I’m the writer, but I do the workout. Writing’s not sitting. Sports, I have all of them in my body. Muscles always, for moving. I try the celebrity diets with my mouth, and eat them. I’m always doing the workouts, for my fitness body. I triathlete, I Pilates. I Pi early too. Pushing my body always because my mind, she’s so awake with words and language. Pillar of strength, exhausted. Modern urban jungle, it’s not like the real jungle we all come from. How will I survive zombies? With quadriceps and explosive fast-twitch muscles, is how. Hands aren’t made to hold keyboards. Hands are made for bags of sand, and fleeing courageously.
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Transcendently Sublime Lines From Joe Manganiello’s Book About Fitness
The Book arrived today. It is, as you might imagine, chockablock with moments of the sublime.
“I remember being in high school, sitting on the couch with my girlfriend watching MTV, and the video for “Under The Bridge” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers came on. The video ends with a shirtless Anthony Kiedis running in slow motion, long hair swinging, pecs bouncing, and the room got silent – loud silent. I looked over at my girlfriend and realized that she was practically drooling over this guy. Here I was, a fifteen-year-old with short, preppy hair and a sunken chest that wouldn’t grow. I felt the anger come over me. I hated this guy, and for years I couldn’t stand the Chilis. Anytime anyone brought them up, I got angry. What was causing my jealousy? Simple: my unmet potential.
As an adult, I can look back and laugh. I love the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
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Joe Manganiello Read The Fountainhead And His Takeaway Was That People Should Quit Their Jobs To Work In Quarries
Joe Manganiello is living proof that the reader-response theory is the truest form of literary criticism.
Reader-response theorists share two beliefs: 1) that the role of the reader cannot be omitted from our understanding of literature and 2) that readers do not passively consume the meaning presented to them by an objective literary text; rather they actively make the meaning they find in literature” (154). In this way, reader-response theory shares common ground with some of the deconstructionists discussed in the Post-structural area when they talk about “the death of the author,” or her displacement as the (author)itarian figure in the text.
Joe Manganiello, a gift that God has given all of us with both hands, has written a book about transforming the body using the power of the mind. This is all well and good. Joe Manganiello has transformed his own body using the power of his mind. Therefore the system works. He is the experience that proves the theory. His mind transformed his body; there are no barriers; the tautology is doxology.
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Working Out With Rented Babies: A Primer
Fitness
Jul 01, 2015
Warm Up
Vigorous walking
Muscles worked: Hamstrings, quadriceps
Required equipment: Shoes (any kind, high heels preferred), bag of some sort (paper, cloth, or leather preferred, plastic strongly discouraged), at least one toddler
Arrive at your friend’s house. Set down bag and remove shoes. Walk 10 steps into kitchen. Walk 10 steps back to living room, remove phone from toddler’s grasp. Close bag. Walk 10 steps to kitchen. Walk 10 steps back to living room, remove phone from toddler’s grasp after having forgotten to take it off of the coffee table and put it somewhere out of reach. Set on mantle and assure yourself that toddler could not possibly learn to climb that high. Assess toddler, taking into account dexterity, determination, and strength to body weight to fear-of-death ratio (3:1:-17). Remove phone from mantle. Walk 10 steps to kitchen. Set phone on counter. Pause for 30 seconds. Bend down, accept your right shoe from toddler. Give shoe back when screaming commences. Follow toddler 23 shufflesteps to living room. Admire now enormous-looking shoes on tiny toddler feet.
Repeat x 3, substituting car keys and lipstick for phone in subsequent sets.
Arms/back
Baby lifts
Muscles worked: Biceps, triceps, lats, delts
Required equipment: Two toddlers (medium weight)
Pick Toddler 1 (T1) off the ground and lift high into the air. Bob head to avoid accidental spit from happy toddler mouth. Set toddler down on floor. Turn 90 degrees to Toddler 2 (T2). Lift high into the air while T1 shouts, “Turn!” Set T2 down. Turn 90 degrees back to T1. Lift T1 high into the air, allowing child to lift 2mm maximum above your hands depending on velocity of lift and height of ceiling. Do not fully extend arms if in the presence of a ceiling fan, even when turned off and disconnected. Set T1 down. Turn 90 degrees to pouting T2 and lift.
Advanced variation: Say, “Weeeeeeee!” with each lift, breathing from your diaphragm.
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Woman Lifts Weights, Continues Being a Woman
Fitness
Jun 11, 2015
Hieu Truong’s previous work for The Toast can be found here.
Most women her age are usually doing weak things, like hugging family members, cooking for large groups of small children, or spending much of their waking hours trying to support themselves financially. This woman is different. She lifts heavy weights. Maybe she lifts more weights than you, presumably male reader of undetermined size and athletic ability. Isn’t that crazy, a mere woman lifting more than you? She must be cheating. Maybe you should make derogatory remarks in the comments section, or speculate whether or not she is using steroids.
*
“Strong is the new pretty,” she says, as she chalks her hands for her 120lb log clean and press. “However, I have to make sure I’m the old pretty as well or I won’t get any sponsorships or any significant financial support to continue in any sport I love.”
*
This female lifter is completely unlike the kind of woman you tend to think of when you think of female lifters, because she loves the color pink. She loves the color pink so much that she has painted herself entirely in neon pink prior to a meet, in order to blind the other lifters. Once, she painted the referees in the middle of introductions and was stopped by a weight loader before she got to the meet director.
*
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Why American Ninja Warrior Is The Greatest Show About Obstacles Courses Currently On Television
Fitness
Jun 02, 2015
Previously: Signs a contestant is about to lose on Chopped.
- There is no acceptable size for a contestant to be during the Ring Toss. If he is over six feet and 200 pounds, hosts Matt Iseman and Akbar Gbajabiamila will worry about his ability to hold himself up. “That’s a lot of weight to hold up, Matt,” Akbar will say. If the contestant is any smaller, they will immediately worry that he or she is now too small to carry their own weight. “It’s going to be hard to keep himself up there with that small frame, Akbar,” Matt will say. “You’re right, Matt,” Akbar will say, as they cringe in their Worry Booth.
- At no point is any contestant asked to do anything that could be remotely described as ninja-adjacent. ...Read More
Feel the Burn: The Double Kimmy Schmidt Workout
Fitness
Apr 30, 2015
Previous installments of Feel the Burn can be found here.
I have been enjoying posting my daily workouts for you in the link roundup, but your demands for a more formal Feel the Burn have not fallen on deaf ears! There is nothing I love more than telling you about exercise.
As you probably know, I have been doing a group boot camp four mornings a week, baby in tow, in an attempt to return to my preferred physical status as a lethal movie villainess. The thirty minute format perfectly dovetails with my son’s limited willingness to sit and watch me hop around, I get my clock THOROUGHLY cleaned, and then I go home and mine the internet for links to amuse and educate you.
About halfway into the workout I am about to take you through, I faceplanted on my mat and thought “all my progressive librarians with their sexy, sexy glasses would really love this. There’s ZERO equipment, you need only enough space to lie down, it works your whole body, pushes your heart rate, has lots of modifications for physical limitations, and it goes by REALLY QUICKLY.”
*
“Why is this called The Double Kimmy Schmidt, Nicole?”
“Because it works on the theory that you can withstand anything for TWENTY seconds.”
*
Let us begin.
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Here Is What Happens To You When You Work Out With Nicole Cliffe
Fitness
Apr 29, 2015
You will do lunges carrying a baby.
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