Ask the Trainer
And When Exactly Do I Look Like the Girl in the Magazine?
- B.O.W.C. Day 23
Kwalsh writes: "I'm feeling frustrated because I killed it with my ab routine today- I do stuff in reps now that I wouldn't even attempt before- but I don't see it..."
K., I hear this often, especially from new recruits to fitness, and more often women. Intial excitement turns into frustration. Too often they miss out on the bigger changes in their bodies because they are spending too much time staring at the mirror naked. You are getting compliments, you are fitting into clothes that you haven’t before, your energy has skyrocketed, and on and on! These are the rewards of your hard work. Can you do more? Yes, but at what price?
Start mini rant: Are you looking to have the body of a magazine cover model? Don’t waste your time and energy. The image you seek is not real. Magazines want to make money. They are banking on our fears and desires. Special lighting and airbrushing go a long way. Teenage girls are getting more cosmetic surgery than ever! The athletes that are true to their image have earned it through dedicated diet and exercise and fortunate genetics. The Hollywood image is a less than reasonable goal.
Right. Rant over. That said, here's how we step up our training...
- Stop with the “hundreds of crunches." Abdominal work needs to be challenging. Pick your exercises carefully, and know when to progress to to something more difficult. Try Hanging leg raises, the jacknife (lying on back, arms and legs move together), side plank (for 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute). Yes, we have to work up to more advanced exercise. Then, WORK! Don’t be that person on the mat doing 15 (or 100) simple crunches and looking for the six pack!
- Do your strength training BEFORE your cardio. Five to ten minutes of cardio to warm- up, is fine. You could also warm up with light weights and active stretching. But don’t burn out the good energy on cardio and then try to excel in your weight training. MAXIMIZE the calories that you burn (even after the workout) with strength training! The cardio after is all gravy! Alternate days, with just cardio (long run, spinning, etc.)
- WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU EATING?!! Always a good breakfast. Protein should be present every meal: Eggs, yogurt, oatmeal, protein shake.... Remove some of the unnecessary carbs in the diet. What are you drinking? It's amazing how well we survive on, get ready, WATER! Cut down on Starbucks, diet sodas, and, for heaven’s sake, the “fat-free” muffins.
Final thoughts: You are unique and beautiful. TRAIN HARD! You will get stronger and you will do more. Take a “before” picture now. Put it away for 6 months, or a year. Progress safely and continually, and you will be happy with the “after” picture.
- brian schneider's blog
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Comments
Woah. I always thought you did cardio first, to get your heart rate up. You just changed my life. I was wondering why I've been increasing weights as I work, and it seems easy, but my energy just peters out. I always thought it was an endurance thing, not a "just spent an hour doing cardio thing." Thanks!
Submitted by Mr. Mohawk on 04.23.09 at 10:06.
aww, you rule!
Submitted by urbansherpa on 04.23.09 at 11:46.
oh and he's right, mostly...about the magazine thing. I work full-time as a photo-retoucher for a living and no one, not one single person, is without flaw. i have to say, some people are pretty darn close though. just remember that flaw IS perfection...aren't flaws what make us interesting and beautiful?
and to defend my industry, because we get a LOT of blame shoved on us...a few bad apples ruin the bunch i guess. Here's the real deal:
There are many aspects that go into advertising and media and to making images beautiful. An image passes through MANY hands before it makes it to the stands.
Photographer, art director (they usually are the ones making decisions about what to "fix"), retoucher, magazine folks...back and forth and back and forth.
as far as body image and retouching...things TOTALLY get out of hand. but it's up to each and every client to make good decisions about how much gets done. retouchers themselves (if they know what they are doing) don't "airbrush" anything anymore...they only take out the bare minimum for the client's liking. and if they do a good job, you should NOT be able to tell there was retouching at ALL. which means, not many retouchers do a good job. hahahah! but that is changing with time. look at the dove ads, mags like self and shape. real people in those. high fashion, diff story. they like to take things to the extreme.
ok, maybe i should work now.
Submitted by urbansherpa on 04.23.09 at 12:26.
on looks versus health: there's a connection, to be sure, but it's so hard to look at yourself. I remember being so unhappy about how I looked and my body when I was living overseas. It seemed like I would never look as good as people I saw (why are women in Hong Kong so fucking skinny?!?) or images in advertisements. But when I look back on pictures of that time, I was really young and pretty. True, I didn't look like a professional athlete, but I did look good. And it's a bummer that I was too neurotic to see what everyone else was able to see. Looking in a mirror has for me been a terrible way to measure my health because the image was so warped. (If I thought Hong Kong was bad, NYC was a momentary insanity mindfuck). Now it is more about energy and trying to not have a heart attack when I'm 40 or being healthy enough to take care of other people. And that has made life a little more peaceful.
Submitted by k.ben on 04.23.09 at 12:45.
I choose my magazines wisely (HEEB anyone?). Though recently French ELLE did an issue with unretouched women sans makeup, so many of the images in magazines are just so bogus I stopped buying them years ago. You know what is super fun though? A friend of mine gave me a box of Playboys from the 1960s. Not only are they chock full of articles written by Hunter S. Thompson, but there is no retouching! The images of the women are silly and fun but what makes them titillating is that if you've ever actually seen a naked woman live and in-person you know that that is what we actually look like! Looking at the unretouched 1960s photos feels naughty because the images are so real. Looking at the modern playboy images usually just reminds me of that time I went to Hustler of Hollywood in LA and a fellow customer offered me some meth to go with my vibrator.
Submitted by londontransplant on 04.24.09 at 07:41.