I read a number of sports specific blogs–mostly about cycling in its various forms such as road cycling, track cycling, cyclocross, and multisport (triathlon and duathlon)–but as I entered the ‘countdown to fifty’ fitness goal, I started reading a few more general fitness blogs. All are critical of the ‘fitness industry’ and have a skeptical eye on its many claims. Krista’s is old but I visit Stumptuous still for its energy and attitude. Here are my three favorites and a bit about each. What general fitness blogs do you read?
- Fit and Feminist, http://fitandfeminist.wordpress.com/
Author: “My name is Caitlin and I’m a reformed slacker turned athletics evangelist. I played sports when I was a kid and I consistently sucked at them, so when I hit my 20s, I gave up playing sports and exercising. For several years, the most physical effort I ever exerted came during my walks to the corner store to buy cigarettes or around the block to hit the neighborhood bar. Sometimes, if I was ambitious, I walked an extra two blocks to pick up my pizza or fast-food value meal. Now I’m embracing a more health-oriented way of life that involves getting sweaty several times a week, changing the way I eat and learning everything I can about fitness and wellness. It’s no exaggeration to say doing so has changed my life, not least of all because I have more confidence in myself than I ever have before. But, seeing as though I am about as hardcore a feminist as I am a runner, I can’t help but make observations about health, weight, bodies, fitness and sports, particularly as they relate to gender. Rarely a day passes that I don’t think about the lack of women in the weight room or consider the harmful effects of the diet industry on the self image of women and girls. So I figured, why not blog about it?”
Motto: Because it takes strong women to smash the patriarchy.
Focus: Feminist lens on sports and fitness
- Go Kaleo, http://gokaleo.com/
Author: “Formerly obese, currently badass, powerlifting-at-40, trouble-making cheerleader of the boot-strappers, the over-comers, the kool-aid rejectors, the post baby body-reclaimers, the eaters and movers, the strong and powerful, and most of all, the critical thinkers.”
Motto: Eat real food. Move around a lot. Lift heavy things. And skip the kool-aid.
Focus: Opposed to dietary dogma of all sorts, visible abs do not equal health and fitness, long term life functional benefits of weight lifting
- Stumptuous, , http://www.stumptuous.com/. Krista Scott-Dixon (an oldie but a goodie with lots to read if you’re new)
Author: “Krista earned her PhD in Women’s Studies from York University in 2002. Her early research focused on women’s work — both paid employment and unpaid domestic work. This gives her a strong appreciation for the demands that women experience in trying to manage the demands of work and family while staying healthy themselves. Her later research focused on the ways in which gender shapes people’s experiences of health and health care. Krista now serves as the research director for the Healthy Food Bank and the editor-in-chief of Spezzatino magazine. Both projects promote good nutrition and the joy of eating well. When it comes to health and fitness, though, Krista’s perhaps best known for her gym rat alter ego “Mistress Krista” and her website Stumptuous.com.” from the Precision Nutrition website.
Focus: Excellent resource on weight lifting for women. And lots of excellent rants, including this one!
Love Krista’s emphasis on inclusion and on function rather than beauty:
“Give me your old and young and everything between early bipedalism and death. And while you’re at it give me your non-bipedal: your limps and gimps and wimps and wheeled and caned and casted and bandaged. Untangle your sweaty hospital sheets and IV tubes and tentacles of fear and shame and move whatever isn’t strapped down. A finger, a leg, an eyelid. Whatever you can move, keep moving it. Next week, add some weight to that.
Give me your saggy, your baggy, your faggy, your haggy. Give me your freaks and geeks; steers and queers; sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, preppies, jocks, stoners, poindexters, punkers, rockers, hicks, drama dorks, superstars, homebodies, farmers, New Wavers and socs.
Give me your bodies wracked with life’s whims; your hormonally challenged; your rattling bottles of pills like morbid maracas; your diseases of disuse. Your old knee injury from when you tried drunken trampolining.
Give me your your shit-talkers and funk-walkers; the voices in your head who sing the Rocky training montage; your sniveling inner toddler who stamps and says “No!”. Leave your inner critic at the door, or do five pushups every time you speak to yourself seriously in her voice.
Give me your clueless big-eyed newbies and grizzled gray-prickly veterans. Give me your squashy and scrawny. Give me your chickenshits; you people hunting for your fighting spirit and tending the tiny flame of Yes we can inside your ribcage.
It doesn’t matter who kicked the sand in your face. Spit it out and let’s get to work.
You can all apply for this job of awesome. No resumé required. The universe will be your hiring committee, and we need a lot of staff.
All are welcome in this house that strength built.“