Guest post by Tokyo-based athlete, gym owner, social impact specialist and author Angela Ortiz Pettas (4 of 4 guest posts in May)

Sekhmet didn't ask if she was ready.

The ancient Egyptians didn't worship her because she was controlled or contained or careful. They worshipped her because she was a force - the lioness, the warrior, the healer.

Power and precision in the same body.

That's the image I keep coming back to when the fitness industry tries to sell me another pastel dumbbell.

Not the aesthetic version of strength; the "toned but not too much" version that's been on the shelf for decades. The real thing. Functional, curious, unapologetic strength.

Strength that changes everything.

Movement was always the low-hanging fruit for me.

It costs nothing. Requires no equipment, no membership, no permission. And somewhere in the rhythm of it - the breath, the effort, the simple demand of putting one foot in front of the other - the noise went quiet. The world's noise. My own noise. The self-limiting beliefs I'd carried for years; the outside difficulties that had no business following me into a training session.

Movement gave me somewhere to go where none of that could reach me.

So that's where I started - with curiosity about what my body could do. I had neither plan nor program.

Just: what happens if I try this?

What happens if I try this?

That question took me through a marathon I had absolutely no business running; and I want to be clear, my body agreed - an ultra I barely survived, three days on a bike, and eventually a Spartan race where I placed third in the elite category and realised I had almost no upper body strength.

I wasn't embarrassed.

I was curious.

So I started closing the gap - pull-ups, planks, then barbells, then the big lifts, movements I didn't even know existed six months earlier!

Along the way, I found a program. Met friends. Conversations followed. The gym, which I'd written off as a place where people grunt loudly and admire themselves, honestly turned out to be a space of genuine openness. Of real learning. Of people figuring things out alongside each other, not performing for each other. Once you stop seeing it as a place where you're being judged and start seeing it as a place where you're allowed to be a beginner, the whole thing opens up.

Here's what nobody warned me about: the strength I was building in the gym didn't stay in the gym.

Every rep was evidence. Every new movement I figured out, every weight I added, every thing I did that I thought I couldn't - it rewrote what I believed about myself. The story of I'm not strong enough, capable enough, good enough doesn't survive years of proof to the contrary.

Designing a life of curiosity and strength

This is what current scientific research is building a strong case for.

Resistance training triggers the release of BDNF - brain-derived neurotrophic factor - a protein that governs neuron survival, memory consolidation, and synaptic plasticity. It also stimulates myokines, proteins released by contracting muscles that cross into the brain and support the growth of new neurons. Research focused on women suggests women may be particularly sensitive to BDNF fluctuations - some studies point to a greater neurological response in females compared to males, potentially linked to estrogen's influence on BDNF expression. Promising, and still developing.

What the research confirms clearly: aerobic exercise increases hippocampal volume in older adults - a region that naturally shrinks with age - and resistance training improves cognitive control and memory performance in longitudinal studies.

You are not just building a body when you lift. You are building a brain. Which frankly explains a lot about my best ideas happening mid-deadlift.

The body of evidence is equally solid. Multiple meta-analyses* confirm resistance training significantly improves bone mineral density in women, meaningful protection against osteoporosis, alongside improved insulin sensitivity, better metabolic markers, and increased lean muscle.

*A meta-analysis is a statistical technique that combines the quantitative results from multiple independent studies addressing the same research question. As with all research - get curious, cross check references if you plan to take action based on it. Of course movement and activity = good! Have fun - stay well.

The fear of "getting bulky" is not physiology. It's cultural conditioning.

Large-scale muscle-gain in women is extremely limited.

What actually happens: you become more capable.

One distinction worth knowing. Strength and size are driven by different mechanisms. Hypertrophy - muscle growth - happens at moderate loads with high volume. Actual strength is a nervous system adaptation. Training above 80% of your maximum effort teaches your central nervous system to recruit motor units more efficiently, fire faster, coordinate better. You get stronger before you look different. The body learns before it shows.

(Weber et al., Brain Behavior and Immunity, 2023; Frontiers in Physiology, 2022)

(Journal of Applied Physiology, 2008; Brain Behavior and Immunity, 2023)

(Wang et al., Frontiers in Physiology, 2023; Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research, 2025)

(Enoka, Journal of Applied Physiology, 2008)

*Please check all medical sources thoroughly and keep moving! (Sarah)

Around this time I found life coaching - and something clicked. I was ready for the deeper work. To redesign my life. To dare to dream of building something fully my own. And in parallel, I discovered something the gym had actually been trying to teach me all along: the value of rest. The power of not pushing through. Of being genuinely kind to myself which, if you've ever held it together purely through spite and caffeine, you'll know is its own kind of training.

Every cycle in the gym mirrors it. You push, then you rest. You go heavier, then you recover. You reach for a weight that felt impossible last month and somehow, because you did the work, it moves.

That's exactly what an audacious goal feels like. The big, wildly improbable dream doesn't get reached by grinding without pause. It gets reached the same way a deadlift does - progressive load, intentional recovery, showing up again.

The community makes that possible. There's a real pull to a room full of people choosing to be beginners together - sweating, failing, figuring it out. There is genuine joy in being a beginner again. And again. Every new movement, every heavier bar, every skill you haven't cracked yet is an invitation back into that openness. That wonder. That slightly unhinged optimism of looking at a weight and thinking - yeah, that's mine.

The return on showing up and doing the work is not measured in the mirror. It's measured in how you carry yourself. What you attempt. What you no longer apologise for.

Because the question was never Why is my body like this? It was always What can my body do? What does it like to do?

Retire the first question entirely. It was never a useful one.

Strength training isn't punishment.

It isn't shrinking.

It isn't performing for anyone.

It's you, learning the language of your own body and mind. Building a biological teamwork that serves you at 45, at 60, at 75 - when the quality of your physical life determines the quality of everything else. And yes, there will come a day when those reps get fewer, those weights get lighter, and rest becomes more powerful than time under tension. What will never change - and what will always have been worth it - is a body and mind in sync.

Sekhmet carried both destruction and healing in the same hands.

Power and rest. Force and recovery.

The audacity to go heavier - and the wisdom to know when to put the bar down.

That's the duality real strength lives in.

In the gym.

In life.

In every wildly improbable goal you're brave enough to reach for.

You don't need to be ready. You don't need permission.

Worst case? You get strong. Best case? You get Sekhmet.

Angela is a fitness industry director, strategist, and community builder behind Across Fitness in Japan. With a background in education

and social impact, she focuses on building sustainable training communities that help people Train for Life—prioritizing consistency, longevity, and long-term health.

Instagram @angelaortizpettas @acrossfitnessnishiazabu @saunter_and_frolic @mi_casa_ichinomiya

https://crossfitnishiazabu.com/

Angela and I run Saunter and Frolic retreats together.

You can find us here - our next retreats are last weekend in August and Mid-November. Join us for all round fun and frolic, rest and replenishment; coaching and physical reset. We also have secret events that you can discover through fun channels.

Strength Like Sekhmet