Model Ashley Graham showed she’s more than just a pretty face on Sunday, posting an impressive workout video alongside her famous friend T. Ortiz.
Inside a New York City gym known as The Dogpound, Graham held a seated Ortiz on her shoulders while she did bicep curls with two kettlebell weights hanging off a bar by rubber strength bands. The workout was an impressive display of strength and balance.
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“Gotta keep my sister uplifted!” Graham wrote while tagging Ortiz.
Ortiz (real name Withelma Ortiz Walker Pettigrew) posted the same video to her own account, writing “I’m Sore [as f—] today, [dog pound] & [Ashley Graham] Made Me Actually Work Out Yesterday.”
Graham made history as back in 2016 by becoming the first “plus-size” model to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. However, Graham doesn’t care much for the label of being “plus-size.”
“Does any woman really just come in and say ‘I’m a plus-size woman’?” Graham asked in an Associated Press interview as she promoted her new book, A New Model: What Confidence, Beauty & Power Really Look Like.
“Maybe as a defense mechanism or maybe as a way to kind of cope with fitting into society but… I just think it’s divise,” Graham continued.
Since gracing the Sports Illustrated Swiumsuit cover, Graham has appeared on numerous shows and covers such as America’s Nest Top Model and Vogue.
Despite her frustrations over the term, Graham also said she’s happy with the direction the fashion and modeling worlds are headed.
“I think what’s really great is the fashion industry has really said, ‘You know what, we’re about inclusion right now,’” Graham said. “We’ve had the body era. We’ve had the waif era, now here we are in the inclusivity era and it’s race, it’s age, it’s gender, it’s size.”
Graham pushed that message of inclusivity further in February when she did a photoshoot with her 53-year-old mother Linda Graham to promote her body-positive swimsuit line, Swimsuits For all.
Linda said in an interview with Vogue it was a new experience for her.
“I had never put on a string bikini. Ever,” Linda said, saying she prefers a bit more modesty.
“What I want is for women my mother’s age to feel empowered and to know that they too can look just as hot in a one-piece, a two-piece, or string bikini,” Graham said regarding the shoot. “I believe that beauty is beyond, age, race, or size, and it’s not a trend — at every stage of your life, you can feel beautiful.”
