Magazines: Dangerous to your workout?
Thursday is the happiest day of the week (yes, I realize today is not Thursday), for two reasons:
1) So You Think You Can Dance is on (altho I just came to the horrifying realization that my dream show actually runs on Wednesdays, and them someone is sent home on Thursday. I will need to secure the season DVD as soon as possible as I've been spending my Wednesdays sobbing in a corner, wishing Top Chef wasn't over and counting the days until Project Runway returns. I am a sad soul.
2) US Weekly arrives.
When I open my mailbox and a glossy, Angelina/Britney/Reese-topped maggie spills out into my awaiting, outstretched arms, I feel like a doctor delivering a healthy, bouncing, beautiful baby girl, full of promise and hope and potential. US Weekly is my baby. I know my workout the next day is bound to be good because I have 60 pages of celeburiffic crap to read through, thus distracting me from the ache in my thighs of the streaming rivulets of sweat streaking down my back, forming small lakes at the bottom of my Gauntlet (OK, for now it's the recumbent...but still).
I simply cannot workout on a machine sans reading material. US, Women's Health, Allure, Newsweek, Chicago Magazine - no matter what the topic, I know it'll help distract me just enough to crank out 40 minutes (though not so distracting that I slack off in the cardio department.) I'm not that guy who readers the Sunday Times while leisurely pedaling away at 2RPMs.
Anyhow, I thought of my penchant for reading-while working when I saw this recent study showing that muscle mags can undo the feel-good effects of exercise. Apparently, staring at pics of six-packs and cantaloupe-sized calves can rob you of the mental boost we all love from our workout.
Researchers recruited 92 college women to spend half an hour on an exercise bike while reading either Oxygen magazine, Oprah magazine or nothing at all. Those who read Oxygen during their exercise routine were more anxious, depressed and in an all-around poorer mood post-workout; Oprah readers or non-readers benefited in terms of mood.
The head researcher hypothesizes that women may become depressed when looking at images like this and this because we feel we'll never that good.
I think this is interesting...I personally have experienced the same feelings of "my butt will never look like hers no matter how long I spend on this machine" but that's why I stopped reading certain magazines that rhyme with "Mosmololitan" and certainly never pick up a copy of that one maggie that is named after the letter that follows "V" but comes before "X." True, my current issue of Allure does feature Ali Larter looking impossibly hot but, as my dad always said about his Playboy collection, I read it for the articles (great essays!)
In the MSN article I linked to above, Gary Sforzo, a professor of exercise and sport sciences at NY's Ithaca College said exercisers can generally be divided into two categories: associaters and dissociaters. "Associaters tend to be hard-core exercise enthusiasts and athletes who are addicted to their heart rate monitors and tracking their performance every step of the way," the article states. "Not surprisingly, though, 'most people are dissociaters,' he says. 'These are people who don’t like to tune in to their bodies while exercising.' Reading, listening to music or watching the tube can be a smart strategy to keep these people exercising and going for longer periods when they do because they get caught up in an article, music or show, Sforzo says."
Now, I don't color myself "dissociative," a term which carries strong connotations of craziness for some reason in my mind. And I would never say I tune out or don't pay attention to my body while working out. But I suppose I have been relying on the written word to carry me through. I could stop if I wanted, tho. And I'm saying that in a non-addicted-smoker-kind-of-way. After all, I never thought I could productively write at home and look at me now, post neck blow-out: I'm home-based and doing well. (Though I hear customers have been asking after me at Starbucks. I think they're going to retire my chair, actually!)
I'm off on a long walk to my gym, where I'll spin a bit on the recumbent. Reading a brand-spanking-new issue of Health Magazine. When I get back, I home to see lotsa comments from y'all - any fellow dissociaters in da house? Who reads National Geographic while they Ellipticize? Or do you iPod your way through? Watch Grey's Anatomy reruns? What does it for you?
Love!
Name
URL
Comments
characters left.
