The Woman Who Trains Strength

Guided by empathy and endurance, Muskaan Bashir's sessions offer far more than fitness in a culture still coming to terms with women's agency.

- Gowher Bhat

At 6:45 a.m., Go Fitness Gym in Baghat Barzulla hasn't opened to the public yet. But on the second floor, under soft tube lights and the low hum of heating, Muskaan Bashir is already adjusting barbells, lining up mats, and checking the playlist on her phone.

A group of women wait by the mirror wall, water bottles in hand. Some are college students. Others are mothers. Most have never trained seriously before this.

By 7:05, the room is moving. Deadlifts, squats, push-ups. Form corrections. Breath counts. Sweat begins to bead across foreheads. So do stories, of breakups, weight gain, back pain, insomnia, fear.

And in the center of it all is a 29-year-old trainer who's doing more than coaching bodies. She's holding space.

Muskaan Bashir isn't a typical gym coach. She never planned to be one. Her early years were spent mastering martial arts, karate, specifically.

Raised in Srinagar's Rawalpora neighborhood, she remembers childhood in motion: sunrise runs, bruised knees, disciplined limbs.

"Karate didn’t just teach me how to punch. It taught me how to get up when everything in you says stay down," she said.

She became a certified national karate coach before she was 25, a state-level referee by 27. Her room holds medals few have seen. "Those medals are symbols," she said. "They mean I stayed.

But sometime in 2019, after an injury forced her off the mat, Muskaan stepped into a gym and felt something shift.

There was structure, silence, and the possibility of strength without combat. She trained silently, learned weights, and realized that what mattered wasn't how fast she moved, but how steadily she could help others stand.