Sigmundsdottir admits at this point it was difficult not to tear up as well knowing she personally smashed a traditional notion of beauty for one of her fans. Of course, Sigmundsdottir was just like that years ago growing up on the tiny island nation of Iceland, noting that another female athlete helped her do the same.

“I saw [former UFC fighter Ronda Rousey] and I accepted how I looked because she accepted how she looked and she was such a beast in the cage, and then she looked great in a dress,” she said. “So if she can do it, I can do it and I want to be that role model for girls too. Your body will blossom if you let it do what it wants to do.”

“That’s the thing that I was always afraid of and the reason that I didn’t do sports, because I was freakin’ strong for a girl and I got red in the face when I trained,” she said. “And I wasn’t supposed to look different and I wasn’t supposed to sweat, and there was just this standard of how I should be, and I didn’t fit that standard, so I just skipped it instead.”

Now Sigmundsdottir can add fashion designer – she just launched a 17-piece collection with WIT Fitness – to her growing resume, which includes close to two million Instagram followers and icon status within the sport of CrossFit. She said CrossFit’s women have invariably found themselves at the forefront of a new age when it comes to femininity, given the elite athletes are constantly in front of the camera in workout attire.

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Countless studies have shown that Western ideals of beauty for women, in which models are predominately thin or voluptuous in an often unhealthy way, has an incredibly negative impact on young girls, their development and issues with body dysmorphia.

However a 2018 study, which spoke to 16 women who regularly do CrossFit and compete in the sport, found CrossFit not only gave them more confidence in their regular day-to-day lives, but helped them completely change their perspectives of what beauty meant.

The biggest takeaway from the study was that having muscles and a strong physique could be seen as beautiful and sexy if it was tied to a healthy physical activity. Sigmundsdottir said she is more than happy to be a role model for girls out there who want to clean and jerk before they head off to a dinner party, but that she wants them to know it is always a work in progress and having off days is totally allowed.

“With it comes a lot of pressure,” she said. “I have days that I doubt the way I look and I’m trying to put on a jacket and I’m like, ‘F***, why do I have these big shoulders’.

“And maybe I’ve been training all day and I’m red in my eyes and did 300 push-ups and disgusting hands because I do a lot of gymnastics, and then I have to be in a dress and going somewhere and I’m embarrassed that I’m not looking glamorous. So there is that pressure and I need to practise what I preach too, just like anybody else.”

Sigmundsdottir said a big part of this is making sure her Instagram is not full of heavily-edited and filtered photos, and that if she’s posting a shot of herself working out, she’s not ducking out to the bathroom to add some make-up and keeping it natural.

“Instagram a lot of the time shows us the wrong image of how we should look, and it’s just a collection of all the perfect things as opposed to how reality is,” she said. “So my rule for social media is I don’t use filters and I’m not embarrassed if I’m recording a video for two million people and I don’t have make-up on. I am who I am and you either like it or you don’t.”

Of course, now that her line of fitness apparel is out in the world being worn by her fans in gyms, she is getting tagged in photos of women doing CrossFit while wearing the pieces she personally designed.

“It’s just so amazing for me in so many ways. This girl tagged me the other day, she was doing a power clean and got a PR [personal record], and she said, ‘It’s all in the top’. And I thought that was just the best thing ever.”