Training for Aesthetics
A nuanced perspective in a divided industry
I will preface this blog by stating that I am writing primarily for and about women, but I believe the ideas can apply across the board.
In 2022, training for strength, performance, and health is about as fashionable in the fitness industry as it has ever been. This is indicative of a huge leap forward - when I first started 10 years ago, women in particular were just barely considering hitting the weights room for something other than washboard abs. I would credit this with a few things; the rise of crossfit (yes, crossfit is partly good), the rise of powerlifting and weightlifting as popular disciplines for women, and the appearance on social media of more strength-focused influencers. On the whole I see it as a huge leap forward for the fitness industry.
That is not to say that the sexualisation of both sexes is not still hyper-prevalent. One quick scroll through the instagram explore page, or your reels feed, and it is abundantly clear what content gets the most engagement and is favoured by the algorithm. The whole internet is awash with fad diets, booty selfies, and ‘8 minute abs’.
But does that mean that training for aesthetics is inherently bad or wrong? Are your goals less ‘worthy’ or ‘real’ if they include ‘looking hot’?
Not necessarily….
The intention of this piece is to explore whether ‘looking hot’ is a viable long-term goal.
Let’s start with the bad: Your ‘look hot’ goal will never be complete. If you have an ‘ideal figure’ you're aspiring to - that could be you aged 16 (when you’re now 30+) or some fitness model on instagram - you will never attain that goal. You can build a little more muscle on your legs, lose a little more fat from your belly, and you will still never look like that ideal figure you are chasing, because THAT IS NOT YOU. That is someone else. That person is at a different stage in their life, or they have different genetics, a different lifestyle, and a different body type.
The key point here is that you can control your physique to an extent. Indeed, that is why lifting weights and eating properly is so great - it gives you more control over the way your body looks than literally anything else - but you cannot completely control the way you look. You have a bone structure. You have genetics. You will age. You will be predisposed to store fat in certain places and be lean and muscly in others, and you don’t get to choose. For the most part, it is outside of your control.
To use a personal anecdote to illustrate this, I first got into the gym to lose weight, and then I started to care about looking hot. I followed a bunch of bikini models and youtube influencers (Nikki B, BuffBunny, GraceFitUK, I’m looking at you), thinking ‘if I keep going I can look like that too, and then I’ll be done’.
Friends,
I was never going to look like them
For a number of reasons! Those girls were basically getting paid to be in the gym at the time, and had major sponsorships from big brands. I was a full time student and working two part-time jobs on top of studying. They also - and this is the key point -have completely different body types, determined by genetics. Clearly all those gorgeous ladies have naturally small waists, big round glutes, and lean legs. My glutes refuse to grow, my hips are narrow and my waist boxy, and I store all my fat on my love handles and the back of my thighs. My quads and biceps will grow easily, and my upper body will lean out in 2 seconds, but these are not the same physical attributes that made for the fitness models I was trying to emulate. I got frustrated fairly quickly, as you can imagine. But thankfully, rather than giving up, I realised that, maybe I can’t look like them, but I can definitely squat more….
In addition, ‘looking hotter’ is simply going to stop being so interesting after a certain age. The reality of human experience is that age comes to us all, and while your 50+ year old self can for sure be sexy and beautiful, she is never going to look the same as your 18 year old self, and nor should she aspire to - she has different priorities now. Training for aesthetics is going to become much less relevant as you age, and will quickly expire as something that matters to you, so you had better be ready to find a new reason to show up to train. For me, now in my thirties (so by no means old!) I am beginning to understand the value of having a healthy body, in place of a hot one (spoiler: they’re kind of the same thing).
So can you really just say ‘screw looking hot then, I am only going to care about strength’? Well many women definitely can, and do, but for many who state that, it is self-delusion. Let’s take a look at the reality. As a woman, looking good matters, for a number of reasons, but for the single women in the sexual marketplace (at least for the man-loving women amongst us), whether we like it or not, attractiveness plays a huge role in finding a good man. And finding a good one also really matters, especially as we get into our twenties and thirties and are considering how we are going to build stable and loving homes, and start families. Equally, for the women with a significant other already, it is perfectly normal and healthy to care about showing up as the hottest version of yourself for him, ESPECIALLY if he is also killing it in the gym (if he is a lazy waste-man with a dad bod, that’s another story, although in that case maybe you can motivate him by setting an example). Also, a hot body is considered hot for a reason; muscle tone and curves are visually appealing because they represent health and fertility (again, whether we like it or not, it is reality). A healthy-looking, well-trained body is an attractive body, and an attractive body is a healthy one! (I do appreciate that this is a very sweeping generalisation and there are MANY exceptions).
So yes, wanting to look good is normal and can even be healthy if managed correctly. But how do you manage it correctly when social media is awash with booty selfies and washboard abs, and before and after pictures, many of them completely fake or filtered?
For me personally, the answer came when I started being honest with myself. Yes, I want to be strong. I want to lift more weight than I did yesterday (and more than the men in the gym….) and I want to do more pull ups and have beautiful snatch technique. These goals are what enable me to feel like I have agency, efficacy, and control over the outcome of my training. They are also aligned with the type of person I want to become in the ling term: strong, capable, resilient. I also care about being healthy. The years are rapidly ticking by, and I don’t want to be constantly in-pain and immobile by the time I am sixty. If I have kids I want to play with them, and if I don’t, I want to be fully independent. But if I said those were the ONLY those things that motivated me, I would be lying to myself. It is not only those things. It is also because I like the way that being strong looks on me. I am not much into make-up, or hair, or nice clothes (unless lululemons count…), so lifting weights is the way I take care of my physical appearance.
If you care about the way you look and that is a big part of why you train, OWN IT. There is no shame there, and it is a valid goal. But a word of caution:
Do not make it your only motivation, or even your primary one.
Consider this: Train because you want to get a massive squat, or a beautiful clean and jerk, or five strict pull ups. Be consistent, follow your program, and eat to fuel your body for the work you are asking of it. Then have a look in the mirror a few months later. You may notice a profound change in the way your body looks, and not because you turned up to the gym for the purpose of changing it, but because you turned up to perform. You will also experience a new appreciation of your body, regardless of how it looks, because of what it has been able to achieve for you.
Put another way, looking hot does not need to be the sole focus of your training, because, if you follow a well-rounded strength program and eat to fuel your training, looking hot will be a natural side-effect.
Train because
You want a massive deadlift for yourself
You want a functioning heart for your family
You want a big round booty for your man
The goals may look different, but the process is the same.