What Type of Workout Class Is Best for Women Who Want More?

What type of workout class is best for women who want than to just burn calories? 

After decades of teaching women self-defense and fitness, my answer may surprise you. Women do want more than just a workout. It isn’t simply the class that burns the most calories, has the toughest instructor, or gives you the hardest workout. Truly, it isn’t automatically a martial arts or self-defense class just because someone teaches you how to punch, kick, or fight.

Instead, look for a workout that helps you become stronger while discovering what your body can actually do. At the same time,  learning how to use that strength when something, or someone, challenges you is a blessing! Most importantly, you should feel respected and seen from the moment you walk through the door. For me, that is where empowerment begins.

Women Want More Than Burning Calories

Many women who come to me want to lose weight. However, that usually isn’t the whole story.

They also want to feel stronger and more capable in their everyday lives. For example, some have gone through divorce or other major life changes and feel ready to become a stronger version of themselves. 

Others have spent years taking care of everyone else. As a result, they may have stopped making themselves a priority.

Several have already tried traditional gyms. Even so, those environments often didn’t give them the support, connection, or accountability they needed.

What Else Do Women Want?

Women crave community where they feel comfortable enough to keep showing up, especially when motivation disappears. In addition, many women carry concerns about their personal safety, even when those concerns aren’t at the front of their minds. They may feel uneasy walking alone at night, being home alone, or finding themselves around people who make them uncomfortable.

Therefore, getting stronger can mean much more than changing how your body looks.

You want to know your body can work for you, and to trust what it can do.

Ultimately, you want to feel capable inside your body while having the freedom to make your own choices.

Empowerment Isn’t About Looking Tough

I used to think empowerment was mainly a mental state that came from working your body while learning self-defense. You trained your body and learned techniques. Consequently, you felt good, strong, and powerful. For years, I also believed that studying self-defense-based martial arts meant you were becoming empowered.

However, decades of studying self-defense and teaching women changed my thinking. Over time, I began recognizing that women often need something different from what traditional martial arts training provides. Much of traditional martial arts developed around a male paradigm. In retrospect, women’s experiences with violence, intimidation, boundaries, and fear can look very different. Therefore, I believe women’s self-defense training needs to recognize and address those realities.

For example, learning a technique against a cooperative partner doesn’t automatically prepare you for the emotional and physical realities of a confrontation. The reality is that your nervous system activates in any heightened situation, with your body’s programmed responses. Likewise, learning how to wrestle or put someone into a hold doesn’t automatically equal practical women’s self-defense.

Fitness alone doesn’t necessarily create preparation either

Certainly, running a race can make you feel accomplished, while lifting heavier weights can make you physically stronger. Both have value. By contrast, accomplishment isn’t necessarily the same as knowing you can stand your ground when someone challenges your safety.

That distinction matters when we’re talking about empowerment through self-defense and fitness.

An Empowering Workout Starts With How You Feel Walking In

Before you evaluate the exercises, equipment, or workout, pay attention to what you feel when you enter the environment.

• How does your body react when you walk through the door?
• Do you feel comfortable, or does something immediately feel wrong?
• How long does it take before someone greets you?
• Does anybody actually make eye contact?
• More importantly, do you feel like that person sees you?
• Pay attention to the overall energy in the room and how people interact with each other (and with you).

Having to ‘prove’ yourself is just wrong

You shouldn’t have to prove that you’re tough, fit, tall, thin, muscular, or experienced enough to belong there. Furthermore, an instructor shouldn’t talk down to you simply because you’re inexperienced. Instead, you should feel respected for who you are and where you are right now.

Feeling pressured is condescending, as people are. Doing something that feels unsafe simply because everyone else is doing it can be detrimental to your safety. And you certainly don’t need an environment filled with unnecessary alpha-dog energy. Although the right amount of challenge can help you grow, intimidation and disrespect don’t create genuine empowerment.

What an Empowering Self-Defense Fitness Class Can Look Like

In my FighterFit Fempowerment classes, the experience begins before anyone throws a strike. When a new woman arrives, we greet her and help her feel comfortable before class starts. She’s given her gloves, shown where to put her belongings, and we make sure she knows where the bathroom is located. Then we explain what we’re going to do so she isn’t standing there wondering what’s about to happen. Those details may sound simple, however, they matter when someone already feels nervous about trying something unfamiliar.

After a short warmup, we roll out the heavy bags for the first portion of the workout. Next, I demonstrate a HIIT exercise that we’ll combine with strikes on the heavy bag. The segments are timed, and throughout the workout we teach proper form for both the exercises and the strikes. As a result, she isn’t doing a fitness workout first and learning self-defense as a completely separate activity later. Instead, the two develop together.

Her heart and muscles work while her coordination develops. Meanwhile, she learns how to use her body to strike, and eventually strike with tremendous power.

Combining Fitness With Fighting Skills Changes the Experience

After the heavy-bag portion of class, everyone rolls the bags back into the storage area. Then we switch from bag gloves to MMA-style application gloves and begin partner training. Whenever someone is new, I partner with her myself because I want her to feel completely at ease while she’s learning. Very quickly, she discovers that nobody is there to hurt her.

Safety is our number one priority because the foundation of what she’s learning should help keep her safe. As she becomes more comfortable, she can begin to relax. Then, as she relaxes, she becomes more open to learning. She also discovers something else rather quickly: we have fun. The ‘fun’ factor matters because empowerment training doesn’t have to feel angry, aggressive, intimidating, or miserable.

Instead, women can laugh, sweat, work hard, learn to fight, encourage each other, and become stronger in the same room. Finally, we cool down and usually spend a little time chatting together after class. Although the physical workout ends, what she carries out the door can become much bigger than the workout itself.

What Happens When a Woman Starts Feeling Her Own Strength?

I’ve watched this transformation happen with women again and again. At first, a woman may notice the physical changes, as everyday activities suddenly start feeling easier. For example, she can jog up a flight of stairs without thinking twice about it.

Picking up heavy objects becomes normal, instead of automatically asking someone else for help. Playing with her children becomes a breeze—it’s east to push them on a swing without becoming exhausted, or ‘chasing’ each other in fun activities.

Likewise, she might go walking with friends and suddenly realize she isn’t struggling at the back of the group anymore. Those may sound like ordinary accomplishments, however, each one sends a powerful message to her: My body can do this.

As a result, she begins developing a different relationship with her body and its capabilities. Eventually, that realization can begin changing how she moves through the rest of her world. She begins to truly love herself and her body.

Physical Strength Becomes Something Much Bigger

Over time, I’ve watched women develop the confidence to stand up to people who once intimidated them. Sometimes the bully is a relative, while other times it’s a coworker, parent, friend, boss, stranger, or someone on the street. As a woman becomes stronger, she may also begin discovering a voice she didn’t realize she had.

Then, instead of shrinking away, she starts using that voice to stand her ground. As a result, she may begin receiving a level of respect from others that she hasn’t experienced before. Interestingly, she may not have recognized earlier behavior as disrespect when it was happening. Instead, she simply knew that something about those interactions and the way people responded to her didn’t feel good. Now she can recognize that feeling. More importantly, she knows she has choices about her responses.

Ask No One Permission to Make Your Own Choices

This is one of the biggest changes I’ve watched happen in women over the years. A woman begins realizing that she doesn’t need someone else’s permission to make choices about her own life. Furthermore, she doesn’t have to justify every decision or endlessly explain why she wants what she wants. She also doesn’t have to walk around trying to prove how tough she is.

Instead, she knows what she’s capable of, and that knowledge lives inside her, giving her absolute certainty of who she is. That’s a very different kind of badass because it doesn’t require an external performance. In fact, nobody else needs to know it’s there. She knows, and eventually that becomes enough—that’s power.

One Woman’s Journey From Surviving to Taking Back Her Life

One woman I’ll call “Sunflower” showed me just how far this kind of transformation can reach.

When we first spoke on the phone, she was looking for a safe place for herself and her 13-year-old daughter. They had left an abusive relationship, and both of them needed a place where they could begin rebuilding themselves.

Later, Sunflower told me that something important happened during our very first phone conversation. Simply hearing my voice and listening to what I was saying made her sit a little straighter. That stayed with me because her physical response had begun before she ever took a class.

Eventually, she and her daughter began training in FighterFit Fempowerment. Over time, Sunflower became physically stronger and also lost nearly 100 pounds. However, the number on the scale tells only a small part of what changed.

She started walking taller and looking up instead of constantly looking down or shifting her eyes.

In addition, she stopped apologizing for every little thing she did or everything that happened around her.

Gradually, that constant “sorry” began disappearing.

Empowerment Started Changing Her Relationships

As Sunflower changed, she also began setting clearer boundaries with her daughter. As a result, she felt more grounded and focused when helping her daughter work through challenges.

Meanwhile, her daughter began coming out of her own shyness. Both had lived through intense abuse. Therefore, finding their voices wasn’t something that happened overnight. However, they were beginning to find those voices together.

Later, Sunflower ended another relationship because she recognized that her partner wasn’t contributing enough emotional or practical support. She described him as a kind person. However, she also understood that she wasn’t responsible for raising another adult. That decision reflected something much bigger than physical fitness. She knew what she wanted, and more importantly, she trusted herself enough to choose it.

This Is Why I Call Empowerment ‘Embodied’

Over the years, my understanding of empowerment has changed dramatically. I no longer see it as simply a mental feeling that exercise or learning a few self-defense techniques creates. Instead, I believe empowerment becomes embodied through the experience of training your body and discovering what it can actually do.

Your body learns, changes, becomes stronger, and begins experiencing its own capabilities. At the same time, you may begin recognizing emotional truths that you previously buried, ignored, or didn’t know how to name. For example, you may suddenly notice how you stand, speak, make eye contact, or shrink yourself around other people.

Then you begin discovering that you don’t have to keep doing those things. For different women, those discoveries will look different because every woman walks through the door with her own history and needs. However, physical training can become the doorway that allows those discoveries to happen.

Real Self-Defense Training Should Help You Find Your Voice

Physical fighting skills matter. However, self-defense isn’t only about learning how to hit another human being. It also involves recognizing when something doesn’t feel right and understanding where your boundaries are.

Then, when necessary, it means learning how to communicate those boundaries and stand behind them.

As your body becomes stronger, you can also learn how to stand taller, become bolder, and speak your truth. You can do that even when someone else doesn’t like what you’re saying.

Developing your #BadassCourage

That doesn’t mean you will never feel fear again. Instead, it means fear doesn’t automatically get to make your decisions for you. You’ll be able to see more options in different situations.

What Should You Look for in an Empowering Workout Class?

You don’t have to train with me to use these standards when you’re looking for a workout class.

Whether you try fitness, martial arts, kickboxing, or self-defense, pay attention to what actually happens when you’re there.

Ask yourself:

• Do I feel respected here?

• Does the instructor actually see me?

• Do I feel comfortable asking questions?

• Does the instructor explain proper form?

• Do I understand what my muscles should feel during the exercises?

• Am I encouraged to move beyond my comfort zone without being pushed into something unsafe?

• Does the instructor take safety seriously?

• Do I feel supported rather than judged?

• Am I learning skills that have meaning outside the workout?

• Is the environment free from unnecessary alpha-dog energy?

• Can I imagine myself wanting to come back?

After class, however, I want you to ask yourself one more question. How does my body feel? Don’t simply ask whether you’re tired, sweaty, or sore. Instead, notice whether you feel something wonderful and powerful inside your body. That feeling matters because your body is giving you information about the experience you just had.

Accountability and Community Matter More Than People Think

A great workout on paper won’t change your life if you stop attending after three weeks. That’s one reason community and accountability matter so much. In my classes, we encourage women to move just a little beyond where they think they can go.

At the same time, we explain what their muscles should feel so they can better understand what’s happening inside their bodies. When someone pushes herself and discovers she can do more than she expected, we celebrate that accomplishment with her. Sometimes that means a high-five, while other times it’s simply a few words of encouragement.

Either way, the message remains the same: you did that. Eventually, she doesn’t need me to tell her anymore because she knows it for herself.

The Best Workout for Empowerment Should Change More Than Your Body

So, what type of workout class is best for women who want to feel empowered? First, look beyond the name of the class. A kickboxing class isn’t automatically empowering because you punch something, and martial arts aren’t automatically empowering because you learn techniques.

Likewise, a difficult fitness class isn’t automatically empowering simply because you survived a brutal workout. Instead, look for training that combines physical strength, meaningful skills, progressive challenges, safety, respect, accountability, and community. In addition, if personal safety matters to you, look for realistic self-defense training within that experience. Most importantly, notice what begins happening to you outside the class.

• Are you standing taller and speaking more clearly?
• Apologizing less and setting stronger boundaries?
• Most everyday physical activities becoming easier?
• You’re making more choices without constantly worrying about someone else’s approval?
• And, ultimately, are you beginning to trust yourself and your body?

Those changes tell you far more about empowerment than the name printed on the class schedule.

Choose a Class That Sees You

If you want a workout that truly empowers you, look for a class that respects you the moment you walk in.

Be sure you feel seen by at least one person, but especially by the person leading the class. Then do the workout, challenge yourself, and pay attention to what you’re discovering about your body along the way.

Learn what your muscles can do and what happens when you ask yourself to go slightly beyond your usual comfort zone.

And if self-defense is part of your training, learn what your body can do when your safety is at stake. Finally, notice how you feel when class ends. You should leave feeling something wonderful and powerful in your body. Because, ultimately, empowerment isn’t about proving something to everyone else.

It’s about discovering something powerful about yourself.

Contact Clara HERE
Or TEXT her at 831.600.5858