Gym Bodies: Exploring Fitness Cultures

Description

Drawing on empirical research, this fascinating new book explores the embodied experiences of ‘gym goers’ and the fitness cultures that are constructed within gyms and fitness spaces. Gym Bodies offers a personal, interactive, ethnographic account of the multiplicity of contemporary gym practices, spaces and cultures, including bodybuilding, CrossFit and Spinning. It argues that gym bodies are historically constructed, social, sensual, emotional and political; that experience intersects with multiple embodied identities; and that fitness cultures are profoundly important in shaping the body in wider contemporary culture. This is important reading for students, tutors and researchers working in sport and exercise studies, sociology of the body, health studies, leisure, cultural studies, gender and education. It is also a valuable resource for policy makers and practitioners within the fields of sport, leisure, health and education. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of figures Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Introducing (our) gym bodies and fitness cultures Introduction and aims James Ian Amy ‘Going to the gym’ Outline of chapters and boundaries Notes References Chapter 2: Conceptualising gym bodies Bringing the (gym) body back in Embodied sociological approaches Phenomenological approaches Sociological phenomenological approaches Feminist phenomenological approaches A sensory revolution Sensuous autoethnography Note References Chapter 3: A history of gyms and the evolvement of contemporary fitness A history of modern fitness Contemporary gyms and constructing the ‘fit’ body Gyms as sites for corporeal self transformation Notes References Chapter 4: Embodied methodological considerations Collecting embodied data on gym bodies Sample, data gathering and field relationships Analysis, judgement and representation Note References Chapter 5: Gym spaces Introduction ‘Spit and sawdust’ gyms Modern lifestyle clubs (MLCs) The front desk Changing rooms The gym floor CrossFit spaces Summary Notes References Chapter 6: Being personally trained Health knowledge and the fitness industry Embodied approaches: filling in the gaps References Chapter 7: CrossFit Introduction CrossFit’s fitness Forging elite fitness: CrossFit as a training methodology and a sport Academic analyses Amazing ‘Grace’ Chasing Elysium: sensorial analysis of a WOD Pre Grace Doing Grace Post Grace Competitive blood flows through my veins again Becoming immersed Welcome to the house of pain (and pleasure) Pushing to the edge of intensity Carnal metamorphoses and reinvention Reflections Future directions Notes References Chapter 8: Spinning Introduction Spinning experiences Bodily displays and body capital Spaces for the generation of fitness knowledge Emotional bodies Pleasurable Spinning Summary Notes References Chapter 9: Reflections Conceptualising and researching gym bodies Distinction and authenticity of embodied fitness knowledge The gym VIP list Embodied gym experience as transcendence Applications Limitations and future directions Personal reflections on own gym journeys James Ian Amy References Appendix 1: Judgement criteria employed Appendix 2: WOD acronyms in CrossFit Appendix 3: The original ‘girls’ Index