Muscle mommy is a term used to describe a muscular woman seen as physically or sexually attractive, as well as women participating in fitness activities that emphasized developing muscle. Muscle mommies initially emerged as a social media fitness trend in the early 2020s, gaining popularity particularly on TikTok, and overlapping with a broader rise in popularity of fitness influencers. Like daddy seen in slang used by gay men, "muscle mommy" is commonly used by the LGBTQ+ community, particularly by sapphics. The phrase has been used to refer to real individuals, particularly online fitness influencers, as well as fictional characters in various media including film and video games.
Background Fitness trends for women have often focused on developing slim bodies and emphasized thinness, muscular body shapes for women began to become more widely accepted on various social media communities during the 2020s. Writing about the terms muscle mommy and wheyfu in 2022, MEL writer Magdalene Taylor stated "We're slowly moving past the cultural belief that feminine women 'shouldn't' be muscley. No longer is there a women's fitness binary split between the lean pilates look and the ultra-swole of bodybuilders." Acceptance of muscular women in offline spaces was also noted in the early 2020s. Writing about "Muscle Girls", a muscle-themed café and bar in Japan, Melissa Ge of Tokyo Weekender stated that previously, Japanese societal sentiment "believed that being skinny made women attractive"; Ge cited one of the bar's employees as stating that beauty standards in Japan were "gradually shifting" away from that sentiment. The broader acceptance of fitness trends promoting muscular body types for women overlapped with the rise in popularity of fitness influencers, who are social media personalities and content creators centering their online profiles around health and fitness topics. While they previously achieved followings online during the 2000s and 2010s, such figures began to particularly emerge following the COVID-19 pandemic.
History
Social media popularity and influence on fitness
Taylor wrote that as muscular body types in women began to garner wider social acceptance, or "as the appreciation for a variety of body types expands", the terms wheyfu and muscle mommy emerged. The former term is a portmanteau of waifu (an anime and manga term referring to female characters the viewer or reader "love in a wife-like way") and whey (a protein many weightlifters use). Taylor also cited Urban Dictionary's definition of wheyfu: "a girl, real or not, who hits the gym for strength and you find attractive." Though the latter muscle mommy term was earlier used in the 2015 diet and exercise book The Belly Burn Plan: Six Weeks to a Lean, Fit & Healthy Body by Traci D. Mitchell, it emerged as a popular term in the 2020s, being more closely related to women fitness influencers. The eponymous muscle mommies are women "dedicated to building and showing off muscular strength and physical prowess, in defiance of the idea that women's bodies should take up less space". The muscle mommy term was particularly popular on TikTok, where it was a trend. At the time of Taylor's article, the #musclemommy hashtag garnered over 44 million views on the platform; she noted that many of the women in the initial muscle mommy trend were embracing it themselves. Taylor added that muscle mommy videos embraced the idea of women being muscular "in defiance of many beauty standards that suggest women shouldn't be so physically strong", but also pointed out that many of the videos tagged on TikTok with "#musclemommy" did not "shirk beauty entirely", as they still embraced "conventions of femininity" such as wearing dresses and doing their makeup. The term is also used within the "MomTok" community on TikTok, which comprises mothers on the platform discussing motherhood, with the term in this context referring to literal mothers who are involved in weightlifting and fitness. In 2023, the term was used in official promotional material by the British gym apparel retailer Gymshark; writing for the company, Lannay Dale-Tooze described a muscle mommy as "someone who engages in strength training exercises intending to build and maintain muscle mass, improve their strength and overall fitness levels." Google searches for "muscle mommy" and "strength training women" jumped in 2025, which Business Insider's Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert called a "sign that the strength-first mindset is no longer niche". In 2025, the weight loss drug Ozempic's accessibility and popularity helped usher in the "pilates body" fitness trend amongst women. When this discussing this trend, some women's lifestyle and fitness writers referenced muscle mommies. Róisín Lanigan of The Observer opined "If Ozempic makes extreme thinness accessible, and therefore less desirable as a result, then what comes next? Enter: the post-Ozempic muscle mommy. Toned but not bulky, carefully feminised rather than overtly strong, the post-Ozempic muscle mommy represents 2025 ideals of luxury as much as blue-veined boobs or Rubenesque curves." Meanwhile, Stephanie Maida of PureWow contrasted the two trends with each other, stating that "In a nutshell, 'muscle mommies' are out, 'Pilates princesses' are in. And I hate it."
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