For female exercisers in big-box gyms, it’s a fairly common occurrence: a not-so-subtle tap on your shoulder, followed by a dude motioning for you to take off your headphones.
When it happened to me one recent evening at my gym, the individual in question was hovering uncomfortably over my shoulder. “I noticed your knees weren’t exactly in line with your squat…if you’d like, I can help you get your form down just right,” he explained matter-of-factly, actually reaching down to touch my leg.
With adrenaline running through my veins from being mid-workout, I impulsively wanted to tell him to f *ck off and leave me be. But as someone who has told a man this in similar scenarios—and received a scathing, vindictive response with the word bitch thrown in there somewhere—I sheepishly allowed him to adjust my form. (His technique was also very wrong, BTW.)
Whether they’re being mansplained to like I was, being asked out, or being sold a personal training package by a pushy or flirtatious male employee, most women I know have had a workout disrupted by a man at some point. And after a day’s worth of sending emails with smiley faces and taking up half of a subway seat while the guy next to you manspreads himself over two like butter over toast, the gym should be the most democratizing, liberating time of a woman’s day, where likability and femininity are irrelevant.
On the flip-side, women-focused gyms and studios have a reputation for specializing in traditionally “feminine” workouts, like yoga or Pilates—neither of which are necessarily my cup of tea. So when I got wind of a female-only fitness studio in Manhattan, Uplift Studios, that focuses on high-intensity interval training and weightlifting, I was intrigued. But I wasn't necessarily sold. Would it be the type of gym where two-pound dumbbells reign supreme? I tried out the facility to see.
Uplift Studios is a fitness studio/female society in Midtown Manhattan that serves women only. And the second I walk through its doors, it becomes apparent to me that Uplift was built and operated by women, too. Aside from the laid-back, friendly atmosphere and approachable woman at the front desk (not always the case at posh cycling and barre studios), one locker room toiletry gave this fact away almost immediately: the high-quality tampons.
Even in many predominantly female fitness studios, seeing a jar-full of dollar-store cardboard tampons is fairly common. While a man wouldn't necessarily know the difference when purchasing bathroom supplies, you’d be hard-pressed to find any woman who stocks up on those types of tampons herself. Despite a locker room that was fairly cramped overall, I appreciated the fact that there were nice, plastic-applicator tampons, like the ones I buy for myself at home.
One mentioned that she had been coming to Uplift for over a year, and while the female-only aspect wasn’t the initial selling point for her, she had grown to appreciate the exclusivity and weight-training focus.
“I take yoga and Pilates at other studios in town too, but I come here to lift weights,” she explained to me while another woman waiting for class next to us flipped through the pages of a magazine. “I got kind of intimidated in my old gym’s weight room, and since I have a day job, I could only go when it was crammed.”
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“Red or white?” Uplift owner and founder Leanne Shear asked me shortly after my class ended. The studio doubles as a female networking vehicle, so there are plenty of pinot noir and chardonnay bottles stocked for those weekly social hours. Or, for right after an exercise session because, why not?
“We make it a point to avoid the kind of discourse that might make some women feel uncomfortable,” she explained to me after we clinked glasses of vino. “There’s no talk about bikini body prepping or losing weight. I don’t want to feel like just because I’m doing these crunches that I can’t have my wine!” Amen to that.
Like many women, Shear is no stranger to rude—even crude—comments from men in athletic situations. She told me about a particularly unnerving instance from her early running days in New York.
“I was in a race against my coach one day,” she explained. “Instead of congratulating me afterward, all he said was how huge my arms looked while running.” Although that situation didn’t single-handedly spawn the idea for Uplift, she began hearing similar stories from fellow female runners—how men were commenting on their bodies and making working out an uncomfortable experience—which prompted her to start organizing and coaching running groups strictly for women.
“The women would start giving me feedback and sharing their stories,” she said. “And even though we would run in the park, we were together—we felt safe. Although some men would stare or catcall, it didn’t matter. We were protected by one another.”
“Whether they’re playing in a basketball league after work or doing business at the bar, men have long had access to this ‘Old Boy’s Network’ that women have been excluded from,” Shear explained. “When I saw our running group laughing, socializing, and networking well past midnight, I knew there was a need for this.”
And while Shear has been pushed by investors to make the facilities coed to attract a larger audience, she’s not interested in budging. Many of her clients would, quite literally, have no other place to exercise if Uplift disappeared—for some clients, religious reasons prevent them from exercising or removing certain articles of clothing in front of men. And whether her trainers are developing exercises tailored to women who are undergoing treatment for breast cancer or those who are pre- or post-natal, the studio is focused on serving the most underserved female segments.
When class was about to start, 11 of us including myself (the classes are capped at that number) were ushered into a rectangular-sized studio lined with dumbbells, yoga mats, and a mirrored wall. Looking forward to an all-out HIIT weight training session, seeing the mats was a disappointment. That is, until I realized they're pretty much just there to collect students' sweat.
After a standard in-place cardio warm-up with jumping jacks and high-knees, we jumped right into our weight session. The instructor encouraged us to pick up two sets of weights, a heavy and a light set. And while I take frequent breaks when I lift on my own, our strokes were synced to the beat of the music—leaving me no time to rest and abnormally exhausted only 15 minutes into the workout.
The rest of the workout moved seamlessly from plyometrics like burpees, lunge jumps, and squat jumps, to abs sets, with an ounce of rest in between each (I think I sipped from my water bottle only once or twice). Of course, while there weren’t specified times for breaks, plenty of the other women in class took pauses on their own, and the instructor seemed to take no notice. I should also mention that she was emitting continuous positivity. There were no “punishments” for dropping to your stomach during a plank or failing to reach the specified number of repetitions in a set.
We finished with a series of yoga stretches to end the class—which I totally welcomed at this point.
It should go without saying that not all men are chauvinists hell-bent on disrupting a woman’s workout flow. And to be fair, not all women are welcoming and nonjudgmental. But if you've ever been in an uncomfortable situation at the gym, or have been the recipient of feedback about your body (even if the intentions are good) when you're just trying to lift some damn weights and get on with your day, you can imagine how refreshing it is to remove that part of the equation completely.
I received an amazing workout at Uplift, and I’ve also had amazing workouts in coed facilities with male instructors and gym-goers. But there was something innately special knowing I was sweating it out among like-minded individuals.
Also, any gym that stocks their cabinets with pinot noir is fine by me.
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