“You guys are all insane in the best way!” Justin Goldman, a personal trainer and group fitness instructor at Equinox in New York City, hollers at a studio full of sweaty students, one of whom is me. We’re slamming 25-pound sandbags onto the ground, thrusting dumbbells into the air and holding planks until we shake.
I live for these 45-minute HIIT classes, in part because they’ve made me very strong, but mostly because I love the positive self-talk that happens during these workouts. Even when I feel like I can’t possibly do one more rep, if Goldman tells me I can sink a little lower in my squat, I do it. Gym Emily feels confident and capable of anything.
Except venturing into the weight room.
Just outside the group fitness room is a well-equipped gym floor. But while weightlifting classes tend to be pretty evenly split between men and women, the floor is basically Bro City.
“It’s extremely difficult to find the confidence to go into a section of the gym that is dominated by men,” says Katherine Menna, another group fitness instructor at Equinox who specializes in classes that draw a predominantly female crowd: Pilates and barre. “Especially if you’ve never done it before, and you don’t have a personal trainer showing you the ropes, which can cost a fortune.”
So how can the intimidated gym-goer step foot in the weight room (or the gym in general!) and get a good workout minus the anxiety?
Enter: The “shy girl” workout.
What is a “shy girl” workout?
There are almost half a billion views for the “shy girl workout” on TikTok. The shy girl workout is comprised of exercises you can do either at home or in a corner of the gym without much equipment or space — basically a workout you can do without drawing unwanted attention to yourself.
Brianna Joye Kohn, a fitness influencer with over 3 million social media followers, posts popular #shygirlworkouts on TikTok. She was inspired to create them specifically after hearing from women that they were…
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