"That's not a real pushup. Your form is totally wrong." "It's still more than most Americans will ever do. How many pushups have you done today? And guiding your mouse without supporting your elbow on your armrest doesn't count. Sitting kills." "That's why I never sit. Every morning, I throw my computer out of the window and race downstairs to type on the keyboard before it hits the ground." "What she's doing, it looks like sex. I'd…
Previous installments of Feel the Burn can be found here. “Working Out in Your First Trimester” is here and "Working Out in Your Second Trimester" is here. I quit the gym today. I had planned to go until next Tuesday, when I'd be 36 weeks pregnant and ready to slide blissfully into holiday-related indolence and two different kinds of stuffing, but I knew yesterday that I was done. Or rather, I…
I thought it was hilarious at first when Mallory declared in a comment thread that it was her fitness goal to be able to pick up and lift a grown man over her head. Afterwards, I started noticing that other Toasties were declaring this in a tongue-in-cheek way, and I started thinking, “well, why not?” The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn’t any more ridiculous or unlikely than any…
Because I didn’t have anything else to do, I went to the gym every day. This was in middle school and early high school: I was homeschooled, and going to the gym felt social. All those people in the weight room! All those people on the stationary bikes! Gym classes presented an even more salient form of social contact: structurally, it was built into the wiping down of yoga mats, the anguished eye
Elis Bradshaw last wrote for The Toast about accidentally taking boudoir photos with her mom.
Some lucky women are born athletes. I have a friend who runs like a gazelle and transforms into a porpoise when she goes swimming. I am not one of those women, not by a long shot.
I spent the first twenty years of my life with my nose planted in a book and my body
Previous installments of Feel the Burn can be found here. "Working Out in Your First Trimester" is here. Ah, the magical oasis of your second trimester. FOR SOME, right? If you've already been told to elevate your legs above your head and are on full pelvic rest and feel like garbage, please close this tab immediately and do whatever it is you're doing to keep your sanity. If, however, you're having a pretty…
This sequel to "Getting the Body You've Always Wanted" is dedicated with love to prominent public intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates. 1. If you stop looking after the body you've always wanted, you're going to see some unpleasant changes. 2. You may find that just doing the same old things to maintain your body, day in and day out, will gradually stop working. 3. Fluid loss is a real concern. Prevent it at…
1. Tell her she’ll never get really ripped with that kind of diet. 2. Watch her from a distance and wonder how she’s even able to walk around, let alone do Box Jumps, on legs that haven’t had beef in a decade. When your buddy sees you spacing out, say loudly that you love a Clean Snatch. Do one, just to prove your point. 3. Ditto with Thrusters.
I try to run sometimes. I do yoga pretty regularly. But, I've also started seeing a trainer. And it's great. He's awesome, pushes me to lift heavier things (which is what I told him my goal was) and he's super supportive and encouraging. I feel super SWOLE BRO after my training sessions and love bragging about my 105lb bench for reps. Did I mention the Bulgarian split squats with 40 lbs? Getting there felt great.
Hatchet is a 1987 Newbery-award winning novel by Gary Paulsen about a thirteen-year-old boy who survives in the Canadian wilderness for fifty-four days after a plane crash with little more than a hatchet and a sense of desperation. It has sold over two million copies and is beloved by an entire generation. First of all, no, you wouldn't. You're the type of person who takes survival quizzes while you're at work, carefully minimizing the screen…
Previous installments of "Feel the Burn" can be found here. I don't care, do what you want.
fin
...
No? Okay, let's talk about this. You can definitely work out during your first trimester, provided: 1. You have had a conversation about it with your VERY OWN qualified medical professional, be that an ob-gyn, a midwife, or the babbling brook you plan to immerse your junk in to give birth. 2.
Previous installments of Feel the Burn can be found here. Gentle (yet mighty and powerful) readers, I have been begged by one of you to explain how best to get your back into fighting shape. "I do stuff for my legs, and I lift things with my arms and chest, but what about my back? It seems important!" This is such a worthy goal, my stony heart was quite moved by it. Let us…
With all of the friends I’ve made over the years through sports and athletics, it sometimes feels like I came to it pretty late in life. As a second generation Vietnamese-American woman, a childhood of sports was always presented to me as a quintessentially American thing; middle-class American families, white and black, encourage their kids to do sports for the sake of proper socialization and to hopefully make for a well-rounded college application in
