For some U.S. Olympians, kicking butt means making your own bigger first.
Tell U.S. bobsledder Kristi McGihon -- a former lean, mean runner -- that she looks slender, petite or, worst of all, "tiny," and she will give a look that can frost your coffee.
Transforming slender thighs to whopper quadriceps is not easy for an elite athlete in a power sport like bobsled. It takes discipline in the weight room and a mental adjustment outside it. Downhill skiers, softball players, basketball forwards and shot-putters know they can't be thin and win.
And McGihon knows it, too.
The men at bobsled training camp in San Diego, where McGihon grew up, recently started calling her "Tank."
It's the kind of nickname that could lead to counseling for a young woman in a culture obsessed with fighting poundage, in which it makes tabloid news if Britney spears a doughnut and gains an ounce. A culture in which television actresses look more and more like praying mantises with each episode.
McGihon, though, takes pride in her new nickname.
She has gained 15 pounds during the past few months and now weighs 152.
Still, a new butt can take some getting used to, she acknowledges.
"There was no full-length mirror in Salt Lake City, and I had to gain it so fast," she said. "I felt like a reverse anorexic."
Not the Sexiest Sport: Track has sex appeal. Sleek, fast, ripped. That was McGihon. The 32-year-old was a college heptathlete until joining bobsled last year. Her teammate Jen Davidson is a former hurdler.
"Part of your track image is your visual appearance of self," McGihon said. "I can't say I've gotten over it. Sometimes when you go out at night and someone looks at you, you just want to run up and tell them 'it's for this reason!' "
Like Davidson, McGihon excelled at bobsled due to her explosive speed, and hunger for a gold medal now surpasses desire to be slender.
McGihon's enormous new glute muscles and massive curved hamstrings and quadriceps are what it takes to get that 400-pound bobsled moving from a static start.
So to bobsled women, big is beautiful, thin a sin. It helps that McGihon spends her off-season with huge men, 225 pounds, on average. Male bobsledders point to the women on the team who appear to be losing weight in the off-season with a shake of the head and a "tsk-tsk."
"She's trying to get a boyfriend," they might say, implying she is succumbing to vanity.
So what is it like for these attractive young women to try to beef up their backsides and supersize their thighs? To get more junk in their trunk? In a culture in which the ka-billion-dollar weight loss industry works to make healthy women feel fat, fat, fat?
Adjusting to the weight gain takes time.
It's not fun to wave goodbye to a favorite slinky gown, McGihon says.
"You try to put on something that you used to wear, and you just go 'Oooooh,' " she says.
Now she brags of eating her pilot, Elena Wise, "under the table." And Wise rushed to gain weight after slimming down for her wedding last year.
Other Self-Esteems: Davidson likes her new skin, packing on 20 pounds for bobsled. She looks at old photos of herself and pilot Jean Racine and says, "We just looked like Q-tips, little twig bodies with these huge helmet heads, like Martians."
"My self-esteem is not tied up in my body image. It comes from my Olympic dream, my 21 medals, my performances. I feel more satisfied with my appearance now," Davidson says.
She does feel like a giant around people not in the sport, and that is frustrating. She can only buy pants with elastic or drawstring waists.
"But I'm at ease with that because my size is a weapon, a tool I use for my job," she says. "I want to be a role model. I would want my daughter to look at me and see you can be fit, powerful and strong and still be sexy and beautiful."
And while bobsled women strive for human tank-hood, few people mistake their bulk for french-fry-induced jiggle.
Last month, McGihon walked into a store to pay for gas on her way to the beach in San Diego. Her abdominals flexed with each step like stacked bricks, her broad back tapering down to bowed-out power hamstrings.
A group of construction workers watched her.
"Track," one was overheard saying. "Gotta be, yeah," says another. "No. Soccer," said a third. "Soccer."
If they watch the Olympics next February when women's bobsled premiers in the Games, they might guess right. There, McGihon and Davidson might look small next to some of the German sledders. But don't tell them that
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