Rope climbing, weight lifting and swimming. These are just some of the things a CrossFit athlete trains. In Norway, CrossFit is dominated by women. – It is nice that you are measured by what your body can handle, and not how you look. That’s what Matilde Øyen Garnes from Mosjøen says. Helgelendingen is one of Norway’s best in CrossFit. Matilde Øyen Garnes believes that CrossFit has a special community and that this means that many people like the form of training. Photo: private Male-dominated beginning In the open class in the CrossFit Games, which is also the hardest class, 10 percent of the teams in the competition this year were from Norway. All of these were women. What is CrossFit? CrossFit can really be easily explained with a single sentence – functional exercises performed at a high intensity. In CrossFit you do exercises that are related to everyday life, e.g. to push something, to pull something, to lift or to squat down. Precisely the variety is one of the most important things in crossfit, so that the training never becomes routine. Source: CrossFit Norway. CrossFit as a sport first saw the light of day in the USA in 1995. 12 years later, Norway’s first CrossFit center opened in Bodø. Rune Lind in BBGym Bodø is Norway’s first CrossFit trainer. Photo: Privat Rune Lind in BBGym Bodø is the Nordic region’s first CrossFit trainer. He says that the sport was male-dominated when it first came to Norway, but that it is now dominated by women. – CrossFit may have had a bit of a macho reputation, but after a while the ladies took over, says Lind. He believes that women are better at training in groups, and that this is why so many do it. Garnes recognizes that. – The social and team feeling you get from training together made me continue, she says. The sport appeals more to women Professor emerita and gender researcher at NTNU, Jorid Hovden, believes that there are several reasons why many women are drawn to the sport. One of these is that women feel a greater freedom to play sports that are masculine. – Stepping out of narrow ideals of femininity and into new spaces where you can show masculinity creates a freedom to express yourself, she says. “Strong is the new skinny” believes Hovden to be the new ideal. Photo: private Hovden believes that it has become status for girls to be strong, and that it is not as trendy to be thin as it used to be. The number of women in strength training rooms in the last 20 years has also exploded. This is shown by surveys carried out by Norsk Monitor. Women also often place greater emphasis on the social aspect when choosing exercise activities. – CrossFit is claimed to be a sport that creates strong communities and promotes social relationships, she says. Gender norms are being blurred Hovden believes that women in sports such as CrossFit will be able to contribute to changing traditional gender norms in the future. – In the future, women will to a greater extent do what men do, she says. She believes that the division between femininity and masculinity will become more blurred in the future. – It gives a greater freedom to expose which woman you want to be. Both in sport and otherwise in life, says Hovden. The way forward Garnes has previously participated in the WC, NM and CrossFit Games. In the Games, she competed for the title of “Fittest on earth”, and came in 19th place. There she beat several big American stars in some exercises. – The form of training is growing a lot in Norway, so I also hope that more boys will get interested in it, she says. What are the CrossFit Games? The CrossFit Games is a competition where you have to find the fittest man and the fittest woman on earth. The competition is held in the USA and features athletes from over 120 countries. At each CrossFit Games competition, athletes participate in a series of challenges that are unknown to them until just before the events begin.
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Women dominate in CrossFit Norway – researcher believes women tend to be more masculine – news Nordland
