My friend Nia Shanks likes to refer to hard-training women as “beautiful badasses” and I agree! Most of us men will agree that there’s something sexy about watching a woman train hard, especially if she’s using great technical form even when the weight is challenging. Here are thirteen beautiful badasses for your viewing pleasure:
1. Marianne Kane – Here Marianne is performing a bunch of my favourite exercises, from deficit reverse lunges (really a step up/reverse lunge hybrid), to bottoms up single leg glute bridges, to pull ups, push presses, clapping push ups, and KB swings.
2. Rachel Guy – Here Rachel demonstrates that she can fight and shows off some heavy hip thrusts and one arm rows.
3. Nia Shanks – Nia is a natural born deadlifter, but I’m giving her props here for posting her full squat video. Great form especially for her proportions!
4. Jen Grasso – Here Jen pulls 135 sumo like it ain’t no thang.
5. Katie Coles – Katie has some amazing upper body development and this workout shows why!
6. Kellie Davis – Kellie has some amazing glutes and this video shows how she gets them.
7. Karli Stander – Karli’s form is impeccable. I could watch this workout all day long!
8. Jen Comas Keck – Here’s Jen pullin’ and thrustin’ away!
9. Neghar Fonooni – Neghar’s form is amazing, and her drive and determination is incredible. Here she is busting out a Turkish Get Up with precision.
10. Molly Galbraith – Molly is exceptionally strong and this good morning with perfect form demonstrates that.
11. Alli McKee – This video shows off Alli’s superior conditioning levels.
12. Elsbeth Vaino – Here my friend Elsbeth busts out a single leg RDL with more weight than most trained-women can double leg deadlift!
13. Gabrielle Contreras – This is my niece, who at the time was 13 years old. This was her very first training session with me! It usually takes considerable time getting clients to full squat and hip hinge properly, but Gabby could do it right off the bat!
There you have it! And now a tribute to one of the most beautiful badasses around; Jamie Eason. It’s been a while since I posted a picture of her. Enjoy.
Wow. What an inspirational group. I wish more women would realize that being STRONG is sexy….now let’s all go DO SOME WORK!
Awesome post!
I follow all of these women and am working hard to become a beautiful bad ass myself. Thanks for posting about these great women.
this is just more motivating to me. makes me look like a tool.
Awesome post Bret! Makes me want to lift my game even more!! 🙂
I’m so glad you didnt include CharlieJames
Yes, I totally agree. It’s good that Bret can really tell real fitness from “trash-fit-porn” apart.
Thumbs up for Bret’s choices.
Let’s be adults ok. I have seen her website and she works out hard and lets face it …her body rocks! No pun intended.
Ok, let’s be adults.
Kellie Davies’ body rocks, Marianne’s body rocks and most of these ladies’ bodies up here rock too. But you know what? They don’t mix fitness with pornish stuff in order to market themselves in an easier way.
Porn is fine and fitness is fine. But in my opinion hypocritical porn-fitness (for obvious commercial-only purposes) just sucks.
OK, it’s past my bedtime, but I want to go train Right Now! Well done, ladies!
Oh, and my husband affectionately refers to me as a “sturdy bi**h.”
Elaine, you are always know how to make a girl chuckle.
Has it “been awhile seen last posting Jamie” due to the restraining order???
~Sorry it was there for the taking~
~Anonymous Source;)
Great post Bret 🙂 What amazing motivation … right I’m off to do a workout!
Cheers
Awesome post!!! Those are some AMAZING women!
Working hard to get to badass status!
OMG this made my day. inspiring the badass in me.
Cheers
Great videos! Elsbeth, you just gave me something new to aspire toward!
Thanks! I’m so impressed with all the videos on this blog. That’s a serious workout you did there! I need to try those high box step ups.
Wasn’t your niece a sprinter? How is she doing?
Rich, she doesn’t even sprint and she’s the fastest girl in her school. This is just from weight training and plyos. She’s going into high school next year and will get into track & field so I’m very excited to see how things develop. Thanks bud! -Bret
If only every woman trained like this…..there would be world peace and an end to world hunger. Serious.
Kudos to the girls training this hard, for they have to make it thru a jungle of misconceptions and myths that dishearten the weak of will.
Best,
Carlo Buzzichelli
I am very honored to be included int his wonderful group of women! Like the others have said… it makes me want to step my game up even more! Thanks again for compiling and sharing Bret! It’s a tough job, huh? 😉
This is so inspirational!
In the UK I think we’re a bit behind in our approach to strength training – I don’t follow a single British person on my training feeds… :((
Anyone know who the enlightened Brit coaches are?
Hey, I agree – it sucks that very few people are taking the lead in the UK on S&C. My site is heading more and more towards this area, but in regard to home training and KBs. Even tho I am not technically a Coach, you can stop by and see if you like my style 🙂 Tho technically Irish/British 😉
All my feeds come from elsewhere too !
Joanne, couldn’t agree more with you. I am originally from Cardiff, Wales but moved to Sydney 6yrs ago. There are a small handful of good trainers still in London and a few dotted around the UK. Email me and let me know where you are and I can put you in touch. Rachel@rachelguy.com
Hi Joanne,
I am a UK based female and I run a women’s weight training course called Ladies Who Lift. I’ve also been writing my strength training blog gubernatrix.co.uk for nearly four years now. There are coaches who know their stuff but they tend not to blog. You have to go out and find them in real life.
Anyway I wouldn’t normally promote myself so blatantly on someone else’s website but I wanted to answer your question directly and assure you that there are badass women and decent coaches in the UK too 🙂
I agree we are quite behind Joanne. I do follow a few Brits, including Marianne and Gubernatrix, who are excellent, and also Ammi over at http://www.njamworld.com/ but all the rest are American. It’s great to have these sites if you can’t find a real world strength coach.
Hi Joanne,
I’m from the UK as well and there doesn’t seem to be anyone out there! I think these videos are really inspirational, I’ve already done a workout today but this makes me want to go back to the gym!!!
Big up!!!!
Ola.
Thanks for all the comments everyone, and special thanks to all the ladies who post these videos. I send these vids to various women for inspirational purposes and it never fails to deliver. You are appreciated. -Bret
Great post I enjoyed watching all the videos. I keep lifting heavier but man I am not close to being as strong as I want to be lol
what i learned from these videos is that to be a hot chick, you have to wear no shoes or minimalist shoes.
It is hard to tell what their glutes look like, need before and after photos.
I was an awesome post, as usual
Inspirational, informative,and highly motivating. Oh yeah and greatly appreciated thanks
Fantastic line up of amazing women. Funnily enough my trainer had me doing one leg romanian deadlifts today for the first time in the gym. It was the first time he had given them to a client to do and I was the guinea pig! They are suprisingly effective on the glutes and hamstrings – if the associated burn was anything to go by!Altough another gym member asked if we were doing ballet – little did she know! Thanks so much for this post…:-)
Great post! Happy to see Molly G. and Alli M. As a trainer, yoga instructor, and CrossFit coach, I am always so proud to see women get empowered via fitness. @mdsapphire