Kathryn Dybdahl, a veteran lifter, breaths in deep, before squatting down with a 45 pound bar and added 35 pound plates on her back, in Skyline High School’s strength room. Dybdahl started lifting freshmen year due to an injury, and ever since then she has craved lifting. As a senior now, she comes into Skyline’s weight room nearly everyday to continue training. Dybdahl is not only part of Skyline’s Barbell Club, but she is one of the two female lifters.

“It’s good for your bones. It’s good for your muscles. It’s good for you overall health,” said Brandon Bedinger, Skyline’s Strength Coach, better known as Coach B. Many times women become “cardio buddies.” They go to the gym use the elliptical and the indoor bikes but rarely do they venture to the weights’ side of the gym. This is not a bad thing, except they are missing out on the incredible benefits those dumbbells and bars can give them.

Other than the obvious benefits for your muscles, weightlifting is important for women’s bones both soon after lifting and later in life. “Everybody wants to do cardio-cardio, but lifting is good for females because it helps increase their bone density,” Bedinger said. “After a certain age on the onset of menopause, bone density in females takes a sharp decline because their estrogen levels decrease and some other things. By weight training, you can increase the density so much so that when that starts to set in it doesn’t have such a negative effect.”

If there are such tremendous benefits to weightlifting then why don’t all women do it? Maybe it is because of the the judgmental stare the words some men mutter under their breathe when they see women come to the weights. “Some of the guys here look at you like, ‘What are you doing you aren’t supposed to be here,’” Dybdahl said.

This judgement just starts in the weight room but transfers over into the way women look. “A lot of people say, oh females shouldn’t get too muscular,” Bedinger said. “They look manly. And to those people I say, if a female looks manly because she has muscles does a man look feminine because he doesn’t have muscles? Because I see a lot of males in the American population who don’t have muscle so they must be feminine then. I don’t buy into that culture. There is nothing wrong with being a strong female.”

Don’t worry about being too bulky. Both the judgment from others while lifting and afterward having muscle and being strong, can be hard to put behind. The way to do it is to pick up the weight and do it. “[I’ve gotten through it] by showing them I mean it by lifting a lot,” Dybdahl said. There is going to be judgment until they are taught otherwise, so for now just put it all behind.

Before going to lift, follow a few easy steps in order to be successful with it. “If you are timid get rid of any timidness in you,” Bedinger said, “It isn’t something you can be timid about. The weight has one job and it is to sit on the ground and not move, so you cannot be timid with lifting.” After getting over that, the next step is to find a teacher. Lifting is dangerous without good form, so find a good teacher and learn proper technique. Along with a smaller risk of injury, having good form is good for women’s sense of purpose in the weight room. If you know good form then you know the stares aren’t from a lack of knowledge. The final step is to attack it and to continue to attack it.

“Stick with it, you are gonna love it. It becomes an addiction more than anything,” Dybdahl said. “If you stop for a week you are gonna crave it. So get to that point, then you are good to go.”

Once the lifting bug bites there won’t be much stopping. “Lifting weights is one of the few things in life that is only satisfied by the act of lifting weights,” Bedinger said, “Because as soon as you reach your goal there is going to be another goal and another goal. You can only succeed at lifting by continuing to lift and lift so you just got to start.”