From designing circuit workouts to building skills with free weights, Powerfit offers up a unique opportunity to its students: to build on and grow skills throughout the gym. Whether it’s becoming more comfortable on the machines, or learning new movements, Powerfit is a bold class that takes over the gym — and it’s all girls.
The gym can be a scary place — especially for newcomers. In one corner is a sweaty gym bro maxing out on the bench (for the third day in a row), and in another is a gym rat squatting three times your body weight. Everyone looks like they’re on a protein-only diet, and they look like they might judge you for doing something wrong.
Granted most gym communities (especially at ISB) aren’t like this. But for new gym-goers it definitely might seem that way.
When Ms. Sarah Barnes first arrived at ISB, her colleague Ms. Lee O’Rourke, a teacher in the PE department, had piloted an all-female class and had left it to Ms. Barnes to develop it into what has now become Power Fit. The class is meant to create an environment where girls are comfortable to learn the basics of working out in a gym, without the pressure or anxiety of being surrounded by gym rats.
“If you look around most gyms, you’ll find that it’s mainly male-dominated,” Ms. Barnes tells PantherNation. “When we sort of looked at some of the reasons why women don’t feel as comfortable, there was access, knowing what to do, a little bit of embarrassment when they learned how to move their bodies in certain ways, clothing, all those sorts of things, so we thought that if we created an environment where they were comfortable, we could mitigate those factors.”
“We often talk about female-specific things — like the hormones, the menstrual cycle, and how that can affect their lifting, and just our different bodies and basically valuing being strong as opposed to what a lot of the social media says we should look like,” Ms. Barnes says.
While the goal of most PE classes is to ensure students are staying active, Power Fit reaches deeper than that. The joyful community, supportive environment, and uplifting messages of strength and confidence are as ingrained in the class curriculum as the proper technique for a bench press.
“I just figured it would become a really fun environment and a very supportive environment,” sophomore Ori D’Onofrio-Johnston says when asked about why she signed up for the class. “It doesn’t matter how much weight you’re lifting, it’s all just about how much effort you put in.”
Her classmate, sophomore, Wii Roongtanapirom, shares similar views.
“I was just really scared because the gym environment is always surrounded with guys and gym rats, which makes it so intimidating to even step in. Before power Fit, I did not know what to do, like these machines were like a foreign language to me. I feel like the all-girls community kind of uplifts me to do my best without caring if the guys are judging me or not.”
Power Fit is taking over the gym one weight at a time — building up both strength and confidence in its students. Whether you’ve never even set foot in a gym, or are regular at its machines, Power Fit welcomes all levels of skill — because in the end, the class is more about becoming comfortable in the gym, confident in your body, and knowing how to look after yourself, than it is about perfecting a bench press (although that is a takeaway).
“Being strong is something that you can actually control, and so that’s a definite message,” Ms. Barnes reminds us, “not a tangible skill, so hopefully they will walk away with an appreciation of the ability of their bodies as opposed to just what they look like.”
