There have been plenty of stories about why you shouldn’t wear a full face of makeup to the gym, as well as ones that give you advice on what to wear if you just can’t work out without it. But if you ask prima ballerina Misty Copeland, the gym is a place for sweat, not foundation and highlighter.

When asked by the good folks at Health what her biggest gym pet peeve is, Copeland said it’s seeing people focus more on turning heads in a face full of makeup than working it out.

“I am not a big makeup girl, and I am kind of like, if I am working out, I’m working out; I am not going to the gym to be pretty,” she said. “So I think maybe when I see people with their hair down and makeup on and a little bra, I am like ‘Girl, just get sweaty and do what you need to do.'”

When she’s not focused on figuring out why the hell people come to the gym with a beat face, the principal American Ballet Theater dancer pushes her body to the limits at her workout facility of choice. Her go-to move to really strengthen her muscles and mind is a plank.

“Something as simple as doing a plank strengthens your mind over matter by having to hold yourself in a position for a long period of time, and you are not being active,” she said. “You’re activating so many muscle groups by simply holding yourself in on place, and you don’t need any apparatus to do it so you can do it anywhere. I hold it for a minute at a time, which is normal. I started working with a trainer recently and he will trick me and tell me it has been one minute when it has been two minutes, and I’m like ‘Why are you doing this to me!’”

Her hard work (training, including dancing and exercise, can be be up to eight hours each day), as well as her healthy diet (her go-to meal for dinner is broiled salmon or roasted vegetables) have allowed Copeland to build a body that a lot of people have been inspired by. But what does she love most about it? Her strength — inside and out.

“I love my strength that my body has held since I was a child, even before dance,” Copeland said. “Not just my big calves that I had when I was a little peanut that looked ridiculous on my body, but the inner strength that I feel like I had because of the atmosphere I grew up in. Growing up in a single parent home and watching my mother raise six children and living in a motel, all of these things I think have given me the strength to be who I am today.”

Image via Splash and WENN