Empowering Women's Powerlifting in St. Louis in St. Louis: Breaking Barriers and Bridging Opportunities

Abstract

The objective of the study was oriented to elaborate actions to promote the incorporation of women to weightlifting in the community of San Luis, due to the limited incorporation of these women to the Cuban sports participation system from the community. Methods used were: analysis-synthesis, document analysis, observation, empirical level techniques. The assessment shows that these actions constitute a valuable contribution in the use of free time, in order to break taboos that still exist in the community. The social stigma and the lack of information persist and favor the existence of erroneous concepts that condition a distancing of women from strength training, which implies that women cannot train in optimal conditions. Although absolute differences in the strength of men exist, women are as capable as men of developing strength relative to total muscle mass. As a main conclusion, the incorporation of female practitioners in a systematic way was achieved; the different aspects that support the referential framework related to the latest approaches of science, allowed to assume evaluative criteria about the phenomenon; which led to an approach to the needs for the incorporation of women to the practice of the sport of weightlifting.