Posture-ing
I feel a rash coming on. No, not that type. A rash of posts about exercise and my feelings about my body and such. But that's likely just the endorphins talking.
So--I had to work a bit late last night, but I went to work out anyway, and did 10 minutes of weights and an hour of the stationary bike. The weights felt good to do--although I am suprised by how much my body reverted, as far as strength goes, to my pre-weights stage. I can still lift quite a bit more than I could a year ago, but man, I can't lift what I did 3 months ago.
Still, today I feel very good. That nice ache-yness that comes from doing some hard work or from doing curls. It's a funny thing--the sort of stereotype at a gym is that the men love to do the bench pressing and the curls. For some reason they are seen as the epitome of masculinity or some such; this stereotype holds to such a degree that you often see men with huge biceps and pecs and, say, no quads to speak of. I used to think this was all just sort of culturally created--and that may still be the case--but I will say that after doing curls and bench pressing some yesterday, my entire musculature feels different today. I recognize how much I use my chest muscles, and my arm muscles. That sounds silly perhaps.
Thing is, one of the things that may be happening with the relationship between exercise and my body image is that I may not even be toning up much, really--but I carry myself differently. Shoulders back. Standing straighter. Sure, I have a little belly, but I just put it out there, rather than trying to hide it by slouching and such. And the weights help me to change the way I stand, I think--even a moderate increase in strength makes me feel like walking taller and the like. I know I've learned this lesson before...but I keep forgetting. When I exercise harder, I just feel better. I have to keep it within moderate levels, I think, or I start to get sort of habitually tired, but in general harder workouts mean feeling better.
Now, I've been working out regularly--but I've been focusing pretty much only on cardio for a few months now. And it's the weights that actually make me feel like I'm getting into better shape, though I know intellecutally both weights and cardio are doing the trick. And, of course, they aren't mutually exclusive--I can increase the resistance on the stationary bike to the point that my muscles really feel it...and I do sometimes. But there's something about freeweights--whether it's just a gym culture thing (I did take one weight training class in high school, for which I'm pretty grateful, actually; I know my way around the freeweights, at least, and some of the basic exercises and traps people get caught up in) or not.
Filed under:Health
I feel a rash coming on. No, not that type. A rash of posts about exercise and my feelings about my body and such. But that's likely just the endorphins talking.
So--I had to work a bit late last night, but I went to work out anyway, and did 10 minutes of weights and an hour of the stationary bike. The weights felt good to do--although I am suprised by how much my body reverted, as far as strength goes, to my pre-weights stage. I can still lift quite a bit more than I could a year ago, but man, I can't lift what I did 3 months ago.
Still, today I feel very good. That nice ache-yness that comes from doing some hard work or from doing curls. It's a funny thing--the sort of stereotype at a gym is that the men love to do the bench pressing and the curls. For some reason they are seen as the epitome of masculinity or some such; this stereotype holds to such a degree that you often see men with huge biceps and pecs and, say, no quads to speak of. I used to think this was all just sort of culturally created--and that may still be the case--but I will say that after doing curls and bench pressing some yesterday, my entire musculature feels different today. I recognize how much I use my chest muscles, and my arm muscles. That sounds silly perhaps.
Thing is, one of the things that may be happening with the relationship between exercise and my body image is that I may not even be toning up much, really--but I carry myself differently. Shoulders back. Standing straighter. Sure, I have a little belly, but I just put it out there, rather than trying to hide it by slouching and such. And the weights help me to change the way I stand, I think--even a moderate increase in strength makes me feel like walking taller and the like. I know I've learned this lesson before...but I keep forgetting. When I exercise harder, I just feel better. I have to keep it within moderate levels, I think, or I start to get sort of habitually tired, but in general harder workouts mean feeling better.
Now, I've been working out regularly--but I've been focusing pretty much only on cardio for a few months now. And it's the weights that actually make me feel like I'm getting into better shape, though I know intellecutally both weights and cardio are doing the trick. And, of course, they aren't mutually exclusive--I can increase the resistance on the stationary bike to the point that my muscles really feel it...and I do sometimes. But there's something about freeweights--whether it's just a gym culture thing (I did take one weight training class in high school, for which I'm pretty grateful, actually; I know my way around the freeweights, at least, and some of the basic exercises and traps people get caught up in) or not.
Filed under:Health
posted by Jeff Pollet at 8:37 AM
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