Yesterday, The Toast had the following unexpurgated email exchange with a female reader. In related news, Nicole can read minds.
Reader: I have a very weird and personal (to me) pushup question I would like to ask you. May I ask you?
The Toast: Do you feel your vagina weirdly when you do them?
Reader: YES. YOU GET ME. So this is a thing? I feel like I can’t do more than 10 or I’m on the brink of orgasm.
The Toast: That is a MUCH better version than mine, where my vagina just feels weird! But, yes, it’s about your pelvic floor and blood flow and stretching and it’s 100% normal. ENJOY. Get it, girl.
Reader: Omg, amazing. It is a very funny moment when I try to do pushups while watching tv and then collapse in a fit of giggles and [Redacted Unworthy Male] just has no idea what is happening.
The Toast: You are going to have GREAT ARMS.
So, today, at the gym, I asked my very nice male trainer about this issue, because I enjoy watching him blush, and he said that none of his other clients had ever mentioned such a thing, which of course makes PERFECT SENSE. There are questions and sensations you may feel uncomfortable asking a Fitness Professional, or some random person at the gym, and we want to think of this as a place where you can say “hey, Nicole, my boobs are too big to do pushups,” and receive a supportive* answer.
It also reminded me of the time I was doing a move while straddling a weight bench that was DESTROYING my clit, and after saying “I’m getting some weird pressure…no, not my thighs, per se” a few times, I finally just said “yeah, no, it’s my junk,” and there was hasty repositioning and all was well.
So, okay, what random feelings have YOU had while working out? Tell us, so that we can give them a try, or offer some advice.
While we’re talking, though, is there an intersection for you with exercise and sexiness? Do you feel sexier when you work out? Or after? Or are you just sort of gross and drained? I definitely feel like working out makes me more conscious of my body in great ways, and that it enhances Being a Sexual Person, but that’s not true for everyone. There is also, in many people, an increase in sex drive which comes with increasing your lean mass, which 100% of fake scientists will tell you is because someone with such gorgeous delts needs to make babies.
Speak to us of your bodies, and the movement thereof. And which things are good or not good for your junk.
* heh.
Tags: feel the burn, fitness, health, vaginas
Ooooh god I love TMI threads the most. (And I am killing time at the Denver airport).
Crunches- the full sit up ones are ok, but the little half-crunches with just your abs always make me feel like I’m pumping air up there, it’s very uncomfortable.
Oh my god thank you! I am not the only one! It’s a very disconcerting feeling.
Lifting weights makes me feel like I have to fart all the time.
SQUATS AND DEADLIFTS! I have never made it through a weight lifting session without farting, but fortunately we have a squat rack at home.
I don’t have that problem, but when I do squats in front of my husband he makes farting noises. Yes, he is 36 going on 12.
“Not my thighs, per se” is my new favorite euphemism — perhaps my only favorite euphemism — for the clitoris I’ve ever heard.
I’m mostly a yoga person, so yeah, some overtly sexual poses going on there. Cat/cow comes to mind (you’re basically just presenting your ass in different ways). Also frog pose. Also “pull your chest forward” or “open your heart” = thrusting your tits.
Also there is a seated pose where you basically have your heel propped underneath your groin. It’s unnerving.
HAH, I just did that one in prenatal yoga on Monday night (that last one – the name is escaping me at the moment). I was trying to unobtrusively look around, thinking, “Wait, is everyone else also straddling their heel? Is this exactly where it’s supposed to be?”
Ha! The one where the correct instruction is to have your heel pressing into your perineum,but teachers are too scared to say ‘perineum’ in class (and then have to explain what a perineum is) so most of the time they just fudge around and everyone is confused? And then half the time it gets skipped because who has time for the whole damn primary series anyways?
I know that one.
One very memorable teacher will just sigh and say, “It’s your taint. Your foot is pressing on your taint. Got it now?”
Ah Western teachers… I went to a yoga school in Thailand that was also, in the upper levels, a Tantric sex school (and a cult, story for a different day) and boy did we talk about our perineums and vaginas a lot. But we also talked about our sexual energy a lot. So.
. . . I would love to hear this “story for a different day” of which you speak. Maybe a good Toast submission?
God, how many of you guys do yoga??
All of us.
Non-yoga solidarity
Which….this is PRENATAL yoga. If there is ever a time to discuss perineums (perineii?), this is it.
I used to take classes with an instructor whose favorite [weird euphemistic yoga] advice was “Blossom your butt,” and I was always like “Dude I AM TRYING SO HARD NOT TO FART IN THIS CONFINED, HEATED ROOM, LEAVE ME ALONE.”
What I am trying to say here is: my yoga practice is the opposite of sexual.
Back when I was a church secretary, we had another secretary who was also a yoga instructor. She taught a yoga class at the church once a week and all the staff would go. It was fine, mostly, except the senior pastor also went. It’s just weird to like…present your ass to your male boss in church, I guess. Whatever.
I just started doing yoga and some of the poses make me super aware of my vagina in a weird way. Like, every time we do warrior poses I feel like it centers there, but it’s not a bad feeling. Almost powerful.
I am in terrible shape and am, by far, the largest, lumpiest person in the room. But even though there are mirrors everywhere and we’re doing a lot of looking at ourselves in the mirrors, and I’m surrounded by people who look better than me, for the first time in my life I don’t feel self-conscious about that. I just look at myself and think, “That’s my body, and it’s doing these things” and maybe, “ooh, better straighten out my back a little more,” instead of analyzing my physical flaws. It’s a wonderful feeling.
I just started yoga three weeks ago and I feel the same way! (About the not being self-conscious thing, not the vagina thing. I bet that feels cool though!)
That post-workout feeling is almost as good as that post-sexytimes feeling.
Of course, you’re sweaty and a bit sore after a good workout, but…well, you know where I’m going with this.
AGREED. additionally, I am not getting my kinky licks in and have to subsist on making jokes about being sore in other ways, but let me tell you some times it is the damn truth.
OMG do yin yoga. It is torturous in the best possible way.
OMG the weight bench thing… That happens to me all the time. A swift repositioning usually helps. I asked one of my friends about it and she just gave the blank stare. So, once again, thank you internets for letting me know I’m not alone.
I did Anusara yoga for a while, and they spent a lot of time you guys talking about the perineum. Is that normal? I feel like that’s not normal.
I’ve never heard of Anusara (I’ve only ever done Ashtanga) but it is called Anusara, soooo. *ba dum chk*
No seriously, the weirdest thing about yoga is the awareness of bandhas, because sure, the abdominal and throat ones are whatever, but the most important apparently is the “mula bandha” which is basically engaging (but not clenching, somehow) the pelvic floor and perineum, which feels soooo awkward.
Sometimes I go to my dad’s yoga classes and nothing makes me want to sink into the floor and die with embarrassment more than hearing him talk about that stuff. So weird you guys! So weird.
Oh god, is that what the mula bandha is? My yoga teacher never made that clear.
Yeah…a lot of them don’t.
I definitely read this first as “male bandeau” (you know, from Fashion) and had the simultaneous thoughts: “NO!” and “Yeeeeeees!”
In Ashtanga, this: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/1706
I used to do a straight-leg version in a cross-fit class, and I could not keep a straight face.
My yoga teacher a) is awesome and b) describes mula bandha in detail every class. “Your perineum, the space between your anus and genitals.”
Oh, man, I’ve never experienced interesting “down there” feelings while working out (but I now have a new incentive to go to the gym!!) but I am definitely in the “I feel kind of sexy/like a badass after working out” school. Mostly it’s being sweaty, flushed, and more aware of my body and how it moves after exercise, but honestly there is a part of that…hmm, how to explain this? Basically, if I’m having a gross day and my hair is stupid and I have nothing to wear and what was I thinking with that lipstick – I go to the Y and I put on my gym clothes and it’s ok that I’m gross. It’s expected, even! Makeup comes off, hair gets pinned back, and I no longer feel self conscious for not being a Perfectly Pretty Lady.
Not down there feelings but one time I did an archery class and I have big boobs and great posture. The 19yo guy teaching me was in no way embarrassed that I kept complaining about twanging my nipple and was very strict with me and said it was my fault for keeping moving my elbows.
Sometimes I swear I can feel my IUD shifting when I do crunches and planks. Not necessarily painful, but definitely weird and unsettling.
auuugh what what auuuugh
“[Redacted Unworthy Male]”
Toast, never change.
I have been sooooo jealous of women who have strong sexual feelings when they are working out. I’ve already heard of this happening on the exercise ball, but now pushups? do you know how many pushups I do during a week? I SHOULD BE GETTING SOME TOO!
hot yoga gives me weird sex feels! not, like, super-pleasurable-brink-of-orgasm or anything, but definitely more than just pelvic weirdness. it’s kind of like what i imagine people mean when they talk about loins being afire.
…anyone?
I really wish push-ups pushed my buttons. DAMN. What a great workout!
(instead I’ll just keep with my belief that sex, itself, is a good workout. Is it? Cardio?)
Right? I would be much more willing to do push-ups then.
I believe “Other Cardio” is the traditional euphemism.
NICE.
Man, I feel like a god-damn XXX-Man after cranking a bunch of pullups. It is outright rude.
Does anybody else, when doing any kind of head or shoulder stand in yoga, feel, how shall I put this, like their vagina is inflating like a balloon? And then once you roll down, you have a vagina fart?
haha no man me neither that would be so weird right
It’s called a “queef.”
Yes.
While I am in no way capable of a head or shoulder stand, I have definitely experienced it in other exercise/weird posture-related situations.
ETA: and yes, they are called queefs, and yes, they are quite possibly worse than farts because, while they don’t (usually?) smell, they are much more difficult to hold in, especially when walking, and then you let one out like every step, which is terrible.
glad I scrolled down to find you, and your delightful user name, before being redundant. in short, yes.
I just came in here to say the same thing. In one of my yoga classes with lots of women I could hear it happening to other people too, which was reassuring but also made me o_O
I really like the salty taste of post-exercise sweat on a partner. Sexiest smell/taste in the world to me.
I love the way my body looks when I’m doing barbell shoulder presses or anything else that involves standing with my arms over my head. My curves look so flowing and smooth, and my core looks so straight and strong. I especially like that it shows off the contours of my upper torso without my increasingly bulky arms getting in the way.
Bad: I have had serious pinched labia issues when biking in bike shorts. Everything would feel numb when I got back from a ride 🙁
Good: Sometimes the seam of my running tights rubs in just the right place…
Also, post-workout smells! I could pounce on a guy who just worked out and is slightly sweaty (but not disgusting) & a guy has told me the same thing about pouncing on me.
100% of straight men find sweaty women sexy. This is your gender essentialism for the year. Enjoy it.
Do you feel sexier when you work out? Or after?
Yes and yes, and that, along with my desire for my spine not to turn into a big chalky question mark, is one of the things that keeps me exercising. My sexual appetite increases linearly with my exercise habits. (I am trying to phrase that discreetly, for some reason.)
Post-workout makes me feel super sexy, like I’m fully aware of my body and all that it can do. I’ve actually had to tell some friends who I had crushes on that we can’t workout together because [enter made up reason] but really it was because I didn’t want to be all animalistic around them.
This is not exactly a direct answer to your question, but I’ve had to do a lot of physical therapy on one of my knees, which includes a lot of balance work. I had this really intense and shy physical trainer who would always get really uncomfortable when I complained about how “destroyed my crotch was” from all the stationary biking, but he TOTALLY surprised me one day when I was doing a tricky balance move by hissing “CLENCH YOUR BUTTHOLE.”
My favorite yoga teacher would tell us to do the same thing to fix our balance issues, but she would very daintily say “engage your perineum!” instead. It was so hard not to giggle.
Can’t get the image out of my head now of like, a fancy science fiction ship captain saying “ENGAGING PERINEUM!”
Oh god. I had my first orgasm ever in the 4th grade (!!!!) doing a chin-up kind of exercise for our school’s presidential fitness challenge. You basically had to go into the upper position i.e. chin above the bar and just hold yourself there for as long as you could. So I’m doing this during P.E. and at the 30-second or so mark I get this amazing tingly wave all over my body. It was awesome. How I kept holding myself in that position, I will never know.
I didn’t even know that’s what it was. I just figured it always happened, and it felt great, so I kept trying to replicate it for weeks afterwards.
I could never do a chin up in elementary school or since then. Now I’m even more jealous of people who can.
Flex-arm hang is the besssssst! I would go hand out in the gym after school and just hang there.
Tell me more about these Special Push-up Feelings, Nicole. Are they only reported by those practicing on-the-floor push-ups? Because of my back*, I can (so far) only do wall or counter push-ups, so I might not be eligible for the, um, extra benefit.
*And, yes, to a lesser extent, my knockers. I hadn’t consciously factored them in until you mentioned it (them?), but I now realize it’s the combination of bad back and sensitive large-ish breasts that don’t like whamming into the floor that keeps me from doing proper push-ups.
While it is fun, it is also frustrating because I would like to do more than 10 pushups, please! How are my arms gonna get jacked if I succumb to hysteria every time I try a second set?
I have more triggers than just push-ups, so I’ve learned to just…harness it, you could say. Slow down, keep your form perfect, focus on the muscles you’re strengthening and all that. But, yeah, SO awkward at the gym.
I think you mean “succumb to feminine hysteria” yes?
Sing, o muse, about the high-pommeled dressage saddle and/or the beloved horse with the ungodly sharp spine that is cushioned only somewhat by a bareback pad. There’s a fine line between embarrassing stimulation and outright pain; perfect neutral spine be damned, some of us have to tuck up and roll back onto our sits bones a little more when we ride downhill.
We could have a whole other thread about how all the useful riding metaphors are sexual. I mean, the best canter advice I ever got was “pretend you’ve got a huge gorgeous cock in you and you don’t want it to fall out.”
Ahhhhhh brb cringing forever.
/lesbian
Seriously though, sexual riding metaphors are the only things that stick in my head too.
Also, semi related: I’ll never forget my coach telling me, “pretend you have tits and you want to show them off,” when I was about 11 years old and paralyzingly shy. Mortifying, but also pretty much the perfect image to improve my posture.
Oh, I still hear “point your tits at the sky” on the regular.
“Hello, hotness; wanna come home and help a girl work on her left-lead canter departs?”
No matter what, I always ended up with a crotch that was beaten and bruised. Perhaps it was because I couldn’t afford “proper” clothing and rode in jeans with an unfortunate seam conjunction at my junction. Or just bad damn luck. I never got any sexual pleasure out of it, that’s for sure!
My old riding instructor would ask me to do sitting trot by saying “OK, it’s time for some hoo-hoo bashing”.
Oh, I feel like a complete badass after a workout. It’s awesome. There’s this sweet 30mins post-workout where I feel completely energized and sexy. It’s prime time for random dance parties in my otherwise empty apartment. After that, though, all bets are off and I’m usually crashed on the couch with my protein-packed dinner of choice, marathoning something on Netflix and feeling awesome about my life choices.
And while I do occasionally experience the odd “oh that was unexpected” when it comes to my nether regions during workouts, right now the bane of my existence appears to be some mysterious muscle pain that starts behind my knees and goes into my calves. It has been persisting despite new stretches, new shoes, and a week off. It’s really putting a damper on my running…I don’t suppose you have any suggestions?
I WISH this happened to me, I would actually work out. MAJOR HIGH FIVES TO ALL THE LADIES WHO GET WORKOUT OS THO.
Have no fear, Women’s Health did an exercise workout which will supposedly induce a coregasm http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/hanging-st…
Yeah, I have totally had an orgasm on the elliptical machine. Funny because I hate the elliptical. It might have had something to do with the fine-ass piece of man stairstepping in front of me, but I just went with it because I figured I looked sweaty and flushed and crazy-eyed anyway.
I don’t have a mirror in my workout room (aka living room) at home, but when I lift at the gym in front of the mirror, I am basically checking myself out constantly. Probably some of the gym bros think I am staring at them, but nope… much prefer to stare at my own arms.
I don’t really get the push-up junk feelings (although I get an awesome psychological rush along with the burned out arm feeling at the end of a long set), but I do get a lot of air moving around various orifices with ab exercises and sometimes squats (particularly if I had a lot of veggies at lunch). Probably why I mostly lift at home (that and I can lift while watching sports on TV, which is my favorite).
Oh, and yesterday at spin I was definitely sitting on my bike seat in a very pleasant way for a little while. It was not orgasmic, but it was nice.
“It was not orgasmic, but it was nice. ”
That perfectly describes a fair number of sexual encounters I’ve had too and also my relationship with homemade ice cream
And then you’re looking around the gym, like, nobody can tell, right? I’m having all the FEELINGS right now, but you guys can’t see it. I mean, I hope you can’t? It’s sorta subversive that way. So yes. I hear your special down-there fitness feelings.
Not my thighs per se. We have a lot of conversations in bike world about the not my thighs per se regions. Saddles, shorts, whathaveyou. It all adds up to a lot of vagina talk. Which, is amusing because the cycling industry is mostly dudes. Sorry dudes!
Steve uses a noseless saddle, and I tried it and it was literally the worst thing ever to happen to my vagina.
That pretty much sounds like the worst thing ever. You need that front of the saddle or it’s just going to like, get up in all the wrong places. I once rode a test bike with a saddle that felt like it was punching me in the clit all day. It was really hard to pretend I was having fun.
I once did a Kim Karadashian workout tape (it was streaming on Netflix!) That’s all I’m going to say about that.
That was a WORKOUT tape? This changes everything about how I work out.
The first time I deadlifted my body weight I came straight home and just attacked my boyfriend (in a sexy consensual way). I pretty much went straight from “guess what I just did yay!” to “now kiss me and also I’m taking your shirt off.”
I always get junk tinglies when I use that ab twisty machine at the gym – you know, the one where you kneel on a rotating pad and it’s supposed to target your obliques? But what I really need to know is how I can replicate the tinglies during pushups or burpees, because my trainer makes me do them ALL THE TIME and I hate them.
There should be a Nobel prize for the person who manages to make burpees sexy.
Heehee yes!
Somewhat related, the best time you realised dudes find athleticism hot:
When your then-boyfriend admits that the first time he had to toss balls to you to hit in softball training (6 months prior to you two starting to date) he nearly got a boner. My mind was blown, and I’ve felt exponentially better (and sexier) about being good at sports ever since. Because, let’s face it, softball is not generally the sexiest of sports. BUT THE WORLD IS A BIG, BEAUTIFUL, SOMETIMES MUSCLY AND UNEXPECTEDLY SEXY PLACE.
No one shares my special down there fitness feeling and I’m sand now. Actually sad, but the typo amuses me so I’m leaving it.
Mountain climbers and big boobs are even worse than push-ups and big boobs.
Anyone always getting infections and weird bumps in sensitive areas from spin class? Just me? Cone of shame?
I have had this issue when going to spin too soon after shaving the not-my-thighs-per-se area. A unintentional side effect of my decision to opt for a little more… coverage has been the elimination of spin-related irritation.
I feel like a disgusting sweaty irritated oil slick after exercising but I do it anyway because I want to increase my stamina and flexibility and core muscles.
I sprained my knee a few weeks ago (IT WAS WORSE THAN WHEN I HAD A C-SECTION AND THE EPIDURAL STARTED WEARING OFF AS THEY STITCHED ME UP OH MY GODDDDDDDDD) and I’ve been limping around with a cane for a long time. I’ve been walking on my own the past few days and yesterday I was going up and down stairs like it was no big deal and i had to stop for a moment and then do it again more slowly and savor it. Walking up stairs. Walking down stairs. Like it was normal. Wow! Then I sat down on a low step and almost couldn’t get back up again because lol that’s a lot of bending of knees.
I feel rather gross and slick and icky and smelly after exercising. But once I’ve showered, seeing my muscles makes me feel rather sexy.
Also, there’s this picture of me coming across the finish line for a race where my leg muscles are fully flexed and visibly well defined and I think it’s the sexiest thing ever.
Love this! I have also found that I can only do so many reps of certain exercises. In the disconcerting and unfortunate category, the worst has to be getting air in there when doing a shoulder stand in yoga. You know the air is going to come out when you lower yourself down and you know it’s going to make a noise. Took me a while to figure out the precise muscles to target to avoid the problem.
No exercise O’s (UNFORTUNATE), but once when I was running to a night lecture in college wearing these really tight H&M jeans, they rubbed in *just* the right way. I had to keep stopping to get a hold of my shit, and my friend Chris thought I couldn’t handle the running and I was like “No I can’t handle the PLEASURE.”
I have the big O when I do pushups. I can only do about 8 or so cause it's too much. My trainer thinks I'm a wimp… Wish that wouldn't happen. Embarrassing.