gym thoughts
my god. i've gone almost two days without blogging. something must be done.
........
.................
um.
ok, i have a gym question. why do women spend hours upon pointless hours doing ab work at the gym? when i go to the back room with the mats to stretch after my runs, the whole place is pretty much filled with ladies doing ab stuff on those big rubber balls; ladies doing weird crunchy things where they bring their legs up to their chests and point their arms out straight and wave them up and down very quickly. or else they are just holding the V position - legs slightly up, head up, arms pointed out straight, balancing on their butt and concentrating very hard.
this is stupid. for many reasons, but i will state two.
1. it ain't ever going to make a difference, unless you are an olympic marathoner/swimmer/etc.
2. women have bellies! we always will! embrace the buddha!
re: 1, i mean, seriously. seriously? seriously. you are not going to get a six pack or even any noticeable definition by doing lots of crunches. i'm speaking from personal experience, but the best way to get a somewhat-flatter stomach is to run a lot, on an incline, and just do a lot of cardio in general. i mean, a LOT. no matter how amazing the abs underneath are, women just have more fat on their stomachs and you will have to go to bizarre lengths to make it disappear. and why would you want to? i think rock hard abs on a woman are rather gross. they're a bit better on a man, but any time i see a guy with an extremely defined six pack, i think a) huh, that's kind of hot, but then b) about how much time he must have to spend at the gym. and how little time he must spend drinking beer and eating barbeque.
and that, my friends, makes me think.
that's catherine's gym wisdom for the day. you're welcome.
Comments
I tend to agree except for one thing: Stronger abs=less back pains. Having been on gym hiatus for the last 4 months, I have had the worst back aches.
so I am sticking to my big balls :)
you're right, i didn't take into account the other benefits stronger abs might give. me being me, i immediately went to the vanity factor.
stronger back muscles = even better for back pain. deadlifts, done properly and carefully, can be a great preventative for back pain.
oh, and while we're complaining about women at the gym: what's going on with girls at the gym wearing lots of makeup? I even see it on the weekends sometimes. I find it deeply suspicious.
Catherine, I think ab work can make a difference for women. I don't like extremely defined abs on women, but some definition is nice. I LOVE 6-packs on guys and it's really not that hard for them.
Even if you don't get the defined rectus abdominus (glamour muscles that go up and down), you may have great transverse abdominus muscles underneath (the core muscles that go across) that are really important for core strength and stability.
Those arm waving ab exercises are probably Pilates movements that work on the deep transverse abdominus muscles.
Tom, I usually don't wash my face before going to the gym. So if I wore makeup all day, then I wear it to the gym too. But if I go on a weekend morning, even if I'm teaching, I usually don't wear makeup (unless I have a reason to believe I might scare the class without it).
oohhhh, catherine. this post was just silly. silly I tell you. tsk tsk
& strong back muscles is not the sole answer to no back pain. you need a good balance in your core strength & stability (abs, chest, trunk included) if not you run that risk of over-relying on your back to keep you upright which leads to most cases of back pain (in my experience).
On a related note, why is it that women always have a monopoly on the best cardio equipment? There is this new half-elliptical/half-stepper machine that seems really cool albeit difficult. Every single time I'm at the the gym, there's always a hottie using it... and she's totally going ballistic on it. This chick (I'm not a PC kinda guy) was on it once and she was moving her legs so fast I got dizzy looking at her. And she did this for 30 minutes. Made me feel very inadequate. :(
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