How it feels being a female coach in a male-dominated fitness industry
Written by Jaclyn | 6 minute read
This is NOT a blog about man-hate, nor am I victimising myself. Quite the opposite actually – I’m grateful for the many supportive men in my life. I wrote this to share my own personal realizations and opportunities for growth over the past 12 years as a female coach in the fitness industry.
In the first few years of my coaching career, I met a client at the gym who was surprised I had a boyfriend because he thought most female trainers were gay.
I once covered for a co-worker and trained his client, who I later found out that this client wanted one of the male trainers to be present while I coached him because he wanted that trainer to keep an eye on him to make sure he was doing everything right…
I’ve always been one of those girls whose interests were a bit more “male dominated” – strength training, fitness, woodworking, various rough sports like rugby and jiu-jitsu and other “non-girly” things. That’s just how I am. As I’ve grown to lean into who I am and what I offer as a coach, I’ve grown out of caring so much about the whole male/female coach thing.
There are tons of male dominated careers – law, medicine, construction, finance, tech …and the fitness industry. I used to spend a lot of time fixated on how few female coaches I’ve met in my career. After a decade, I’ve finally gotten used to it and have grown to recognize all of the positive opportunities that being a woman in this industry has to offer.
Throughout my years of coaching, I’ve come across clients who didn’t want to work with me – not necessarily because of my gender, but who knows? If you’ve been doing this job for long enough and have developed your training style, you’ll realize that you WON’T be a good fit for everyone, and that’s actually a GOOD thing.
That stuff used to hurt my feelings (and my ego). I would think to myself “Ugh! How could this client NOT want to work with me?!” and feel all butt-hurt. My perfectionism didn’t take this very well and I took it very personally. But really, it was like chasing an ex who broke up with you – it actually doesn’t make sense to want to work with someone who doesn’t want to be with you. You know what I mean? It’s a bad idea to “force it”. This all makes more sense to me now that I have more skill and confidence as a coach, but at the start of my career I felt deeply offended (which really stemmed from the fact that I was new and insecure).
Unfortunately in the fitness industry, there are some female coach stereotypes and stigmas like:
“She’s going to be soft, she won’t push me hard enough!”
“She’s just bad – what female knows anything about lifting?”
“She won’t let me lift heavy!
“She’ll make me do “girly” exercises”
“She’s vain – all she cares about is her Instagram selfies and booty gains”
If you’ve been around the right coaches in the industry, or if you’re a client and you’ve had great training experiences with well educated, results-oriented coaches, you’ll understand that being a GOOD coach has nothing to do with gender. What’s more important is to look at the coach as a coach – not a ‘female’ coach or as a ‘male’ coach – a coach is a coach. Good or bad.
Their gender does not determine their skill.
**Side note, one could argue, like in anything else that’s male-dominated, a female coach may feel the need to put more work into their professional development to really hone their skills in order to “prove” to others that they are good at what they do. Whereas a male may just coast by (but this is just me being bias towards women, so moving on)
Working to be the best COACH is something I will always strive towards – male, female, they/them – it doesn’t fucking matter, just work to be the BEST YOU at what you do! There are males that are bad, and there are females that are bad. There are males that are GOOD and there are females that are GOOD! Being a good coach is independent of gender.
At this stage in the game – 12 years in – I’ve finally learned to get over myself, break through my insecurities and own up to being the best coach I know I can be. I know I’m not perfect, I never will be, but my growth mindset is what matters.
I don’t care if you think I’m good or not, because I know I am.
To all the hardworking ladies out there, if someone thinks you are lesser than at whatever it is you do just because you are a woman, let them think that. It’s their loss. They have no idea what they’re missing out on.
At the end of the day, I feel incredibly LUCKY to be working as a female coach in this era of ‘female empowerment’ (if you want to call it that). A time in history where career-driven women are becoming more common. It’s a time where I get to see mothers training jiu-jitsu with their daughters, female coaches coaching their athletes at the Olympics, a professional women’s hockey league, a female assistant NHL coach and women who run their own businesses doing cool shit.
These days there are a lot more women interested in strength training who may actually feel more comfortable being coached by another woman. As a female coach, the opportunity to niche down into female-specific coaching – like pre & post natal, menopause, and young female athletes – is a rapidly growing opportunity.
Ladies, now more than ever, we have the opportunity to show the world what we’re made of, to be heard, to be respected for what we do, for our hard work and to help other women who need us. Ladies, get tf out there because today you have the opportunity to pave the way, to set an example for other women and to showcase your skills to be the best, most badass bitch you can possibly be at whatever it is you chose. If you’re feeling insecure, tell that inner voice to shut the fuck up, and get after it.
-Jaclyn
