

“It’s not bad to not be good at something immediately, but I felt embarrassed. My form was bad, I could barely bench the bar, and that’s intimidating to go into this environment that you’re already uncomfortable in and know that you’re not good. At that point, it was just about having an environment where we ourselves could learn,” Cooper said.

Forming a sisterhood Cooper, Cox, and Awofisayo eventually decided in Jan. 2020 to form the Women’s Fitness Club. However, pushback from people already using the weight room kept the club from taking flight until early this year.

“A lot of girls were already interested in the club, which is great, but we faced a lot of resistance from the guys who also wanted to use the waiver and they thought that we were going to take up their lifting periods,” Cox said.

The club was eventually created, and now, in Wo-Fit, inexperienced weightlifters can find a place to start their fitness journey in an accepting environment.

The club, though new, is already creating a sense of community among the new weight lifters. “This [club] is like a sisterhood," Cooper said. "The older girls can teach the younger girls and just foster this environment where they can be vulnerable and be not good at something while feeling comfortable about learning how to do it."