CrossFit Norway women dominate – researcher thinks women tend to be more masculine – NRK Nordland

Rope climbing, weightlifting and swimming.

These are just some of the things that CrossFit athletes coach.

In Norway, CrossFit is dominated by women.

It is good to be measured by what your body can handle, not by your appearance. That’s what Mathilde Owen Garnes of Mosswen says.

Helgelendingen is one of Norway’s best CrossFit.

Males dominated the beginning

In the open class in CrossFit Games, also the hardest category, 10 percent of teams in the competition this year were from Norway.

All of these were women.

CrossFit was first seen as a light sport in the United States in 1995.

12 years later, Norway’s first CrossFit center opened in Bodø.

BBGym Bodø’s Ron Lind is the first CrossFit coach in the Nordic region.

He says the sport was male-dominated when she first came to Norway, but now it is female-dominated.

CrossFit may have had a bit of a solid reputation, but after a while, the ladies took over, says Lind.

He believes that women are better at training in groups, which is why so many women do it.

Garnes knows it.

“The social and team feeling you get from training together kept me going,” she says.

Sports attract women more

Professor Emeritus and Gender Researcher at NTNUJared Hovden believes that there are several reasons why so many women are attracted to the sport.

One of these reasons is that women feel freer to engage in male sports.

– She says that breaking out of narrow ideals of femininity and entering new spaces where you can manifest masculinity creates freedom to express yourself.

Hovden believes that it has become the status of girls to be strong, and that it is not as fashionable to be skinny as it once was.

The number of women in strength training rooms has also risen in the past 20 years. This is evidenced by surveys conducted by Norsk Monitor.

Women also often place more emphasis on the social aspect when choosing exercise activities.

– High intensity fitness program It is claimed to be a sport that creates strong communities and strengthens social relationshipsas you say.

Gender norms are not clear

Hovden believes that women in sports like CrossFit will be able to contribute to changing traditional gender norms in the future.

In the future, women will largely do what men do, she says.

She believes that the separation between femininity and masculinity will become more blurred in the future.

– Gives more freedom to reveal the woman you want to be. Both in sports and in life, Hovden says.

way forward

Garnes has previously participated in WC, NM and CrossFit games.

At the Games, she competed for the title “Fittest on Earth”, and came in 19th place.

There she beat several top American stars in some rehearsals.

The form of training is growing a lot in Norway, so I also hope that more boys will be interested in it, she says.