...but, sometimes, in the gym? The maternal instincts come out.
Sometimes it's mom rage, triggered by people who think their mommy does in fact work there, and therefore they don't have to pick any of their own shit up. Oh, sure, leave your dumbbells all over the floor and your plates still loaded on the barbell or machine. Push the benches all over the place and don't return them to where they belong. Take equipment out of the stretching area and into the weight room, or vice versa, and leave it strewn around so the next person who needs it has to search the whole gym. For extra lulz, do put your dumbbells back but mis-pair them. It's okay. I'm sure someone will be along to clean up after you directly. I think I observed the pinnacle of this yesterday when someone actually left their used towel draped over the safety in the squat rack. The gentleman before me in the rack had his own towel--and it's strictly one to a customer--so I know it wasn't his. He, however, didn't attempt to remove it. I did. I'm sorry, but having some idiot's probably MRSA-ridden sweaty towel inches away from my bare leg when I'm about to squat breaks my concentration, okay? I gingerly picked it up by my forefinger and thumb and draped it elsewhere, cursing other people's inconsideration and entitlement the whole time. No excuse for that. Nobody wants your cooties. God.
But sometimes my mommy instincts come out in a kinder, gentler way. The other night I was in the stretching area and observed a young man doing box jumps. Onto a step with--and I counted--12 risers. In front of a giant plate glass window. On the second floor. While holding kettlebells. I was quite distracted from doing Pigeon (or Swan) pose by this, because every synapse in my brain was yelling "THAT'S NOT SAFE!!!" In all caps like that, I swear. My brain gets very Kanye-esque in these situations. In approximately 1/10th of a second, all possible ways that this could go wrong had filed themselves in my frontal lobe. He was going to miss the step and come down wrong, (at best) spraining and (at worst) breaking an ankle. He was going to trip and fall forward right through the window*** and, y'know, die. He was going let one of those kettlebells go and take out the chick stretching on the mat behind him. There seemed like no way this was going to end well. But the YMCA employees apparently had no problem with it, whether philanthropic or just liability-wise. And, really, it wasn't up to me to go over and say, "Sweetie, I am very sure your vertical leap is important to you, but wouldn't you like to move that step somewhere safer? And take a coupla risers out? And make sure there isn't anyone 8 inches away from your back swing with those weights?" Don't think I didn't think about it though. Including calling him "sweetie." As it turns out, he was still jumping without mishap when I went to change. Hopefully his ankle and the woman behind him's skull are still intact even as we speak.
xoxo
***yes, yes, I DO know the Y is probably smart enough to have safety glass that would withstand a 180lb teenager holding 8 pound kettlebells crashing into it. I still didn't like the looks of that.
For the uninitiated--which I'm sure doesn't include anyone reading this anyway--this is the popular thing in cardiovascular exercise these days. All the old thinking is wrong, wrong, wrong. You don't have to do that much cardio! Fifteen or twenty minutes of HIIT three times a week, and you'll be in awesome shape. You'll catch every train you run for. You'll walk up 25 flights of stairs just for the lulz. Small children will stare at you in awe. Lance Armstrong and Michael Phelps will be calling you for training tips. Attractive people of whichever gender you prefer will be throwing themselves at you. Your laundry will be whiter, your hair will be shinier, and you'll never have morning breath.
Okay, maybe the claims aren't quite that overstated, but everyone who's anyone in fitness seems to want to convince you that a nice three mile jog, a fifteen mile bike ride, or a Zumba class is just a waste of your time. In fact, some will tell you that all those things are gonna catabolize your muscle just like ::snap:: that and make you fatter. Standard steady state cardio is so 20th century. You gotta do intervals. But not just intervals, intervals that are so brutal that they make you wanna puke or pass out, and you can't go for more than 15 or 20 minutes, because you will.
I dunno. I am of the opinion that there's a word for people who make themselves vomit and there's another word for people who like to suffer and neither one of them necessarily should apply to the business of getting healthy exercise. Maybe HIIT *would* make me leaner, stronger, faster, and more shiny-haired. But forty five minutes a week of feeling like hell doesn't seem like a good trade off to me, even if it is broken up into coffee-break length segments. I like to exercise. Why would I want to sign up for something that would make me dread it? And considering that most Americans (to judge from their muffin tops and their type II diabetes) do NOT like to exercise, I don't see HIIT as changing their minds.
I myself have been off the cardio, except for some incline walking on the treadmill, since I've been bulking. Frankly I can't eat enough to stay in a calorie surplus even without it half the time. Running burns calories that are supposed to be going to growing my non-existent lats, yo. But with the advent of autumn and the two months year that it is actually usually really nice outdoor weather in eastern Massachusetts, I've been thinking of running again, just, y'know, once or twice a week. (I promise, I'll eat some cookies afterwards.) If I do, I can assure you it will involve a lovely jog around the pond or down the beach. It will NOT involve uphill sprints till I vomit like a drunk sorority girl on a Saturday night. If this means Lance Armstrong doesn't call, c'est la vie. Y'all know I think he's a douche anyway.
Now, for listening to me rant, here's everyone's favorite drunken Brits as a reward.
xoxo
***Don't quote me on that. I think the T stands for training, 'cause that's the only T word that makes sense, but as usual, I was too lazy to go look it up.
It is an irony in my life that I do not like being told what to do in most situations. But we'll come back to that. First we must get all discursive up in here. A little over a year ago, I lost a bunch of weight while doing very little formal exercise. I walked when I felt like it. I hiked when I felt like it and could convince someone to go into the woods with me. I did yoga at home. When I felt like it. You see the common denominator there, right? Having reached the end of my weightloss journey (don't you hate when people call it that? yeah, me too), I decided the next step was to get in really good shape. It was obvious that that was NOT going to happen without some kind of external structure, vague as it might be.
I narrowed down my options to a few that had piqued my interest. I could do Couch to 5k, a beginner's running program, that many, many people online were enamored with. It would cost nothing, other than new running shoes. The podcasts were even free on iTunes. Or, I could start going to this beautiful new yoga/TRX studio that had opened fairly close--but not terribly conveniently close--to my work. Their website was impressive. The classes, however, were fairly expensive and not all of the ones I would be interested in trying were offered at times that I could get there. I could re-join the all-women's gym I used to go to when my son was young. It was very conveniently located, but I had some personal grudges towards the company based on friends having worked for them. Finally, I happened to walk right by a small group personal training place for women that had opened not too long before. Their website was, well, somewhat scary. They were a franchise, and it all seemed very vaguely cult-like. There was all this hooha about how they didn't accept just anyone as a member and that you had to have a measurable goal you were committed to reaching and you had to "be coachable." I said to my friends, "Oh. I'm probably not, right?"
So I joined the Y across the street from them, and I've never been happier.
What brings this up? Well, I read other people's blogs and workout logs and journals and there seems to be a subtype of person who is the exact opposite of me. They want a coach/trainer and they want that coach to tell them exactly what to eat and when, exactly what workout to do on which days, when they can rest. They thrive on being given direction and not having to make any of the decisions about this stuff themselves. THEY "are coachable." Since just seeing somebody else (who likes it!) being told exactly how many calories they are allowed to have makes my back go up, I feel sure that I was right in my assessment that I am not.
So, what kind of fitness individual are you? Do you like someone else to come up with a plan for you and make you follow it? Is it comforting to have an "expert" taking charge? Or would you rather wing it in your fitness life, making your own plans, experimenting, asking advice from other people and only taking what sounds most sensible to you? Or are you some combination of the above? Do you like structure imposed by someone else? Do you like structure only if imposed by yourself? Do you hate structure of any kind? What motivates you? What infuriates you? What bores you?
If you hang around any online fitness forums, I don't have to tell you that your average 17 year old boy is completely convinced that all that stands between him and success with the ladiez is obtaining rippling ab muscles. I often want to advise these misguided children that charm and personality will get them laid more--a lot more--than that six pack they crave (after all charm can totally be deployed in situations where it's impossible to go shirtless). I'd like to suggest they work on developing conversational skills and a twinkle in their eyes, rather than hanging legs raises. But I'm not their wise old auntie Andrea and kids don't listen anyway.
My same-age friends and I occasionally wonder amongst ourselves when having a six pack became a "thing". It seems like, much like pubic hair removal or pedicures, it went from being something that no one ever thought much about to something almost mandatory overnight. The other day I postulated that no one in the 70s and early 80s had abs and told my audience to go look it up. But because I don't trust anyone to do so, I thought I'd do the work myself.
Here's a man who was one of the biggest sex symols of the early 80s:
And here's a man who is one of the biggest sex symbols of the 2000s:
From "maybe you can make out abs if you squint a little" to "yeah, you could grate cheese on that."
Athletes?
Most famous swimmer of the 1970s:
Most famous swimmer of this millennium:
[In fairness to Mr Spitz, his medals might be hiding some of the glory, and Mr Phelps is less cut in one of those pictures than the other.]
How about famous musicians that women would drop their panties for, no question? 70s version:
Today's version:
And stars who've been around forever can illustrate for us the metamorphosis of no abs to abs:
But what about the ladies? There are a lot of young women who want a six pack too these days. I don't know what they're seeing in the media to drive that, because I had a hard time finding examples of female celebrities with really defined abs.
There's everyone's favorite pr0n star turned fitness guru:
And there's Miss Jackson (if you're nasty):
And then there's Megan Fox, who apparently men find irresistible:
But back in the late 70s and early 80s, we had this:
And, from one of the most iconic film scenes of my youth, this:
Lovely, lovely abdomens on lovely young women, but not a popping muscle to be seen.
And then, of course, we had this:
When your sex symbols are wearing bathing suits like that, the rest of us weren't worrying about our 4 or 6 or 8 packs, capice?
So, kids, I hope this little travel through time has convinced you that my thesis is correct: in my day no one had abs! But as in everything in life, there are always early adopters.
Is that the correct quote? You'd think someone with google at their fingertips could, y'know, go look it up, especially since "go" would mean clicking on a new tab, not walking to a book shelf or, like, the library in three feet of snow, uphill. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. We're just gonna pretend that's a famous quote. If not, it should be. In fact, it is now: "half of life is just showing up"--malevolent andrea, 2011. Tattoo that on your person somewhere. Not too close to your crotch though, 'k?
Ahem. Whatever are you talking about, Andrea? Oh, just that I won my online muscle-building competition today. Solely and completely because of the other five chicks who signed up in April, I was the *only one* who made it to the finish line in August and posted ending pictures. Yes, I won by default. Not the most glorious of all possible victories, but one hundred bucks and some free supplements is one hundred bucks and some free supplements!
Tenacity and a high tolerance for public embarrassment will indeed get you somewhere. Life lesson, all y'all.
Yesterday I took end-of-contest pictures for the silly little online muscle building competition I've been doing for the past four months and my back, she don't grow width-wise. Which is why not being able to zip that dress all the way the other week was particularly maddening. But anyway, I see very minuscule changes in my before and after pictures all around, even though I have been working hard and working hard at eating. Let me tell you something about this whole bulking business. Eating even when you don't want to is surprisingly harder than you would think if you have never been in the position to do it before. It is in fact work.
This all leads me to the big ol' philosophical upchuck I'm about to spew on you. (See what I did there?) One major reason I entered this competition was so it would commit me to keep bulking for the entire four months. I knew that if I didn't have some kind of outside commitment, it would be very easy to give up on it. Not that making a public commitment to something guarantees I'll follow through, but it helps. But why would I find it difficult to keep on doing something that, on the surface, seems pleasant? After all, eating more, and indulging more, sounds fun and enjoyable, right? And there isn't a chance I'd suddenly decide I didn't like going to the gym, because you know I think it's the most fun you can have with (most of) your clothes on. So what's the prob, Andrea?
Some of it I've detailed (ad nauseum) before. It's scary after having lost a chunk of weight to voluntarily put some back on. Psychologically, you (by which I mean me) can feel constantly one extra bagel away from OMFG obesity epidemic! It's not rational, but feelings are feelings. And, as I have also mentioned frequently, there's the whole cultural piece in which people of the female persuasion can never be too thin or too small. Purposefully putting on weight seems almost like a perversion in our culture. But it struck me in examining my (lack of) progress pictures that there is one more and perhaps most important piece to this.
Why would I decide to stop bulking and start dieting? Because, for me--for most women--losing weight is hella easy and putting on muscle is motherfucking hard. Last spring/summer I lost between fifteen and twenty pounds in three months and totally transformed my body. Like, my body at the middle of May and my body at the middle of August looked totally different. This spring/summer I put on maybe three pounds of muscle and three pounds of fat and water weight over four and a half months. My body at the beginning of April and my body at the middle of August look...not totally different. You gotta kinda squint and use wishful thinking to see any kind of changes in the progress pictures.
Losing weight was easier in terms of effort too. Once you spend the first few days being miserable, you (yeah, by which I mean me) get into the groove and you get used to not eating as much and not eating whatever it is you've chosen to cut out, and there's all this external validation as the scale numbers go down and the pants keep getting looser and looser and everyone keeps saying, OMG! you're getting so thin! Whereas the muscle comes on so slowly and no one notices, except maybe if you have a kind and supportive trainer like Liz who points out the striations in your rear delt and makes you want to very inappropriately kiss her. So you're plugging on and plugging on with no real external validation that your hard work is doing anything, other than that your lifts are going up. (And then, if you are me, you read a bunch of people saying that your lifts should *always* be going up, even when you're dieting, and that makes you feel like, eh, again, what's the point of me eating all this damn food?)
Having realized all this has reaffirmed my commitment to keep on bulking, even now that this contest is going to be over. Why? Because, damn it, I ain't giving up just because it's hard. To steal and twist around someone's hilarious sig line, I may have a vagina, but I am not a pussy. So, yeah. Grow lats or die!
The Scarlet Letter!Only "classic" of "world literature" that I had to read both in high school and in college. It wasn't any better the second time around. Nathaniel Hawthorne, you got a lot to answer for. Oh, wait, it's supposed to be books I hate that have to do with fitness. Never mind then.
But before we get to our real next book review, lemme tell you a little story. Two summers I ago I was a combatant in what I fondly (ahem) called The War Against My Uterus. Hey, when you bleed from your vag for ten weeks in an eleven week period and then the hormones they put you on to stop the bleeding while they try to figure out what's wrong with you and schedule surgery make you way crazier than you were to begin with, you gotta laugh or you'll cry, y'know? In my attempt to find out more about my uterine uprising than what webMD was telling me, I went on amazon.com to see if there were a womb book equivalent to the famous Dr Susan Love's Breast Book.
Well. I looked in "Women's Health", which is where I would think a reasonably intelligent person would seek literature about female reproductive organs, no? Well, amazon.com thinks women's health is comprised of two areas and two areas (mostly) alone: pregnancy/fertility (reasonable) and weight loss (WTF?). Yes, a vast number of the books they classify as "women's health" are diet books. This made me rage. [Believe me, when you have a period that lasts two and a half months, you are even crankier than usual.] Furthermore, almost all the diet and fitness books aimed at women promised one thing: that you'll be sexier. Oh, that made me rage more. Yes, I suppose that is an enormous health problem, what with expiring of non-sexiness being the number one killer of women in America and, indeed, probably most of the developed world. Once malaria and bubonic plague are taken care of, our undesirability or lack of conventional good looks is what knocks us off like flies, doncha know.
So, yeah, even when I am not anemic, spending a fortune on tampons, and/or hormonally deranged, I am not a big fan of nutritional and exercise advise being peddled to women as being first and foremost about making them sexah. First of all, there are way more important reasons to be fit and at a healthy weight. Secondly, the whole idea that having a certain body type and shape as the only factor in sexiness is so far from true--no matter what the media would have us believe--it's ridiculous. Being thin does not equal being sexy. Being muscular doesn't equal being sexy. Being sexy is all about a certain je ne sais quoi that you either have or don't and which no diet book can give you. [Ed. note: I have it; that's why I am chronically single. Oh, I crack myself up. Carry on. There really is a book review coming in here somewhere. Seriously.]
This all brings us to another classic of world literature, The Female Body Breakthrough by Rachel Cosgrove. The only reason I bought this book was that Charlotte Hilton Andersen of The Great Fitness Experiment (whose book I did NOT hate, incidentally; in fact, I liked it very much and you should probably buy and read it yourself!) said that the workout in it gave her the most results of anything she had ever tried. I wouldn't myself be able to tell you if Ms Cosgrove's weightlifting program is indeed stellar and does indeed build your muscle and cut your fat like all get out because reading her book for approximately five minutes filled me with such loathing that I will never ever try it. Yes, this is a book all about lifting weights for women whose selling point is mainly ooo, lifting weights will make you hawt! and you will get teh menz you want and all the other bitchez be jellus of you! Rage.
Now it is entirely possible that Ms Cosgrove is not entirely, or even mostly, to blame for this. It is entirely possible that this is what her editors wanted and demanded and the only way she could get this shiz published is to write and sell it that way. Too bad. She is complicit. When she starts talking in the freaking introduction about wanting to turn me into a "fit and fabulous female", I want to fly to California, go to her gym, and punch her in the head. Repeatedly. (That, I'm sure, is a good workout, but it might not make me sexy.) So, what is a "fit female"? Let's let Ms Cosgrove answer that in her own words, shall we?
You know the girl...the one at the last party you went to who walked in the room feeling sexy and confident in her flirty black dress without a roll or a bulge in sight and worked the room with her confidence, looking fabulous! At the time, you may have referred to her as "that bitch who walked in the room thinking she is somebody," and you might have wondered who she thought she was. But deep down we all know she has what all of us want
Um, yeah. That's us chicks, always jealous and competitive with other chicks and hating all the ones we think are better looking than us. Have we time travelled back to 1952 or something? Except, yeah, wasn't true then either. Maybe we've time travelled back to middle school! Sigh. Yes, Ms Cosgrove wants us to be a BITCH, except "from now on, BITCH stands for Be Inspiring, Totally Confident, and Hot!" Tell the truth. Don't you want to fly to California and punch her, too? Do I need to quote more examples, or do we have the flavor here? This is a weightlifting book for women who a.) read Cosmo and b.) take it seriously. I wasn't sure there was anyone over the age of 17 who does that, but whatever. I'm sure Ms Cosgrove and her editors scoped out their target market.
I myself am waiting for the weightlifting book for us wimmenz that approaches it as "throwing some iron around is gonna make you feel all RAWR!" Can't we sell fitness to women as something that's going to make them feel, and be, strong and badass? I myself am more empowered when I look over and notice that I am rowing more than the guy on the bench next to me than I am by having someone check out my ass. Don't get me wrong, being checked out is always (ok, sometimes) nice and feeling attractive is empowering in its own way. It just is not the only freaking thing in life. Rawr!
And now, to reward you for reading my anger-filled screed, here's an example where "sexy" did NOT piss me off. I kinda love this to pieces.
