The Early Bird: Under Armour is Your New Workout BFF

Let’s get real: it sucks to be a girl that’s focused on her fitness. Let’s move beyond the obvious health benefits to our bodies, and let’s focus a bit on what it takes to actually get to the gym.

I’ve never met a girl that likes shopping for gym clothes. Retailers have a tendency to loop women into a one-size-fits-all group that’s not only unfair, but sneakily misogynistic. If a woman works out, she probably does yoga, dance, and running. She also probably wants to wear as little clothing as possible (pushup workout bras exist, and they’re creepy), and she LOVES pinks, purples, and neons. Sound familiar?

While I’m not about to venture off on a preachy rant about “real” women, it’s important for us ladies to find a place that appreciates that we’re all athletes in some form or another. We might go to yoga, but we might also do tae-kwon-do, or we might be a ballerina that likes to fish, or play field hockey. Either way, our list of athletic activities is just as wide as a man’s might be, and restricting that is no fun at all.

Luckily, Under Armour has been noticing the growing rate of women in sports (women’s makes up roughly $500 million of the $2.33 billion dollar company), and paid attention. They recruited dancer Misty Copeland to appear in a campaign which launches next week, targeting the growing market. The traditionally men’s brand isn’t undergoing a makeover, exactly, but they’re definitely angling themselves in a way that would make girls notice — fast.

Click through for some picks from the brand, next!