Lunk Alarm!

I had a number of things I was thinking about blogging. I feel like I've been remiss recently. Going to VA, being sick, assembling applications for a fellowship and two GAs, preparing for my mom's visit to NY, etc. etc. Here's what I came up with. It actually started as a Britney rant, and became a gym etiquette rant. I'll get back to the Britney at some future point since you're all no doubt titillated at the prospect. Perhaps there will also be a GA rant, a mom/visit rant, and, most shamefully of all, a That's Amore! rant. This is a spin-off of Tila's reality dating show, and, yes, I've been catching up. Another day.

I'm deadset against being one of those gym types I think of as "moaners" and "yellers." This may sound like Appalachian slang, but it isn't. Moaners and yellers are almost inevitably men. Moaning and yelling are the cardio equivalents of grunting. If you're not a gym rat, you probably don't know about the fervor people work themselves into over gym etiquette. Doing a bit of research on the grunting phenomenon, I found that some of the more inflammatory issues are the obvious ones like not wiping down sweaty equipment when it clearly needs to be squee-geed after your disgusting ass has used it and standing too close to, for example, a treadmill while waiting for the user to finish. If you remember my rage about Yacht-guy, this is probably starting to sound more than a little pathological.

Grunters, though, receive the most press. Some gyms even have posted anti-grunting policies where "lunks"--those who slam weights and make guttural sounds while lifting--are singled out and humiliated via something called a "lunk alarm." Sometimes they are even expelled and have their memberships revoked. I shit you not. Of course, lunks/grunters are upset about this as they feel their god-given right to grunt in public is being infringed upon, while health clubs claim they are trying to set a certain tone in the gym. In other words, not having dudes grunting and slamming weights around makes for a calmer and less intimidating gym experience. There's a great article from the Seattle Times about this issue here, if you're interested. The pivotal contention, apparently, is whether or not the grunting actually improves the workout, as many grunters insist. The Seattle Times writer takes the debate back to where it obviously needs to go: primates. To figure out whether or not it is "natural" for people to grunt, they examine the behavior of primates to figure out whether they grunt in moments of exertion. The comparison regrettably crumbles when the researchers are forced to conclude that unlike humans, monkeys never grunt disingenuously . Here's just a taste for those of you disinclined to follow the link:

But there are differences. Even though monkeys and apes grunt plenty, researchers believe they do it as an involuntary response to an emotion, Owren says. In short, you will never see a monkey fake a grunt.

Humans, however, have a unique ability to simulate or exaggerate this sound strictly for effect. Owren surmises that humans who produce exaggerated effort grunts do so to signal great exertion and, hence, great power.

"One can readily imagine that in a fitness and weight-lifting circumstance that it's being used as a kind of dominance signal," he said.

They really needed to consult a gruntologist (yes, the article refers coyly to the expert as such) to figure this out? Really? I could have told them this. There's a small but prominent cadre of guys who go to my gym who routinely slam weights, grunt, moan, and yell. My absolute favorites are the panting, big-bellied, sweaty older guys who try to correct my form while banging weights so loudly that the floor vibrates. One guy actually asked me why I don't slam them, since he finds it so "satisfying." I didn't tell him that I'm pretty sure if you're unable to resettle the weight without slamming it, you're lifting too much. Dominance signal? Posturing? Or, I guess the gym-slang is hot-dogging? Yeah. In my mind the guys who yell and moan incomprehensibly while running on the treadmill are in the same class as grunters. It's all about taking up space, and men are socialized to do this. Of course, this is when everyone drops in the apparently notoriously vocal Monica Seles and Maria Sharapova as proof that women do it too, but I guess I've just never had the good fortune to end up on treadmill next to one of them or any woman like them. Perhaps this would change everything for me.

The Last of It, I promise

Otherwise known as, "Why I Love the SLOG." For those of you game enough to click the link in my last post, here's the contest decision, cut and pasted for your reading convenience:

"We the judges of this contest believe Ayn Rand serves a critical purpose. She’s the ideal author for a teenager to read and be captivated by because she enshrines the primary value of teenagerdom—the idea that the self is the unquestionable center of the universe—as a kind of moral imperative. By the time you begin to outgrow that sense of self-enshrinement and recognize yourself as connected to a larger world, the stiff, fascistic humorlessness masquerading as heroism of Rand’s writing should become one of those things (maybe the first one) you realize you thought was brilliant, but only because you were young, and selfish, and WRONG. She’s a skin you shed. And essay number one is the best evidence of someone prepared to use this portrait to help future generations shed that skin. So, Bill, the portrait is hereby yours and no one else’s."

To read the winning submission and some others of note, click here.
If you can make it through the cuntberries, you're home free.

Fuck John Galt

Not for the collectivists (you know who you are): More amusement courtesy of the SLOG. Seriously, who's going to make me that t-shirt already? Whatever you do, don't skip the comments!


Keep working on your teasers. More soon.

Tales from the Short Bus

In which I regale you with tales from my pilates class. I know I'm going to read about this any day now on this blog, which I've enjoined you all to check out at your convenience. Anyway, this edition of Tales from the Short Bus, features this little maneuver demonstrated below by the much esteemed founder, Joseph Pilates. It's called the Teaser. I have no idea why.

I can't do it.

I've been taking classes for almost two months now, and practicing a couple more times a week between sessions on the treadmill and circuit training. I really like pilates. It focuses on the core, which is one thing I'm shamefully lazy about. What can I say? I find ab work b-o-r-i-n-g and bizarrely feminizing in some way. The point being that I'm in reasonably good shape.

And I can't do it.

The Teaser, that is. In addition to the frustration have having hit a brick wall like this one, it became just a little more humiliating tonight. Perhaps a little explanation? You start off on your back with your chin tucked into your chest. Your arms are straight down at your sides and hovering slightly off the ground. Your feet are pointed and lifted slightly off the ground. Then you simultaneously lift your arms and legs and come up into the position demonstrated above. Go ahead and try it. I can't fucking do it. At some point, my legs won't go up any further without bending slightly, and then once up, they kind of drag me back down, like my ass is a fulcrum. Can you picture this?

Anyway, my pilates instructor is wonderful. She's extremely cool, helpful, rigorous, kind, excellent. And tonight she gave me the ball. I should explain a bit more.

Q and I have a long-standing animosity with an older, heavy-set white man I've dubbed "yacht-guy." Yacht-guy, like most of us, has a sort of standard gym outfit. I tend to wear black pants and a black or grey shirt. Big surprise. Yacht-guy is just as predictable and never seen in anything but one of a series of different, you guessed it, Yacht Club t-shirts tucked into white sweatpants. He and one of his cronies once changed the radio while Q was lifting, and when she changed it back, yelled at her. We're not fans. These kinds of simmering social antagonisms build over time when people have to share space and equipment.

Yacht-guy takes pilates. Tonight, the instructor brought a small beach ball for him to use in performing another maneuver that I can actually do quite well. Again, I refer you to Pilates himself. I think Yacht-guy put it under his lower back to help him get up a little higher. Just when I'm feeling somewhat unjustifiably smug about my old nemesis having to use a ball, she brought it over to me.

Yes, I had to use the ball for the Teaser. She verbally pondered the conundrum. She's genuinely confused about my utter inability to lift my legs and keep them up like I should be able to--like everyone else in the class can. Am I hopelessly disproportionate? This is the possibility that keeps coming up. In other words, it may be that my legs are way too long and my torso way too short to let me get any kind of leverage. Q keeps talking about my center of gravity, but I don't know. The other possibility is that I'm just weak. Thus ends this edition of Tales from the Short Bus.