For as long as I can remember, I’ve been working up a sweat, but it wasn’t because I wanted to. (Spoiler alert: I haven’t always appreciated my muscles and curves.)
I was a bold and confident little girl, rarely deterred by hard work or the less glamorous side of sports. My mother says I did backflips off the diving board when I was four years old, right around the time I began my intrepid gymnastics “career.”
I continued gymnastics throughout my childhood, even though I reached the height of 5’7″ by age 12, which is super tall by gymnastics standards. I was a full head above all the other girls, and even though my height sometimes gave me confidence, I also didn’t always feel I fit in physically. I was so tall and “sturdy,” as my mom would say, that it would take a little extra oomph to fling my body around the parallel bars. But I certainly had enough of it to do so: I was muscular, powerful, and determined—all of which were necessary for a sport that required you to tumble, stretch, spin, and tuck over and over and over again.
One day, when I was 11, a tiny teammate of mine couldn’t take her eyes off the pit stains on my leotard. I remember her snide expression as she asked the coach, “Why does Brooke sweat so much?” My face went white, and I suddenly felt self-conscious about something that had never occurred to me as shameful before. Even though my coach quickly came to my rescue (replying it was because I was working hard), my relationship with my body took a critical turn that day.
For the first time I became more aware of how I looked versus how I felt while exercising and moving my body—something that would continue throughout my life and the various exercise modalities I took up. As I entered my teenage years and joined the swim team, softball, and cheerleading, this body consciousness continued and sometimes got in the way of the sheer joy of exercising my strength.
When I was in high school, still tall and “big-boned,” my friend Jacquelyn (“JQ”) and I started shot put—the coach discovered her when he saw her lovingly punch me in the arm during class. The next thing I knew, it was spring track season, and JQ and I met Mia, a more seasoned shot-putter, at the school gym, where we were instructed to spot each other at the bench press so we could build more muscle. This was in Atlanta in the early ’90s—before Michelle Obama’s arms made headlines, mind you, but I loved the challenge. I liked the experience of hearing Guns N’ Roses blasting on the speakers in the mostly dudes section of the gym, and the way it felt to see myself getting stronger.
Out at the shot put circle with Mia and JQ, I felt liberated. I even embraced the grunt—that loud, guttural, “unladylike” noise you make when you release the ball from the crook of your neck with as much force as possible. I wasn’t fretting about how I looked or sounded. I was chasing the pure elation and thrill of “hitting 30” (throwing the metal ball beyond the 30-foot line) to qualify for State with Mia and JQ.
That confidence, though, wasn’t always with me, and at times my body consciousness would creep in. I had originally been mortified to let the cute baseball players see me bench-press (and, in some cases, lift more than them). I had long-standing feelings from elementary school, when the boys bullied me for being so tall and sturdy. And I was the cheerleader in the fall who was always at the bottom of the pyramid catching the girls when they’d fall.
But in the spring, when I was surrounded by my thrower huddle, I felt free to revel in my might and muscle.
Then I graduated college, often moving to small towns where I didn’t have many friends, as I worked toward fulfilling my dreams to become a journalist. Suddenly my physical appearance was tied to my job success (or at least it felt that way). I had to think on my toes on live TV, work my sources and storytelling abilities, and look good doing it. Let’s be real—TV is a visual medium. And in my early 20s, I was feeling like I needed to be very mindful of my physical appearance on camera. It was difficult to feel like my worth as a reporter was connected to the way I looked. (For the record, I don’t think anyone should be judged on their appearance for their job.) Yet I also worked all kinds of awful hours in those early days. Translation: Joining a gym was not a priority.
In my second TV job, I lived next to a high school whose track would taunt me. While I was sporty as a kid, I dreaded those mandatory runs in P.E. So I decided then and there that I would learn to run. At first, I did it because I was always of the mindset that I could lose a few pounds, thanks to the emphasis on appearance in my career. I felt like running was something I should do, rather than something I would find joyful (ha, #hardpass).
I might have started running for appearance-related reasons, but soon I started to lace up for how it made me feel. Slowly but surely, I realized how strong I felt afterward. In my 20s I felt mighty lonely, and working my body in a way I never had in my life made me feel triumphant—not to mention it gave me a much-needed confidence boost in a cut-throat career.
Several years and moves later, I landed my dream job at CNN in New York. Yes, my job was intense. Yes, there was a lot of pressure to perform. And yes, at this point in my career, there were a lot more eyeballs on me. Yet, at the same time, as a kid who was never svelte, I started feeling more confident about my physical body and how I felt on camera.
One reason, I think, is because I knew I needed an outlet where I could just work it all out and feel strong in my skin, and I found that sanctuary in SoulCycle. Several times a week in the morning, I would ride front row with total strangers—strangers who became my community. Just like my shot put days, SoulCycle made me feel strong and liberated. I loved feeling like a member of a pack, staring back at myself in the mirror, watching my body grow stronger and feeling free to walk out into the world as more authentically me. In fact, in the dark with the music pumping, it was the first time in a long time I let out a roar.
After a back injury sidelined me from SoulCycle, I was gutted. These were my people. This was my community. How would I ever find this kind of sweat/soul session again? I was craving another group workout. My career was intensifying, more eyes were on me, and male viewers would often comment on my weight, my arms, my legs, and my ass. I noticed that I sometimes thought of my body as something that wasn’t for me. It was instead for being pretty or thin, or “worth watching” on television. But it wasn’t for me.
This kind of thinking wasn’t healthy. And it wasn’t in line with who I was at my core—someone who appreciated and embraced her power and strength.
I needed some healing, and I found it when I discovered Taryn Toomey’s The Class in NYC’s Tribeca neighborhood. I describe it as HIIT, church, and therapy all in a 65-minute workout. The simple, repetitive choreography encourages you to move without too much thinking, allowing the movement to wipe away the residue of your day. Both The Class and my other favorite workout, ForwardSpace, a woman-founded community dance sweat session, emphasize the value of connecting with yourself while feeling buoyed by the positive energy of the other women in the room.
In The Class we are invited to “make sound” during the workout—to groan, yell, cry, or whoop. And much like my shot put days, the act of using my voice can be incredibly empowering. Both workouts allow me to be present in the moment, to “drop into my body” (as the instructors at The Class are often reminding us to do), and to appreciate what it can do. Engaging in this work of healing myself while in the presence of other women only deepens the benefits for me. There’s something special about women banding together—or as I like to call it, “huddling”—to inhabit this physical and sometimes emotional space.
I am still a work in progress, but after doing these workouts consistently for a few years (even virtually through the pandemic), I am healing from years of feeling I wasn’t thin enough or that my body wasn’t fully mine. And I can’t help but wish that all women could be afforded the opportunity to hold space for themselves and connect inward in an environment where they are free to move, yell, dance, and just breathe among a supportive huddle of other women.
So many of us are riddled with trauma—either from self-loathing, sexual assault, or other physical violence, not to mention the added layers of trauma endured by women who move through a world that brutalizes or disregards them as people with disabilities, Black people, brown people, or LGBTQIA people. So many women put their body at risk every day to simply feed and house their families. So many women live in bodies that don’t receive the respect and honor they deserve.
I am proud to think back to my young, fearless self, and know that I am embodying her again. I want all women to have the freedom to get loud and sweaty in celebration of who we are—and to admire our collective strength together.
Brooke Baldwin has anchored CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin for the last decade. Her first book, Huddle: How Women Unlock Their Collective Power, was released on April 6.
Related:
- 7 Ways to Heal Your Relationship With Exercise and Movement
- A Reading List for Anyone Who Wants to Learn More About Body-Positive Fitness
- 7 Seemingly Empowering Body-Positive Phrases That Actually Reinforce Ableism