The Lived Experience of CrossFit as a Context for the Development of Women's Body Image and Appearance Management Practices

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2017-01-01
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Podmore, Miranda
Ogle, Jennifer
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International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) Annual Conference Proceedings
Iowa State University Conferences and Symposia

The first national meeting of textile and clothing professors took place in Madison, Wisconsin in June 1959. With a mission to advance excellence in education, scholarship and innovation, and their global applications, the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) is a professional and educational association of scholars, educators, and students in the textile, apparel, and merchandising disciplines in higher education.

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CrossFit is a fitness regimen that combines aerobic exercise, gymnastics, and weight training. Of interest was how women's participation in CrossFit gives rise to varied appearance- and body-related feelings and behaviors, bodily aspirations, and experiences relative to cultural norms of hegemonic femininity. Data were collected via in-depth interviews with 16 women who participate in CrossFit and were analyzed using constant comparison. Emergent themes included: experiences of CrossFit box culture, ideals aspired to, bodily appraisals, appetites/diets, appearance management, identity, and perceived influence of CrossFit. Seemingly, for some women, CrossFit participation may support experiences of empowerment, including a disposition to transgress hegemonic norms of femininity in terms of the ideals to which they aspire, how they eat, their identities, their views on health and fitness, and their perceptions of gender. For others, however, participation in CrossFit may be experienced as constraining – underscoring traditional gender norm expectations – or may produce feelings of ambivalence.

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