In all seriousness: are you going to stop eating wheat, too?
Is it your three-month anniversary?
2: I doubt it. But who knows; I'm susceptible to peer pressure.
Mostly I want something efficient and scheduled so that I put it in my planner and actually do it.
Omg. Omg!!! I am squealing like an 11 year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert who stepped on a squealing piglet.
So beware, heebie. 10 could happen to you.
I wanted to try it today, since I'm home voiceless, but the one in town has a waitlist! So I'm going to the one near Heebie U tomorrow morning.
As many times as it is explained to me what crossfit is, I forget every time.
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I am so totally angry with my aunt right now, because she won't help with any tasks related to my parents or anything practical. Her way of overcoming a difficult childhood is not to engage some, but to totally separate from things and say that she's willing to talk to me and my sister about how we feel, but that's it. A distant relative she was close to used to tell my uncle things like, "You can't tell A this, because it would be too overwhelming for her."
And she's had a ton of therapy, but I think it's all about codependency, and it feels very 70's to me. I think when I was 12 and saw her for he first time since I was 4 or so, she brought out some self-help books. So, I decided to google "inner child," and 70's one of the sites which came up was the Diaper Super Store which has created a diaper to mimic the Pampers of the 70's. It says that they're "great for bringing out the 'Inner Child' in you!"
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14: We sought to build a program that would best prepare trainees for any physical contingency--prepare them not only for the unknown but for the unknowable as well
So, maybe heebie decided to look for the paleo diet she missed out on as a kid.
As many times as it is explained to me what crossfit is, I forget every time.
Biblically based physical training programme. Long-distance walking, fighting bears, wrestling invisible men, carrying big bits of wood around the place, that kind of thing.
Actually the reigning world champ is a hardcore evangelical who works out at a place called "Crossfit Faith.". We try not to talk about this.
Men's, that is. The reigning women's world champ is a badass Icelander appropriately named Thorsdottir.
15.1: Perhaps she saw something nasty in the woodshed?
22: If Danes still did patronymics, I would have the name of my irritating first cousin once removed and he would have the name of my psychologist's partner.
George MacDonald Fraser pointed out somewhere or other that portrayals of Christ as a skinny soulful type were clearly wrong, because he personally had seen the kind of muscle that Middle Eastern moneychangers employ, and if Christ was able to walk in there and start overturning tables and not get beaten down, he must have been built like the side of a house.
Guess what I'm trying tomorrow!
(A friend asked "Is it religious?")
Is it Kool-Aid?
Speaking of, why is Kool-Aid spelled that way? Shouldn't it be Kool-Ade, like lemonade?
18: "Jede Ruf Christi fährt in den Tod."
But first, the pump.
25: "I got your meek and mild right here, pal!"
why is Kool-Aid spelled that way?
I assume it's a pune or play on words; it helps you cool down (unless you put acid in it, in which case, IME, you'll tend to overheat.)
George MacDonald Fraser
I am hoping I don't have to read the Flashman books in order, because I don't want to read the one set in the US just yet.
30: There are several set in the US. Not my favorites, though I love Capt. John Charity Spring like a frat brother. Better read Flash for Freedom! before Flashman and the Angel of the Lord and Flashman and the Redskins, though.
I just read the first one, having never heard of any of the real-life characters except the Queen, Duke of Wellington and Earl of Cardigan. Then went to Wikipedia and was amazed at how factual it was.
There is a breakpoint after which they start to suck -- Fraser starts to like Flashman, and it changes from "Look at this contemptible horror of a man," to "Aw, but you kind of love him, don't you?" And they're fun as long as he's unambiguously ghastly, but once there's any attempt on Fraser's part to make excuses for him, they get kind of horrifying. But that's publication order, not historical order, which is jumbled.
I like the Prisoner of Zenda one -- Royal Flash, and Flashman at the Charge! is also good.
I have recently heard of something called Soul Cycle that, as far as I can tell, is something on an exercise bike and they yell inspirational things at you.
A Crossfit gym recently opened near my house. (About halfway between my house and my favorite bar, actually.) I tried to google more about it, like when it's open and how much it costs, but it does not seem to be on the internet. I see now that they finally have a website. What the hell is a WOD?
Apparently "Workout of the Day".
Workout Of The Day -- there are various combinations of stuff that tend to be named after women. So everyone in the gym is doing the same X pushups, Y pullups, run Z far on Monday, and calling the workout "Darlene", and H benchpresses, I situps, and Z minutes on a rowing machine on Wednesday, and calling the workout "Anastasia".
But Halford actually knows - I've just been looking at websites.
Is this a Crossfit thing or a Camberville thing?:
Note: CrossFit Somerville is a gender-neutral facility. If you are asked what pronouns you prefer when we meet you for the first time, please don't be offended. We ask everyone.
H benchpresses, I situps, and Z minutes on a rowing machine on Wednesday, and calling the workout "Anastasia"
Don't forget the screaming in vain.
40
Do I get to make up my own pronouns?
I also like how the first and second sentences are not related to each other in any logical way I can determine.
I would bet $50 that I am not asked what pronoun I prefer tomorrow morning.
What does it matter what pronouns you prefer? Shouldn't they be calling everyone "maggot" or "puddle of fat" or something?
Is this a Crossfit thing or a Camberville thing?
39 is right. Only a few recurring benchmark workouts are nicknamed after women. The pronoun thing is weird, but one nice thing about CF is that it really is gender and ability neutral; everyone is doing scaled versions of the same thing.
Does your Crossfit have yoga? It looks like the Somerville one has a yoga class every two weeks.
We did, for a while but it wasn't a great fit. Lots of emphasis on stretching and mobility, though. I personally have huge mobility issues and have been thinking about supplementing with a yoga class, but for now I'm working at home on the exercises on the MobilityWOD site (which is great and I highly recommend for anyone looking for guidance on stretching, whether or not you're interested in CF).
I'm not interested in exercise that isn't solitary drudgery.
Not to sound like a mom (have fun and be careful!) but some Crossfits that friends have been to tend to be not good about understanding injury prevention. Very macho pain-is-weakness-leaving-the-body/workouts-should-make-you-barf nonsense. I don't think this is universal because beginners are supposed to be doing scaled-down versions of the same exercises, but being aware of your own limits is good here.
The closest Crossfit to me has yoga and zumba. I still don't think I'll try it, but I'm thinking about getting back to belly dancing and in fact am now in walking distance of a studio where my last teacher teaches. I also met one of the yoga teachers at a party this weekend and she seemed great, plus my across-the-street neighbor attends and I'd be able to walk there with her. And my first pair of barefoot shoes arrive today, though they aren't the funny toe kind. In sum, maybe I'll start doing more than lifting Mara and walking around the neighborhood. Maybe.
If I'm looking at the right website, the CF near Heebie U seems to be particularly focused on Kettlebell and strength training, which is great.
51: you do sound like a mom, one who doesn't do CF. But the better trainers (really, all the good ones) are obsessive about form, so that you can happily do a pain-is-weakness-leaving-the-body, make you barf workout without injuring yourself. If the people you're with seem incompetent, go someplace else.
(Ooh, and they also offer Bharatanatyam for beginners now. Has anyone here done that? I've always hoped I'd be better at that than the bellydancing, but it wouldn't really have the same benefits in terms of strengthening my lower back. Also, maybe now that I'm heavier I'd look more natural and less like some weird angular robot when bellydancing. Dunno.)
Weird angular robot bellydancer would be a really good Halloween costume.
Weird angular robot bellydancer would be a really good Halloween costume.
Jean "Moebius" Giraud, you died too soon.
56: I don't disagree, butI have friends with fairly significant injuries gained through Crossfit. All women, all probably because of poor form but also because of a very macho environment where pushing it beyond the point of good form was common because a good workout should be painful (so they overlooked a sign that something wasn't right.) I also know many that have had good experiences, but I think the consumer does have to watch.
Yes, I agree with 57 -- and know your own limits is a good rule, even when you want to push them.
55: I added a photo to the pool. People can also weigh in on whether I should buzz my hair again, because I think I really want to. Maybe not as short as in that photo, though.
What about Pukey the Clown and Dr. Rhabdo?
59: I like it. No one's ever relied on my taste, with good reason, but I do think it looks good very very short.
There's a difficulty. People obviously shouldn't be pushed to do things that are unsafe without learning form, and injury is really really a serious problem that takes time and training to avoid. However, the US fitness industry is so driven by fear of liability (and also a desire to keep people comfortable and permanently at level one to keep selling them classes) that a lot of people are encouraged to not push themselves at all. I.e. for years people in general and women in particular were encouraged to avoid olympic lifting and use crappy weight machines due to perceptions about risk of injury, as well as a lack of properly trained staff. Never mind that over the long run isolating one muscle on some stupid Bowflex machine is way worse for you than learning how to actually put heavy weights over your own head.
So. You need well trained thoughtful people coaching you. You also need to push yourself and get out of an avoid all risk mentality. But if you don't work out with intensity for fear of e.g. Rhabdo you are cheating yourself, and IMO this is particularly a problem for people like me who do not come into exercising with a lot of background in school sports.
62: I liked it too. Lee fell in love with me with it, so while it's not her favorite I know she'll survive. I was fine with hair when it was very long, but I don't have the patience to get back there again and I think keeping it up all the time now that it's long enough for buns is going to leave me looking like my mother. I don't like having to go to someone to cut it all the time and the only short cuts I've liked have cost way more than I wanted to spend, though I was very happy when buzzing it myself.
Plus I want to look more obviously gay than I do right now, probably because I'm in some sort of boring thing about how boring and suburban a mom I am, but on the other hand is it unfair to kids to subject them to a mom who looks gay and is gay and blah blah blah. Hair is annoying and since I don't color mine, cuts are all I've got. Oh, and the worry is that since I was much thinner back when buzzing my hair (30 lbs. or so, maybe more) I'm afraid that what I liked about short short hair was that it gave me some waifish pixie thing I won't be able to recapture as a boringly normal suburban mom-sized person. I could go on about all this at greater length if unfogged wants to care about my hair angst.
51
Not to sound like a mom (have fun and be careful!) but some Crossfits that friends have been to tend to be not good about understanding injury prevention. Very macho pain-is-weakness-leaving-the-body/workouts-should-make-you-barf nonsense.
I have been given that kind of advice, I ignored it, and I'm glad I did.
Halford, do you have an opinion about the article I read somewhere recently (probably slate, since it seemed annoyingly proud of its surprising newness) about how the reason women don't dunk more is something to do with puberty influencing jump height and girls not being pushed harder and therefore they should exercise harder younger or something? That's such a bogus summary that you probably won't, which was pretty much Lee's response when I tried to bring it up with her.
That said, the friend of mine who was a gymnast and then got too tall to keep going there was able to jump so her feet touched the bottom of the net when we played volleyball in junior high school, and I suspect that sort of training makes a big difference.
But you don't need to rhabdo in order to have a good intense workout with free weights and interval sprints. This is where I, as someone very comfortable with a lot of the functional strength/cross-fit style movements, really have a problem with it. You need not to fear breaking a sweat or being really sore -- and women tend to underestimate, ime, what they can do -- but I think it's actually good to fear kidney failure. I just don't think it's a risk in most intense workouts.
My niece's husband, who's a really, really nice kid who I'm very fond of, just friended me on FB the other day. I'm now much more familiar with the sickest possible Christian Metal songs than I thought I was ever going to be.
Sorry, that should have been pause/played.
I'm not actually sure in what sense these songs are sick. But I'm taking it on faith that his characterization of them as sick is accurate.
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LB: I'm reading The Way We Live Now, and it's amazing! Thank you!
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I'm taking it on faith
That seems like the proper spirit.
I would be concerned about whether your particular Crossfit has people that know what they are doing, or whether it is just a place where someone has been recently trained and plunked down some money.
52: Belly dancing! I did that for a few years--started in PL, believe it or not, and then continued at a very intense studio in Mpls (so intense that I quite because I couldn't keep up with everyone who wanted to go semi-pro). Lots of fun, however, and very body-positive.
75: I would have no idea how to evaluate the truth of the situation.
If they seem generally competent and concerned with proper lifting and exercise form, they most likely are. Also you can check if they have someone has some certifications. But basically you just want to check for general attentiveness to you and what you're doing; you don't need a masters in physiology or whatever.
And, if the place you're going is the place I think (could its initials be either TKC or CFS?) the folks involved look fine.
To 67, I haven't read that article but I've definitely seen some impressive jumps by not very tall women (36'' box jumps) in the gym.
Maybe not as short as in that photo, though.
I was going to say, I like it but it's a bit severe. Although your facial expression plus the lighting contributes to that sense. IRL it might look pleasantly fuzzy.
79: It's the one with numbers in its name.
Plus I want to look more obviously gay than I do right now
Me too, but I don't have the time to get that fit.
67: AB always comments that jumping up to touch things overhead (blade signs, awnings, etc) is such a boy thing to do. I learned it from my big sister, but I bring it up because it suggests that you/the article may be right, that that sort of minor, but constant, activity is part of building that kind of athletic body.
I was always scrawny, but I was active enough that there was a sort of baseline strength - frex, I was useful in moving heavy objects, even as I was devoid of much apparent muscle.
Can everyone tell that I have a crazy deadline?
83 - ha, my first thought too. I nearly asked "bum sex?" and then remembered I wasn't on mumsnet.
84: the person who guesses correctly doesn't get to participate, if that's what you're asking.
Hmmm, that place looks a little globogym for my taste. Obviously hard to tell from a distance and a website though, you should definitely go and see what you think.
Which is to say, it could be totally great.
I like Proacrastinating JRoth! I could talk about absolutely anything and get a response, but I'm uninspired.
I nearly asked "bum sex?" and then remembered I wasn't on mumsnet.
Suddenly I'm rethinking my previous assumptions about what mumsnet is like.
Uninspired, that's fascinating! Tell me more.
Seriously, I'm going to have to pull an allnighter tonight. Pretty sure I'm not 19 anymore, but there it is. I need to give contractors drawings tomorrow, and it won't go over well if I say, "don't worry too much about what's in here, it's just approximate."
There's more swearing and cock jokes than here, that's for sure.
it won't go over well if I say, "don't worry too much about what's in here, it's just approximate."
Tell me about it.
There's more swearing and cock jokes than here, that's for sure.
*weeps*
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Hey, speaking of swearing, this column on the Chomsky v. Everett RECURSION WAR is quite good, found via a language log post with tons 'o other links.
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46: That link about the multiple e-mails reminded me about something seriously irritating about Scott Brown's office. I e-mailed him about something and got put on his list. I recently tried to unsubscribe, and now I get 2 of every e-mail.
I don't have the time to get that fit.
Have you considered CrossFit?
46: That link about the multiple e-mails reminded me about something seriously irritating about Scott Brown's office. I e-mailed him about something and got put on his list. I recently tried to unsubscribe, and now I get 2 of every e-mail.
The links in 96 are indeed quite good.
I recently tried to unsubscribe from Unfogged, and now I get 2 of every Bostoniangirl comment.
The links in 96 are indeed quite good.
I concur.
What's globogym mean? World's Gym?
It means they might ask you what racial designation you prefer, but you shouldn't be offended, because they ask everyone that.
Globo is Spanish for balloon. It means that instead of actual workouts, they just outfit you with inflatable muscles that deploy beneath your clothes. It's all much quicker and easier than bodyslamming crocodiles or whatever. But be careful commenting here: you might run into Spike.
104: if they ask what prolapse you prefer you should check their certifications.
NMM to Adrienne Rich and Earl Scruggs.
It's Crossfit jargon for the despised big, corporate gym that pulls in a lot of people with a lot of fad, crappy classes that keep them permanently at Level 1, instead of the (idealized) smaller, intense, focused place with lots of camraderie and individual-specific training. You can get a flavor of the kind of contrast from this (ignore the bad writing).
95: What we lack in swearing and cock jokes we make up for in earnest discussions of menopause.
Adrienne Rich? Oh. She should live forever.
108: Presumably originating from DodgeBall? Or the other way around?
smaller, intense, focused place with lots of camaraderie
So the least appealing place on earth?
To me, needless to say.
112 - From the movie. Actually the CF description there is pretty accurate.
re Flashman in the US: one of these (the Redskins one iirc) specifically breaks the order in itself -- ie comes in two parts (and lots of the other books "happened" in between).
LB's take is basically correct: GMF's early line is "the empire is awful bcz look, it was actually horrific ppl like Flashman (but even he wasn't as bad as the hypocritical Victorian libruls)". As the series unfolded it became "the empire wasn't as bad as all that, bcz Flashman -- the nastiest it had to offer -- is but a loveable rogue at worst, and the Chinese for example were way way worse, humanitarian intervention no crime etc".
And even so GMF has an superb eye for genuine forgotten and anomalous real-life characters worth digging back out again and studying. Such as the various non-Native Americans thought to be fighting for the Sioux Nation against the US Cavalry at Custer's Last Stand.
116: There is definitely a point at which Flashman becomes more of a horrified (and terrified) observer of actual history than a participant in awful deeds. EG Flashman at the Charge - which is the best of the bunch, IMO - he not only causes the Charge of the Light Brigade out of spite, but actually hurls his nude, pregnant mistress out of a sleigh into the snow to distract pursuing Cossacks. By the time you get to the John Brown and Abyssinia Expedition books, he is really just tagging along while stuff happens around him.
But I don't think that GMF's line was ever that the Empire was awful in itself; his view has pretty much always been that it was overall a good thing, with significant flaws. And if anything his views on humanitarian-intervention wars became more negative with time; Flashman saves his sharpest criticism for psalm-singing hypocrites who want to liberate our poor black (or brown) brothers from tyranny, because he doesn't reckon the dusky savage particularly wants to be liberated, certainly not by us.
"Flashman saves his sharpest criticism for psalm-singing hypocrites": this is certainly true, first to last.
And yes, fair enough, I don't know that I actually know GMF's own personal line: I mean the line a given book seems to be taking, once you factor in your own response to the (morally) unreliable narrator. Plus:
1: Flashman has (as ajay says) less agency, gets less nasty, and as the series lengthens if less of a device of shock humour, more of a device of amusingly familiar continuity.
2: the approach to discussing empire is functioning in a different general cultural climate. The first books came out in the 60s; the very first is clearly and unavoidably making comparison of the two Victorian British campaigns in Afghanistan with Vietnam -- and this was an unusual and a daring thing to be saying at the time, certainly with this kind of mordant flippancy. But later books are coming out when the Empire has actually been a lot more kicked around (esp. in the 70s), out of mainstream habit as much as political pertinence; at which GMF's own attitude, without moving itself, occupies a different position. (And much more recently, courtesy the New Right historians, apologetics for Empire are the become the norm once more.)
3: The regions and events he covers in (some) later books contain much grislier and less familiar cultural details (in particular in Madagascar and China). So the shock effect is not Flashman's role and personality, but what these awful foreigners are doing.
None of these three elements are aspects GMF is particularly controlling or adjusting for as an author (nor need he, really). But they alter the feel and even the meaning of the books, at the time you maybe read them.
Time for a plug for Fraser's memoir of his WWII service in Burma, Quartered Safe Out Here. Very good, if well out of the handwringing style of the era in which it was published.
In addition to 118, which makes a lot of good points, it's worth noting that (IIRC) in the 1960s, shortly before writing the first Flashman book, GMF was out in Borneo as a journalist covering Konfrontasi - (probably) the last of the old-school colonial frontier wars.
GMF's personal line is, I take it, that expressed in the footnotes and endnotes, inasmuch as you assume that "GMF", the narrator of the frame story in which the Flashman Papers are discovered and edited, is the same as GMF, the author of "Flashman".
There's a very obvious reference to Vietnam and 60s fashion in "Flashman at the Charge" - referring to the 1850s Moustache Craze.
I had fun! My muscles are all rubbery and exhausted now.
the 1850s Moustache Craze.
What was that all about, anyway? Was there some advance in shaving technology/economics that made [Anglo? Northern European? Caucasian?] men suddenly realize that they could do all sorts of great stuff with their whiskers? It was like, for 5 thousand years, the options were clean-shaven, neatly trimmed, or long. And then everybody went nuts. And within 50 years, everyone went back to the old ways, and tried to pretend that explosion had never happened*.
I suppose H-G will come along shortly to tell me that actually facial hair has been completely different in every decade of human history.
* on the Times' Disunion blog, I recently saw a picture of a young officer who IIRC went on to become important in the McKinley administration or thereabouts. It looks photoshopped, because he's got these great big whiskers, but his actual hair is short and neatly parted - he looks like Pete Campbell from Mad Men, except wearing a lynx** on his face.
** I wanted to say civet, because it would be funnier, but lynx is more accurate.
My prejudiced, barely-informed gut reaction to Crossfit was that it sounds like a cult. 108 looks like good evidence supporting my initial reaction, and not just because of the bad writing.
The escalation of obesity in this country has occurred at the same time as the expansion of the global gym model. How could we traverse from 10% to 60% obese at the same time we are supporting hundreds and thousands of gym facilities nationally?
I have been to group exercise staff training and listened to instructors ask what comes after this level one Pilates class format. The answer was nothing... The muscle growth and tone from what they have learned will diminish if they simply repeat the same movements with no escalation of resistance, intensity or skill required.
CrossFit offers a path to fitness beyond what most people ever conceived could be obtainable by the common man. They dare to suggest that body fat percentages under 20% for women are not only obtainable but desirable. They straight out of the gate suggest that it may be slightly uncomfortable and mildly demoralizing to face your current fitness level, but with camaraderie and gumption something can be done efficiently to remedy the situation.
122
the 1850s Moustache Craze.
What was that all about, anyway? Was there some advance in shaving technology/economics that made [Anglo? Northern European? Caucasian?] men suddenly realize that they could do all sorts of great stuff with their whiskers?
I think there have actually been a lot of elaborate mustache fads and fashions through history, and there might have been no change in the 19th century except for what the specific fads were and photography keeping better records of it. I've actually read that technology was involved, yes. (In a fiction novel, FWIW, but the series is generally pretty well grounded in science like that.) I don't know whether it was mass-production or what, but without either a good, modern razor or a servant, it would be very hard to shave anything but the sides of the face. If everyone who can't afford a servant has a beard, then sooner or later people would get creative.
Speaking of which, I saw a really elaborate one just yesterday. On the way home from work I passed this guy on the sidewalk who had a moustache turned up and oiled into points at least two inches long. Wow.
The first sentence quoted in 123 caught my attention too, with its mind-boggling stupidness. Yes, isn't it peculiar that gyms have exploded at the same time that people have gotten fatter? The gyms must be the opiate for the fat-(m)asses.
If everyone who can't afford a servant has a beard, then sooner or later people would get creative.
The solution in the early modern period was barbers (the word derives from the Latin for beard, not haircut.) If you couldn't afford to be shaved often you let the stubble go for a week or two between shaves, but full beards were pretty rare in the "long 18th century".
I suppose H-G will come along shortly to tell me that actually facial hair has been completely different in every decade of human history.
I would bet $15 that JRoth had a goatee at some point between 1995 and 2002.
Yikes! I'm pretty sure I don't want a body fat percentage under 20.
I was thinking last night about the claims about cardio exercise and fitness stasis, and, well, duh. Of course you're supposed to be working out at your edge, be that by running faster or farther, upping the resistance on your machine, gradually working up to lifting more weight. But it's easy to be lazy, and to think, Well at least I'm here, that's something. Anyone who makes it a maxim to be pushing themselves in their workouts (as seems to be the case with Crossfit) is probably going to do better than average. And it's also no surprise that people working out with the attention of a trainer are going to be better able to do that.
126: True, I could have been clearer. And there probably was a lot of family barbering going on too. Even so, though, two weeks of stubble is plenty noticeable on most people. I'd still bet that the 1850s were more like the rest of world history in terms of facial hair fashions than today is.
Crossfit sounds like the sort of preening macho hellhole that puts me off exercise altogether.
I think the last thing I would want in a workout is for strangers at the gym to be taking a critical interest in how I am doing--looking at me and seeing what parts of me are still puny and flabby. It is pure body shaming (a powerful tool for cults.)
I understand well that working with other people can motivate. But to have *strangers* *looking* at you and *judging* while you work out is too much.
Honestly, Rob, that's what I would hear from male math students who are terrified that I'll think they're stupid, if they weren't scared I'd think they were stupid.
But of course, you can't ask questions/get help/etc unless you're willing to look stupid/flabby, etc.
It's not shaming when I want someone to come to office hours and work with me one-on-one. It's so that I can see what they're doing, and help them do it better.
Yeah, but math is a mental thing. Obviously, the rules are completely different when we are talking about body things, right?
Seriously, I know well the value of one-on-one attention. The atmosphere sounded more judge-y than that, though.
131: Sounds like a category error to me. I don't think the US body shame-industrial complex and male students' insecurity about their math prowess are at all analogous. Nor the behavior of people at gyms and involved professors.
I didn't feel particularly judged today. But I also already jog and play soccer; someone else might have had a worse experience.
Off to teach! In my mind, I respond to the coach/teacher in the same way, so I put them in the same category. I'll think further about this point.
Actually, I do think that body-shaming comes more easily to people than mind-shaming. Also, if I could find evidence for that, it would help me designing my unit on the moral emotions for ethics class. Sadly, although I have encountered researchers who assume that body-shaming is easier than mind shaming, and researchers who assume that they are the same, I have never found anyone doing more than making assumptions.
What was that all about, anyway? Was there some advance in shaving technology/economics that made [Anglo? Northern European? Caucasian?] men suddenly realize that they could do all sorts of great stuff with their whiskers? It was like, for 5 thousand years, the options were clean-shaven, neatly trimmed, or long. And then everybody went nuts. And within 50 years, everyone went back to the old ways, and tried to pretend that explosion had never happened*.
Oh, not at all. Have a look in the National Portrait Gallery one of these days for a wide variety of things that men have realised they could do at various points in history armed only with a) some money b) some spare time and c) a chin. Wee pointy goatees, square Jewish Patriarch/Assyrian Emperor beards, startling bright red dyed beards roaming the Hindu Kush attached to the wily chins of tribal elders, huge big beards that look like exploded angora cats, neatly trimmed neckbeards on Henry VIII and so on.
Which mental habits deserve scorn?
Balzac was personally slovenly and unable to consider a work finished, always revising. Goffman was extremely defensive, did not take criticism well at all. Kanye West does a really good impression of being extremely vain.
In pop culture, being uniformly positive and energetic seems to me the mental equivalent of always looking great but casual and tasteful.
IMO one of the best examples of publicly validated shaming is Stacy on What Not To Wear.
without either a good, modern razor or a servant, it would be very hard to shave anything but the sides of the face.
Hmm. Not sure about this - weren't ancient Romans pretty much all clean-shaven? Or did they just all go to the barber once every couple of weeks?
In the mid-19th century in Britain there was of course a rising middleclass determined to look and seem at once more respectable, more capable, more cultured and more in charge than the aristocracy they were beginning to supplant, and an aristocracy fighting back, culturally if not politically.
So on one hand these facial curlicues gibe with with the weirdly elaborate neo-gothic sproutiness that Pugin covered the rebuilt Houses of Parliament in: that's the rising middleclass aspect, and it was about exhibiting good-humoured educated gravitas.
But on the other hand, in the cavalry for example, there was a kind of arms race of lunatic design frippery -- Lord Cardigan'a skin-tight cherry-coloured pants! -- which effectively reflected how much cash the head of the regiment (who would be an aristocrat or old-money landed gentry) was willing to spend. This was the anti-middle element, and it was about waste and, well, flash.
The old etymology for the word barbarian is that it derives from "barbarus", which means "bearded". The new -- and funnier, therefore correct -- one is that it comes from "barbar" meaning in effect "blah blah", which is the Latin way of mocking the jibberjabber that comes out of the mouths of all foreigners unable to speak the tongue of Rome.
131: This is one of those things that's true or false depending on what you want out of exercise, and why. Or, I guess, math class.
If you want to lose a lot of weight or recovery from an injury or get in shape for some specific goal like a marathon, and especially if you want to do it in a specific timeframe, then yeah, definitely see a trainer of some kind, otherwise you could hurt yourself.
But if your goal isn't so extreme - if it would just be nice to be skinnier or wheeze less during occasional exercise or whatever - then don't worry about it. Moderate but regular exercise and eating moderately better will produce results. It won't be as quick as a formal regimen, but it'll still be noticeably better for you than a sedentary lifestyle. Personally, adding biking to my commute and reducing the real junk food in my diet has been much better for my waistline, appearance and stamina than Tae Kwon Do* and not thinking about what I ate ever was.
And whether you have a definite goal requiring a trainer or not, there's definitely no need for the guilt/shame spiral that seems to be the selling point of CrossFit. It's possible to get a trainer involved without stuff like in 108 or previous discussions of it around here.
* No offense to my TKD teacher or the discipline in general, it was great overall, but it's the most regimented workout I've ever had and as a workout specifically it wasn't that great.
138: Right -- part of what makes body-shaming easier is that there's broader consensus on what a body 'should' look like. Shaming someone for mental issues is going to be very, very context dependent: the kid in heebie's office can feel warmly confident that while she may know more math than he does, she'd probably come off as a total nerd if she were hanging out with his friends. His shameful lack of mathiness isn't a general flaw, it's only shameful in heebie's office.
Body shaming, on the other hand, while there's some context to what's desirable, it's much less variable for most people across the contexts they inhabit than mental shaming is.
(On the other hand, Crossfit sounds sort of warmly affirming to me -- "While you may not be able to do [X] now, if you work out until you want to puke, you will eventually be able to do much much more." Less about separating people into (athletic) sheep and (you might as well try to stay healthy, but you're never going to impress anyone) goats, and more about supporting people in exploring the limits of individual capacities.)
weren't ancient Romans pretty much all clean-shaven?
During the period roughly 150BCE to 120CE, yes. There's a Latin expression, "In the days of a bearded consul" meaning roughly, "In time immemorial". But beards came back into fashion with Hadrian and were on and off from then on in. Conventionally Gauls were represented as having mustaches but no beards, no idea how accurate this was at what dates.
Think the Roman "no beards" thing was a Republican thing -- along with short hair -- that hung over into the early empire. Septimius Severus was the first "soldier emperor" -- ie rose from the ranks -- and was born in North Africa rather than Rome. So there's a complex class marker going on there too: of things not done that are now done, and vice versa.
re: 143.last
Yeah, I get very wary of seeing martial arts classes marketed as fitness. You'll get fitter (somewhat) doing them, but it's not the primary purpose. Nor should it be, if they are doing a decent job at teaching you the hitting people part. Lots of classes split it, though. With conditioning classes and technique classes on different days, or as entirely different parts of a session. That seems to work. I haven't been doing enough of the conditioning bit [either for me, or for my 'students'] but luckily my fellow instructor has started running separate conditioning sessions for them.
What evidence do we have that people had neatly trimmed hair day-to-day, as opposed to when they wanted a picture or portrait made, or some artist's ideal depiction?
137: startling bright red dyed beards roaming the Hindu Kush streets of Cedar-Riverside attached to the wily chins of tribal elders
Maybe a tangent, but we're talking about portraits and beards-- Chinese portraiture is pretty interesting. This guy ruled during the Roman republic.
148. From Breughel onwards, there was an interest in realistic painting of everyday life in the low countries.
The higher countries found everyday life too grubby to paint.
147: Sure, but it's the most relevant example from personal experience, that's all. I can also say that I get better results from my current commute than from jogging on a treadmill about twice a week, but even I can tell it wouldn't be fair to make an analogy between that and CrossFit. Frequency seems to be the important part, not the macho or cultish parts.
I had fun!
Great!
The sort of preening macho hellhole that puts me off exercise altogether.
I think the last thing I would want in a workout is for strangers at the gym to be taking a critical interest in how I am doing--looking at me and seeing what parts of me are still puny and flabby. It is pure body shaming (a powerful tool for cults.)
I am not a natural athlete, and I'm somebody who had exactly these same kinds of fears before I started, but it's kind of hard to overemphasize how wrong this is about Crossfit specifically. Really, I've been there, had these same fears, and it's seriously not true. There are many reasons for this, but a few are:
(1) it's consciously designed to be opposed to the body builder model where you're exercising for looks and preening; the whole idea is to gain movements that are functional in real life. Functional, overall fitness, not looks.;
(2) there is a super strong anti-body shaming norm -- the idea is that everyone can improve when pushed to their limits. Everyone. For real. I work out with a guy who started off as seriously obese, and people were just happy to have him in there. About the only body type that would get shamed was a body builder with huge pecs who couldn't do a pull up;
(3) everyone is working out together, at their capacity. I work out with two people who are in the top 50 in the world, one in the top 10. They are doing the same exercise (in a scaled up version) as me (and the formerly obese guy), and I am really not good at it by comparison. But at the end of the workout it's not like those guys are preening around with how awesome they are and how easy it was while I'm wheezing; it's scaled, so everyone is working at capacity and collapsed on the floor at the end, and congratulates each other for working so hard.
there's definitely no need for the guilt/shame spiral that seems to be the selling point of CrossFit.
That's just so, so wrong. See above.
The idea that you don't need training if you are not interested in world-beating fitness is appealing, particularly to nonathletic people who were turned off by high school coaches, but wrong. You can make so much more progress with a little help, and you need the most help the less far along you are. Of course moderate cardio exercise is better than nothing, but cardio is only one dimension of fitness (and one that both plateaus quickly and can lead to injury and muscle loss if just repeated mindlessly) and you can, with some help, improve in other dimensions, especially strength, that are more important for daily functional life (and more fun) with just a little bit of help.
Anyhow, I will put my money where my mouth is and will pay $100 to Rob H-C or Cyrus if they go and do a month of Crossfit and, at the end of that month, feel that they were body-shamed or sent into a guilt/shame spiral.
Oh I get it, this isn't body-shaming; its work-ethic-shaming. That does put us back on the mental side of things.
Molly and I have been doing a short run/walk three or four times a week. I've been looking to level up soon, but I think I'm just going to go frum running half of it to running 3/4s of it. After that, we should probably make the run longer, but not get rid of walking altogether, right?
If it were me, I'd go from 50%/50% to ad lib.: run until you really feel like walking, then walk until you don't mind running again. When I've done that, it's progressed to all running pretty quickly.
Yes, but I don't have your work ethic.
Somebody must. It's certainly not anywhere I've looked lately.
this isn't body-shaming; its work-ethic-shaming.
That's closer (you'd definitely get judged if it you obviously weren't putting in effort, because what would be the point?) but misses the aspect that these are short, intense workouts, so that, aside from showing up at all, there's barely time for the work ethic to kick in. You're not supposed to joylessly run 20 miles over multiple hours; if you're trying to get as much stuff done in 15 minutes, there's not much of an element of self-motivation.
I don't think I could universally recommend it, because this kind of thing doesn't work unless you put yourself in it. Same with therapy, or math class, or playing soccer, or horses that just aren't thirsty.
Why would RH-C/Cyrus put himself in an intense exercise situation if he knows he does not like intense exercise? I don't think there's any reason he should.
But, if RH-C/Cyrus is just speculating that he thinks he'd hate the culture, even though he likes the idea of intense exercise, then sure, take Halford's $100 and get back to us.
The idea that you don't need training if you are not interested in world-beating fitness is appealing, particularly to nonathletic people who were turned off by high school coaches, but wrong. You can make so much more progress with a little help, and you need the most help the less far along you are.
Maybe we're just talking past each other. I already agreed that if you want to go above and beyond, then you need help, and this doesn't actually say otherwise.
The money on 153.last is an empty gesture if you actually do the math, but as for my expectations of it, I think your link in 108 was a pretty fair source. If that way of thinking is representative of CrossFit, no thanks. If you're now saying that's not representative, do you have a better source? (I'd like to spend more time on this, but I have a meeting right now, actually. Sorry.)
Why would RH-C/Cyrus put himself in an intense exercise situation if he knows he does not like intense exercise? I don't think there's any reason he should.
Oh, of course, not everything is for everyone. But sometimes people surprise themselves, and how would RH-C/Cyrus know without trying? In any case, the specific fears expressed shouldn't stop them from trying if they're at all interested.
do you have a better source?
Try crossfit.com, and see what you think. Or, check out the website for your local affiliate. Or, show up for a class.
And the question in 160 should not be interpreted as an offer to do this if only you find a better blog post. Sorry, just trying to be both quick and clear, FBOFW.
Halford, my own chief reservation about something like Crossfit is that yo, I have mild degenerative disc disease in my lower back, which sometimes leads to a partially herniated disc down there (and either shooting pain or numbness down my right leg), and so I cannot do some things. Sometimes I can do them better, and more, and great, and sometimes it's just a bad idea. In the absence of a trainer who understands those circumstances physiologically (that is, that one can do permanent damage to the sciatic nerve if it's already pinched), I'd be out of there. The work-through-the-pain thing only goes so far, and I have to be the judge of that.
164 -- That's obviously a very real concern, and you'd want to be sure that you're with folks who know what they're doing and are appropriately scaling the exercises for you and your situation. One of the coaches at my gym is a licensed Physical Therapist, and I'm pretty sure that you could find a Crossfit or strength gym in the B-More area with someone like that; might be worth a try if you're interested.
165: That's what I'd need to know, yes: that there's a physical therapist who understands the scenario.
It would be good for your persistent "anyone can do it, anyone, really" rhetoric to always include a caveat along these lines. Some people have a heart arrhythmia, for heaven's sake. Crossfit just may not be right for everyone; it seems to assume states of being that do not always obtain.
Like Parsi I have spine issues (with bone-to-bone contact, and not the good kind) which keeps me away from certain types of exercise. I'd totes try Crossfit if there was an LPT on site, though. Trying to get advice on exercise with a buggered back is a huge pain in the ass. The sum total of the advice I've gotten from professionals boils down to "if it hurts, stop."
But wouldn't they pick on helpy-chalk for being a vegetarian? I thought you said your gym did that!
167: Tog, haven't you gotten advice from physical therapists?
168: No, that's our daycare. He'd need a doctor's note.
My own CF gym is a pretty extreme outlier on the pro-meat eating side. The owner, who is pleasant but fairly insane, did put up a spray-painted sign that was supposed to say "We Eat Vegetarians" after a guy noisily quit the gym and said "why don't you put up a sign that says 'no vegetarians allowed' and see how your business does?" The only problem was that the guy who painted the sign forgot to add an "s", so now there's a big sign that says "We Eat Vegetarian" with a tiny "s" written in marker next to it.
In reality, there are some vegetarians in the gym, and even a vegan guy.
169: Nothing that isn't either obvious or useless. I'm very frustrated about this. I recognize the difficulty of providing advice about such a complex problem but I'm surprised at how lousy the advice has generally been. As is I'm just working on aerobic fitness and core strengthening exercises, but even with those you have to be a little careful. I am taking an approach of very gradually expanding the envelope and watching for signs of trouble, which boils down to carefully following the advice to avoid pain.
One resource that I'm starting to use and which looks promising is a set of CDs on Viniyoga for spinal injury. It's similar to the exercises I did in PT immediately after the injury but there's more room to push the envelope with longer holds, more reps, and greater variety.
FWIW, and it doesn't sound remotely as serious as what Toggles or Parsi have, I have pretty severe scoliosis. And share some of the frustration.
Here's a CF gym in DC (my sister's gym!) that has an LPT on staff. Probably too far for Parsi.
everyone is working out together, at their capacity. ...
The idea that you don't need training if you are not interested in world-beating fitness is appealing, particularly to nonathletic people who were turned off by high school coaches, but wrong. You can make so much more progress with a little help, and you need the most help the less far along you are.
Okay, here's my experience from trying to build up a habit of semi-regular gym exercise:
1) What you're describing sounds like a ton of fun for somebody who's interested and motivated to make exercise a priority.
2) My own experience is that there are trade-offs between attention given to exercise and attention given to other parts of life. Some people may, reportedly, do brain-work all day and then go to the gym and work out intensely. That has not been true for me, when I'm putting a lot more energy/attention into work I feel a lot weaker when I'm at the gym. I'll go into an exercise that I like, expecting it to be fun, and find that I'm working at 80% of what I think of as typical and it's killing me.
3) That is the biggest appeal to feeling happy to go to gym and workout at a minimal level and just try to maintain basic form/fitness -- there are other things in life that I can about and good chunks of time when those really are taking all of the attention that I have.
Personally I can enjoy the experience of doing intense work and pushing my limits, but I have more practical use for advice about how to get 70% of the benefit of a full workout from 40% of the effort -- because there's a bunch of time when 40% effort is what I have.
have more practical use for advice about how to get 70% of the benefit of a full workout from 40% of the effort
Do whatever works for you, for sure, and I now feel like I'm being too much of an evangelist, but I feel like something like this actually a big advantage of doing short, intense workouts. They're around 15 minutes long (with some prep time, before and after). So you can totally go on days when your mind is elsewhere and you're not at your best, get pushed a bit, and go home. It's not like you have to be on 100% of your game all the time.
173: I could make some of those classes. I'll have to look into it. If I give it a try I'll report back.
but I feel like something like this actually a big advantage of doing short, intense workouts.
What I've been learning falls into the "short/intense" side of the spectrum, more or less (not intense in terms of necessarily working to exhaustion, but intense in terms of maximizing the benefit from each exercise).
172: watching for signs of trouble, which boils down to carefully following the advice to avoid pain
Well, for what it's worth, and I don't know the nature of your specific problem, but both the back doctor and the P.T. I saw for 6 months or so clarified that, at least for me, they aren't so worried about plain old lower back pain: they're worried about sciatic pain. If pain shooting down leg? Worried. Do not do things to exacerbate.
If pain is centralized in the lower back, that is actually okay and good, they said: this is known as centralization, which is preferred and desired, over the partially herniated disc shooting pains down the leg. Your situation will be specific to you, though. Don't know if you have a sciatic complication.
Generally speaking, yeah, core strengthening, and maintaining good form, even while you sleep.
I suspect I'd like a lot of the Crossfit model. I do a lot of functional strength type stuff anyway, and I love learning new exercises and obsessing over form, and I'm pretty much awful at long slow cardio but high-intensity stuff is great. But it's also, for me, not clear what it would add to my workouts now beyond -$150/per month. Access to those cool rings and more kettlebells, maybe, plus a little annoyance.
For you, I'd guess it'd come down to whether the coaching and camaraderie was a positive or a negative. I could see it going either way, depending not only on Crossfit generally but on the specific people at the place where you ended up.
180's probably about right, but are you doing olympic lifting on your own right now? If so I am very impressed; if not that's another potential benefit.
Olympic lifting! Always impressive!
I do squats and deadlifts and variations on those, but nothing further because I haven't been at gyms that allow it (also probably dumb to try do it without training.) I also don't have anything in the way of fitness goals, which perhaps I should change, but I'm not really looking to lose ten pounds or drop 5% in body fat or improve my PR in the whatchawhoosie.
15 minutes of workout sounds like it would annoy me as being too little to go to the effort of getting to the gym, changing, showering and changing again.
But I do generally like the basic ideas; I got a fair bit of that at my old gym workout class, though there was an occasionally annoying collective-punishment aspect to the instructor's attitude. Also, the damn high-knees jogging in place gave me shin splints, and my wife's been freaked out about it since we met someone else who got some sort of bad hip injury (hairline fracture?) doing the class.
15 minutes of workout sounds like it would annoy me as being too little to go to the effort of getting to the gym, changing, showering and changing again.
This will not be a problem. (It's 15 minutes of actual working out, with some skill practice and warm up before that. But believe me you will not have a "this is too little" problem).
Today's was a light warm-up, an intense fucking 20 minutes, and then I left to go fill out paperwork that I hadn't done ahead of time.
Today's was a light warm-up, an intense fucking; 20 minutes and then I left to go fill out paperwork that I hadn't done ahead of time.
I'm actually having trouble pushing myself when I go biking. Simply getting up the hills isn't that tough anymore, but it's hard to really give it everything I've got unless there's someone else I'm pacing, or something. Not sure what the answer is, besides trying to find people to ride with.
X., here's what you do. Ride across the golden gate bridge. If you do it right you can go through the Presidio without much in the way of hard uphills. Then, on the Marin side, you bike up Conzelman road.
I would totally try Crossfit if there were a gym, like, two steps from my house. Having to make a special trip to the gym is truly poison to me. (Walking all over town many times a day to do other things, somehow, is just what I like.)
That's reasonably badass, sure, though since it takes an hour or so just to get to the bridge, that's not necessarily a helpful move in the direction of "shorter, but more intense." My standard ride already involves about as much climbing as I can get without travelling far afield; the problem is just pushing myself harder.
Having to make a special trip to the gym is truly poison to me.
This.
it takes an hour or so just to get to the bridge
Where do you live?
I guess you live in Bayshore. I'm surprised it takes an hour to get to the bridge.
According to the map, it looks like he lives in Bayview-Hunter's Point. Truly, there is no part of 'Frisco (suck it, "The City") that is not now SWPLfied.
Crossfit SF is run by a physical therapist and seems great.
189. Have you tried MapMyRide for your phone?
Believe me, Bayview still has a lot of SWPLfication to go.
The gyms must be the opiate for the fat-(m)asses.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why H-G is a front page poster. Zowie.
BTW, no idea what's been said in the last 75 comments. My procrastination actually gave way to single-minded productivity. But that's all over, thank goodness. Tomorrow at noon, I vacate!
I would bet $15 that JRoth had a goatee at some point between 1995 and 2002.
Oh look, here I am catching up on the thread and, just 2/75ths of the way through, H-G owes me $15.
I'll be invoicing shortly.
I've never worn facial hair for longer than the time it took to grow. That is, I've had 2 weeks' growth 2 weeks after my last shave, and (twice, I believe), 4 weeks' growth 4 weeks after my last shave. But I've never trimmed my facial hair to keep it at a given length.
Sideburns excluded. I've been wearing those since September 2005 (I remember because I started growing them at the exact same time as I left my last office job). It was on AB's recommendation. I know that I should actually shave them off at some point, lest I be the guy wearing the hairstyle of 2 decades ago because that was the last time I could bother to look stylish, but.... Inertia, I guess.
X, a high school classmate of mine lives in Alameda, and sometimes rides his bike to the top of Mt. Diablo and back. Did the Solvang double century last weekend. And 2 weeks before that, the SFR 300k Healdsburg brevet.
Would you like a letter of introduction?
Oh, not at all. Have a look in the National Portrait Gallery one of these days for a wide variety of things[...]
OK, thanks. I wasn't trying to be facetious or contentious; in my mental catalogue of portraiture, there's nothing comparable to the 1850s, both in breadth of styles and in extravagance (e.g., whiskers sticking out 6" from the face, but with no dangling beard). But I'm perfectly willing to believe that Ive just missed a lot of stuff.
For the record, I was including goatee-style facial hair in "neatly trimmed". Specifics within that style can vary, but the (typical) range is so much narrower than what you see in Civil War generals.
Maybe Civil War generals were simply pushing the limits, and so I just assume that they represent the general breadth of whiskery achievement, when they're actually the zenith.
Oh look, here I am catching up on the thread and, just 2/75ths of the way through, H-G owes me $15.
Well, that's why I kept my gambit affordable. I figured there was a 60% chance you'd sported one.
a high school classmate of mine lives in Alameda, and sometimes rides his bike to the top of Mt. Diablo and back
What, like he takes 580?
I'm actually having trouble pushing myself when I go biking.
Not my experience at all, but:
Not sure what the answer is, besides trying to find people to ride with.
That really is it. Find other people riding and keep riding with different groups until you find the vibe that works for you. I have only a vague interest in group rides, but I'm certain they'd work for this problem. Pretty much wherever you are, there will be group rides advertised on your local interweb. Focus on no-drop rides to start.
I figured there was a 60% chance you'd sported one.
You seriously overestimate my interest in, or even tolerance for, being faintly fashionable. I was annoyed during the grunge fad because I'd been wearing flannel shirts since I was a freshman in HS (1986), and didn't want people to think I was doing it for faddish reasons. I would have probably shaved off a preëxisting goatee in 1992 rather than grow one.
Did the Solvang double century last weekend. And 2 weeks before that, the SFR 300k Healdsburg brevet. ... Would you like a letter of introduction?
I think that's a few steps beyond the range I'm looking for, but thanks.
All this makes me want to do is go ride up some hills. But I can't possibly, for a bunch of interlocking reasons.
"Rides his bike to the top of Mt. Diablo" is a euphemism for "does a shit-ton of cocaine."
I would support a Peter the Great style edict requiring all men to shave off their goatees.
I can't believe that baseball players are still wearing them. I mean, I know that ballplayers are (mostly) reactionary, narrow-minded jackholes, but what about that makes them wear hairstyles now 15 years out of date*? They weren't wearing sideburns and/or feathered cuts in the early 90s.
* I'm willing to entertain more recent end dates for goatee stylishness, but surely 9/11 Changed Everything, including the stylishness (if not acceptability) of goatees?
Point being, 2005 maybe I'm OK with people still wearing them. But 2012? And yes, I recognize my sidebar hypocrisy. But Matt Dillon didn't look stupid wearing sideburns way back in 1992.
172: Would you mind linking to the dvds? There are probably not many that fit that description, but I'm the person who read the wrong Cloud Atlas, so I don't think it would hurt to be too careful. That sounds like it would be very helpful for me.
On the hair front, I think I've decided to go ahead and buy clippers and start buzzing this weekend, probably just at an inch and a half or so for the first time to see how it goes. I know Lee is not super thrilled but is being supportive of anything that will make me happy and require no work from her, so I added that maybe I'll start wearing makeup to counterbalance. Her immediate response was, "Well, you should have said that from the start and I'd have told you to go for it!" so I guess now I have to head to TFA in search or all those old threads about why people like or don't like makeup in their girlfriends.
I vote for shaved head. It looks great.
I don't care for shaved heads on men or women, but that's no reason not to.
why people like or don't like makeup in their girlfriends
Better on your girlfriend than in, usually.
147: I have heard that tai chi is really good for building strong bones.
I, on the other hand, totally fantasize about Pilates on a reformer. My aunt (the one i'm currently angry at) really likes it. She said that she was very skeptical, because she didn't like the artificiality of the machines (She places a high value on 'authenticity'), but that they're allowing her to get stronger in her early 60's in a way that she hadn't been able to before.
I'm so weak in certain areas that I'd like to be able to get support to build up the extra weak muscles before aiming for true 'functional movements'.
207 -- Thirty some years on, I'm sure I could navigate the backroads through Orinda/Moraga etc. Driving around looking for a place to make out is useful that way.
210 -- He's a good guy. Push yourself a bit, and let me know when you think you're ready.
I, on the other hand, totally fantasize about Pilates on a reformer.
I did a Pilates evaluation and orienatation last summer ($20 for 75 minutes or something like that), which included the instructor checking out my alignment and explaining it to me (more down to earth than I had expected) and then an intro to mat exercises and the reformer. Working on the reformer was somehow clinical-feeling and satisfyingly difficult at the same time as being utterly hilarious.
222: Ooh, now I want to try. How much does it usually cost though after the evaluation? And can you e-mail me the location?
Having just done my ride, and having pushed myself a bit more than usual, I think part of the problem is that the two long climbs are both steepest at the very beginning, which makes it a bit harder, psychologically.
Incidentally, MapMyRide seems to have a much more conservative judgement about how much climbing is involved in my ride (1390ft vs 950 ft!). This makes me very sad.
The existence of a device called a "reformer" reminds me uncomfortably of China Miéville's "Remade." Eeep!
I think part of the problem is that the two long climbs are both steepest at the very beginning, which makes it a bit harder, psychologically
Nah, other way around is worse.
MapMyRide seems to have a much more conservative judgement about how much climbing is involved in my ride (1390ft vs 950 ft!)
MapMyRide is famously terrible at tracking elevation.
It was here. I don't remember how much it would have been to continue on with it. I briefly considered it, but the breathing is just enough different from the kind do in yoga that it seemed confusing to try to do both. The instructor at the Pilates place seemed very knowledgeable, I thought.
On CrossFit's Web site, right under the sidebar, there's a picture of a guy in a beret and fatigues saying this:
Dear Everyone at CrossFit,
...I can't convey in words as to how much CrossFit has benefited me and changed the way I train for so much the better!!! On behalf of the law enforcement and military community you are doing us all the greatest service in training us to be physically superior specimens!!!! I am doing the best I can to spread the word!!
Thank You and Semper Fi,
1.2. Where is the WOD?
You're kidding, right? Acutally, this is a frequently asked question. Go to www.crossfit.com. Right in the middle, in the block with a date at the top, is the Workout of the Day, aka the WOD. If you can't figure it out, read this FAQ, read the other comments posted, click on any handy links contained in the WOD description, and THEN consider asking for an explanation!
I'm feeling better and better about my prejudiced, uninformed, gut reaction.
159
Why would RH-C/Cyrus put himself in an intense exercise situation if he knows he does not like intense exercise? I don't think there's any reason he should.
Indeed I don't. As I've said, the problem is I don't find exercise fun. Good for me, of course, but a chore is a chore, best helped by making it as convenient and hard to avoid as possible. CrossFit seems to have all the inconvenience of any gym membership combined with a culture that, still, looks unnecessarily unpleasant.
153
there is a super strong anti-body shaming norm
I can believe that that's the official policy, and even believe that individuals involved with it don't deliberately set out to body-shame people. I can't believe it wouldn't happen often anyway, though.
Aside from having my ass thoroughly kicked, my experience when I tried CrossFit was what Rob describes. Huge focus on form and doing exercises safely, lots of camaraderie, zero body-shaming. I would have picked up on the body shaming, I think, if it was there--I'm not svelte. I liked it a lot, and if my employment situation hadn't changed in a way that made it too expensive for me to continue, I think I would still be doing it and enjoying the hell out of it.
my experience when I tried CrossFit was what Rob describes
Well, yes, but which Rob?
230: I think it's abundantly clear from context that he means Rob Zombie, who is, according to the song, "more human than human", a transparent reference to his love of CrossFit.
I think the last thing I would want in a workout is for strangers at the gym to be taking a critical interest in how I am doing--looking at me and seeing what parts of me are still puny and flabby. It is pure body shaming (a powerful tool for cults.)
Dude. Mimi Smartypants just complained about this too, someone watching her at the gym and commenting.
Y'all, I watch everyone at my gym and I can spot a weakness in technique out of my peripheral vision from across two rooms. I've sent trainers over to correct people if it looks potentially dangerous (because they were focused on their clients and missed it). That's just what I happen to do. I'm not judging. I love that you're there, have so much respect for people who are overcoming body difficulties to be there, and want you to do exercises perfectly.
I don't give a fuck if your numbers are low now. Keep showing up and they'll get bigger. I don't think you're puny or flabby. I think you should train consistently, and train right.
If you have body shame, you could perceive this as body shaming. But I can absolutely promise you, as one of the watchers, that many of them aren't doing any shaming. Some may be like me, whose attention is just oriented that way. Others may be concerned for you, because technique is all. Some may be remembering their own journey. Some may be assholes. But I am positive that there are a whole lot of reasons that someone could take a critical interest, and most of that interest would make you better off if you let it.
BTW, as an outsider, my impression of Crossfit is that it is a trifle macho, but that's contrasted with my gym, which is pretty queer and feminine. That said, the day I stopped by one in a different city to train, they were nothing but pleasant.
Holy crap, there's a Crossfit gym that's not only near my house, but in between my house and my office. That's weirdly tempting.
Oh no! There's a Crossfit an easy walk away. Or easy going to, anyway. This stuff is totally contradicted for ancients, right? Much too dangerous for sure. Has to be. Good, that's settled.
Maybe Civil War generals were simply pushing the limits, and so I just assume that they represent the general breadth of whiskery achievement, when they're actually the zenith.
This really rings true, actually. Having looked at a few pictures, I am coming round to the view that the 1850s were pretty damn special w.r.t. facial hair.
I know that Deep South "chivalry culture" had some roots of self-validation in e.g. the novels of Walter Scott -- and Normans were definitely clean-shaven as a cultural contrast with Anglo-Saxons -- but did the Confederacy identify with the Royalist forces in the Civil War? (Who were very much about flowing locks and pointy beards...)
(I know that Unionist generals -- and politicians -- all also sported beards; so once again it isn't simple...)
Also the USRepublic's intellectual classes went through a distinct "Ancient Greek" phase from around the 1820s, as a jag away from its early Roman phase: Henry Clay* as the American Pericles etc. Greeks were all totes beardies.
*(Might not have been Henry Clay: don't force me to go and crack open my Garry Wills, people...)
did the Confederacy identify with the Royalist forces in the Civil War? (Who were very much about flowing locks and pointy beards...
They were both, of course, Wrong but Wromantic (unlike their enemies, who were Right but Repulsive).
"Charles I was a Cavalier King and therefore had a small pointed beard, long flowing curls, a large, flat, flowing hat, and gay attire. The Roundheads, on the other hand, were clean-shaven and wore tall, conical
hats, white ties, and sombre garments. Under these circumstances a Civil War was inevitable. "
did the Confederacy identify with the Royalist forces in the Civil War?
Yes, according to DHF: the settlement of the South, especially the VA tidewater, where our beloved Confederate leaders came from, was in its first waves full of distressed Cavaliers.
Oh yes, hadn't thought of that*: the entirety of US politics as a continuation of the English Civil War by other means (and occasionally the exact same means).
•Can't imagine why not: I routinely troll people on-line by arguing that the American Revolution is actually really only the Third English Revolution. (And it was of course only successful in the westernmost -- and largest -- of the British Isles.)
And the easternmost (aka France).
I'm sore today. But not unpleasantly so.
Also I'm annoyed that I can't make a class until Tuesday. That seems like too big a gap. I don't want to go every day, but I'd like to go every other day.
Clearly Kevin Philips stole this idea from me on the internet!
(I stole it from a book called The Seeds of Albion, I think, which has a more "Glastonbury Tor was Settled by the Lost Tribes of Israel" type title...)
215: These are they. I have both the upper and lower back ones and they seem fairly good. The dude who does the instruction is kind of on the earnest side for me, but I think that's inevitable with something like this.
David Hackett Fisher said at the end of Albion's Seed that he was going to do one on other cultures, but he never did it. He had one paragraph about the way that Dutch culture influenced New York's commercial culture, and I really wanted to learn about that.
To 228: Getting a vibe off a website, and putting more weight on that than commenters actual experience, is a bit annoying. It was not a preening macho hellhole yesterday by any stretch.
Would someone who was painfully self-conscious about exercising plausibly feel painfully self-conscious around people who are enjoying themselves? Sure. That's a way different statement, though.
I'm sore today. But not unpleasantly so.
I'm just going to continue to believe that heebie's comments are in response to #4.
We sought to build a program that would best prepare trainees for any physical contingency--prepare them not only for the unknown but for the unknowable as well
I'm still trying to understand the implications of this. I think they they are saying that they will prepare you to wrestle Death and win.
249.1 is true. I just find this amusing.
aha DHF = David Hackett Fisher, penny didn't drop there
(I didn't actually read Albion's Seed, someone described it to me.)
I know I've mentioned this before, but the proprietor of the local Crossfit gym first tried to make money by running a blog (something like a local version of Gothamist). When that business venture didn't work out, kettle balls!
I find this chain of events immensely amusing for some reason.
The crossfit near Biohazard's place is super friendly and welcoming and cohesive. It also has a lot aspiring actress/models and extremely good looking gay men, so while there's no body shaming it's a pretty ridiculously hot group of people on average. Just In case BH is interested
Albion's Seed is really great and fun, but I have no idea how accurate it is; it sure seems like it would be an easy book to pick apart. Part of the argument is that the Virginia cavalieristocracy took to slavery precisely because it allowed them to live an indulgent and aristocratic lifestyle, which seems likely. I think there's something not totally crazy about thinking of the US civil war as a continuation of the English one. Even the religions (Anglican vs. Nonconformist, very very broadly and imprecisely speaking) weren't that different.
254: Hmm... I'm very tempted to at least look in. I don't care about body-shaming, I do very much care about injuries and being able to get up and down the stairs here after a work-out. Hott wimmins are a bonus or would be if I remembered why they're supposed to be.
David Hackett Fisher said at the end of Albion's Seed that he was going to do one on other cultures, but he never did it. He had one paragraph about the way that Dutch culture influenced New York's commercial culture, and I really wanted to learn about that.
Russell Shorto's book on Dutch New York (the title of which escapes me) is supposed to be good, although I haven't read it. I don't know if it touches on this specific issue.
DHF himself has a new book out comparing the US to New Zealand. It sounds interesting.
I have corrected a couple of people at the gym only when they asked me for help figuring something out. Moreover, I have silently received and thanked people for obviously erroneous advice, rather than pick a fight (e.g., when using a rowing machine one doesn't in fact punch oneself in the groin at the end of the stroke, but who am I to argue?).
257.2: It sounds interesting.
So something more than "Since the beginning of time, the United States and New Zealand have been very different countries. One is mostly on a continent and the other on two islands. One (the US) is in the Northern Hemisphere while New Zealand resides in the Southern. Maori culture is a significant aspect of New Zealand life but no very much in the United States."
259: Yes, my impression is that it's more about pointing out similarities between the two.
Now I'm really, really fucking sore. And I'm not talking about my genitals from having a threesome for our threemonthiversary. I'm talking about my quads from Crossfit.
You're not fooling anybody, young lady.
249
To 228: Getting a vibe off a website, and putting more weight on that than commenters actual experience, is a bit annoying. It was not a preening macho hellhole yesterday by any stretch.
Fair enough. I still am not convinced that an intense, regimented exercise program is necessary for basic fitness, and I know it's not the kind of thing I would enjoy, but I shouldn't have tried to figure out the "environment" of CrossFit based on sources like this. Sorry about that.
I still am not convinced that an intense, regimented exercise program is necessary for basic fitness,
Me neither. I don't think fitness is something one has to maximize in order to be virtuous. There's a minimum threshhold of fitness to be healthy, and above that should only be if you enjoy that sort of thing.
266
Me neither. I don't think fitness is something one has to maximize in order to be virtuous. There's a minimum threshhold of fitness to be healthy, and above that should only be if you enjoy that sort of thing.
Halford disagreed with this, in 153: "The idea that you don't need training if you are not interested in world-beating fitness is appealing... but wrong." I still don't understand that.
And sorry to resurrect the thread, but this past weekend I happened to hear about a kind of organized exercise that, amazingly enough, actually does sound appealing to me: Hashing. As it was described to me, the gung-ho leaders of the pack wind up doing more work than the rest, not just lifting bigger weights or whatever. I like the idea of exercising smarter, not harder. And much more importantly, drinking is involved. Still not necessarily saying I'm going to do it, but it sounds like a lot more fun than most other organized exercise options.
Oh god hash house harriers. Filk songs for pervy 50 year old joggers, yay.
I think that what Halford was saying is that even if you're not aiming high, and you just want to be moderately fit, you'll get there much more successfully, efficiently, and pleasantly if you have good coaching. I'm not sure that I agree with him (or, I probably do agree with my rephrasing, but I think that finding good coaching is difficult and annoying, so if you thought of it as a prerequisite for exercising you'd never do anything) but if I'm right about what he meant, it's not in conflict with what Heebie said.
