Women are flocking to weight training, transforming a once male-dominated space; driven by menopause awareness, Ozempic culture and fitness influencers, the trend reflects a broader shift toward strength, resilience and body confidenceRotem Izak|“Now drag the dumbbell toward the target,” the coach shouts at us in a sweaty room filled with the smell of iron mixed with a faint aroma of Lululemon leggings. A dozen women, all in plank position, try to drag a weight across a rubber floor toward a target point. Who has time to think about wording when it’s 15 kilos that must be moved with one hand toward the groin line while the other hand prevents the body from collapsing? Technique is what matters, precision is everything, and don’t forget to breathe.But let’s pause here for a moment, because language creates reality or at least suggests that something about it has changed: in the strength training class at the Tel Aviv Port, open to both men and women, there is not a single man who might feel embarrassed by the coach’s command simply because there are no men here. The testosterone-soaked atmosphere that characterized weight rooms since the early 20th century has been replaced by something else: not soft, not polite and not cute like step aerobics. Just feminine. Women lifting, pulling, pushing and pressing weights wherever needed.6 View gallery Women lifting, pulling, pushing and pressing weights wherever needed (Photo: Jonathan Bloom)Only a decade and a half ago it was quite alone in the weightlifting scene, women were forced to deal with annoying questions such as: “But what will happen to your uterus?” or “Won’t you turn into Arnold Schwarzenegger’s daughter?” Today it can be said calmly: I did not become Schwarzenegger’s daughter, and the two children my uterus produced sometimes come with me to strength training sessions and see how all the mothers lift.It is official: women have taken over weight spaces in Israel and worldwide. A series of studies and reports from recent years shows a sharp rise in the number of women turning to strength training. A study published last year in Sports Medicine and Health Science journal showed that more women are lifting weights in gyms. The annual report of the American College of Sports Medicine named weight training the leading global fitness trend among women, and a Business Insider article from the same year described how gyms in the United States have become “graveyards of elliptical machines” due to the rising demand for strength training among women. In Israel too, more women are adopting weight and strength training as part of their workout routine, and a space once seen as masculine is becoming more mixed.“When I started training 12 years ago I worked with athletes and bodybuilders, and today 90 percent of my studio is women,” says Aviram Bohbot, owner of “Ability,” a strength training studio in central Tel Aviv. “In the past five years more women have come to the weight lifting. We have 80-year-old women and 18-year-old dancers. My mother is 78 and does deadlifts (straight-leg weightlifting), squats and lunges.”How do you explain it?