on gyming it up 6

I never did finish this did I? The saga continues...

Our culture has created certain ideals for each of us to live up to. There exists for men a certain ideal image not in some metaphysical realm but in the world of the social. Call it a Social Form, if you will. Now unlike Plato’s forms these particular ideals are subject to change over time, much like language. The antecedents of the ideal Social Form for men were given voice during the Enlightenment period. Human well being (health) and incredibly optimistic views about our abilities to manipulate nature (power, some might say hubris) have lead to the culturally conditioned Social Form that visually confirms to us whether or not a given man is in possession of these attributes. A toned (fatless) body with generous muscle definition denotes manliness evoking a sense of power, vitality and well being; this is the Enlightenment reified.

Our culture is saturated with signs which give birth to the Social Form. As this composite model of what is desirable becomes ingrained in the value system of a society, we can decide whether or not to conform to the form presented. That is, we may attempt to simulate the image. The images are everywhere we see them on bill boards, and advertisements showing us what the epitome of manliness looks like. The cultural theorist Baudrillard applies an interesting interpretation to the concept of simulation. At its most advanced level simulations no longer duplicate reality they replace it. Early civilizations attempted to reproduce scenes from nature, as technology advanced more elaborate signs and artifacts became possible. The ideal male body seen in this light is a simulacra, when one attempts to simulate its Social Form a piece of reality is not being reproduced but a new object that is created replaces the former figment of reality. We now have entered the hyper-real, the real that is more real than real, the manly that is more manly than manly.

This is me re-enforcing the stereotype:

 (except I can't remember what I've done at the gym these past few weeks so the following is an approximate)

bench 87.5/2*8,4

chins, dead hang (me)/3*8

seated row 65/3*10 

front squat 90/3*5

I have found that training in-season is exceptionally more difficult than the off-season. It hurts. It really does.

on gyming it up 5

Plato posited that two worlds exist: the world of being and the world of becoming.[1] The world of being is a place where everything exists in its perfect form. Take a horse for instance, somewhere out there in a place quite unlike this one there is the perfect form of a horse, an undefiled template from which all ‘horseness’ and all instances of horses originate. The world of becoming is our world; here, imperfect instances of Plato’s forms occur. Plato’s was a teleological world-view where the becoming parts were tagged as such because given the right type of conditions an imperfect form could move towards becoming like the perfect form. It turns out that Plato was probably wrong, however, I mention his work here because it helps to illustrate the type of thing that is occurring both in gyms and in the male psyche. There is an ideal form that exists and men now attempt to emulate this ideal.

back squat 60*8,100*5,120*5,130*5,140/3*3
chins 95/3*8

volume: 5770kgs (or 12,694lbs!)


[1] Strathern: The Essential Plato, pp 31-32.

on gyming it up 4

heres part 3

A further residual trace of the Enlightenment, which has accompanied human cultures domination of nature at sundry times throughout history, is the elevation of the human subject to the ultimate apotheosis of existence. With God dead, according to Nietzsche[1], someone or something needed to step up and fill the meaning void that this cosmic event left in its wake. Humanism, for better or worse, attempted to do exactly that. As the brainchild of the Enlightenment, Humanism collected all the principles that we have already discussed (rationality, human worth, equality etc.) and in the process an ideology was born. There is a direct connection between health promoting pursuits and humans beings seeing themselves as the new gold standard of creation (or of the big bang/accident). Working out at a gym can be a symptom of these two complimentary aspects: the new value of human status and the perceived power of humanity to reshape nature[2].

We now begin to move closer to what this all means in terms of visual culture, for men who interest themselves in gymnastic endeavours. Healthy living encompasses many aspects: food intake, proper medical care, and physical activity. There are certain behaviours that can signal that we practice a healthy lifestyle. When it comes down to it there are certain results that reveal unequivocally upon inspection that we are in fact healthy. Our behaviours do not accompany us where ever we go but our bodies do. If a society were to favour certain sense modalities above others certain bits of our sensations would be privileged above others. It is reasonable to assert that our visual experience takes precedence over other sensory data that we take in[3]. Intuitively this makes sense, an examination of present day culture (not to mention the past) shows us that visual markers are pre-eminent[4]. In such a culture it would be easy for appearance to become more important than substance. How we look may say more than what we do.

box squat (29cm) 60*5,80*5,100*5,120*5,130*3
power C&J 100 (missed jerk)
power snatch 60/2*3
power C&j 100 (missed jerk again)

volume: 2750kgs
[1] Nietzsche: The gay science, p 125
[2] Baldwin: Introducing Cultural Studies, p 365.
[3] Baldwin: Introducing Cultural Studies, p 365.
[4] Think about branding, video games, TV, billboards, art, architecture etc.

on gyming it up 3

here's part 2

Health, the converse of the above afflictions which are commonly incumbent on the human condition, is therefore a worthy pursuit and a natural consequence of the tenets espoused by Enlightenment thinkers. Unfortunately doctors, the high priests of modernity[1], have not been wholly successful in actualizing this Enlightenment ideal. Great strides have been taken in the elimination of many diseases to be sure, but the terrifying spectre of death still remains. Short of confronting this fact head on as Camus suggests[2], many men have been content to make the most of what time they have by pursuing this concept of health at gyms as a form of recreation. We certainly have other apparatus’ at our disposal to deal with the stark reality of our mortality (drugs come to mind), but they are more or less distractions, whereas, gym going is one particular activity that continues the spirit of the Enlightenment as far as taming nature is concerned. It may be of small consolation, but a healthy life style is the next best thing that we have to a cure for death. The enlightenment ideal is still alive then, but now modified; men, generally speaking, seek to live for as long as possible in the most ideal way possible. “If you haven’t got your health you haven’t got anything[3].”

What's this, a work out?
front squat 20*10,40*30,20,10
power C&J 60*3,100
power snatch 60*3, 70


[1] Cook: Medicine in Advanced Modernity, p 10
[2] Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus, p 3
[3] Reiner: The Princess Bride

something to think about next time you go to the gym

On Gyming It Up part 2 (here's part one)


Certain sensibilities have crept to the surface of our collective conscious over the past few decades. Somewhere close to the top of this heap of human conceptions is the desire to promote a healthy lifestyle. This desire to transcend the natural deterioration of organic matter is probably an offshoot of the oft-lamented Enlightenment project[1]. Among the many parts which gave shape to the body of this intellectual movement (along with the promotion of rationality, equality and subsequently the dispersion of superstitions, holy blood-lines and the like) was the establishment of the human being as the new centre of the universe. Nature was a chaotic malaise that would soon bend to our unreasonably impressive reasonableness[2]. It is implied then that humans possess an immense power, the power to control reality through reason. As we harnessed the combined powers of our considerable intellects we would conquer nature and leave some of her less than desirable aspects like (but not limited to) ageing, sickness and death bruised and beaten into submission...

and bada bing bada boom a work out
bench 60*8, 95/4*5
chins 95/4*5
seated row 94/4*5
OHP 2(22.5)*8,5


[1] For the purposes of this essay, the idea that the Enlightenment was a phallocentric phenomenon will be treated as axiomatic.
[2] Nisbet: The Sociological Tradition, pp 21-44

ON GYMING IT UP an essay in many parts #1

while I was at University I wrote many essays , it's comforting to know that this type of important work is going on in academia...


“Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise saves it and preserves it.” -- Plato[1]

The modern male is a complex entity. This essay will peer into one of the great developments of the late 20th and early 21st century, in regards to masculinity: that most manly of institutions, sometimes referred to as a health club, but better known as a gym. In these pockets of society – some dingy and dungeon like, others polished with the sheen of corporate culture – you will find matrices dedicated to the development of the perfect male form[2]. The dual sites under investigation are the gym and man (women not included, sorry). We will investigate how men utilise gyms in an attempt to simulate a cultural ideal: the visual ideal of male perfection. First, we will examine how our modern concept of manliness originated by taking a brief detour through the Enlightenment. Secondly, Plato and Baudrillard will help us to tease out what an ideal social form is and how it is that we go about simulating one. Finally, (with the necessary theoretical ground work laid) we will step into a gym and observe in that context how the male body can be read as a text, which simulates the ideal form that society has constructed for it. Let’s begin to disentangle some of that complexity and see if we can’t make some sense of these manly pursuits.

break parallel back squat 60*5,100*5,120*5,130/2*5
power clean 60*5,80*5,90*5
inc press 70*10
chins (n-grip) 97*10

volume:

[1] http://www.quotegarden.com/exercise.html
[2] The same can be said for the female form but due to space constraints this essay will limit itself to the question of masculinity.