Gawker
First, the media implants an unattainable idea in our heads about what a human body should look like. Then, on top of that, popular publications give confusing advice about how to achieve that impossibly cut look! In the last couple of days, the lying liberal media has published several articles on various fitness techniques. You don't need to read any of them, because we're about to round them all up and drop some serious knowledge on you about the phony, media-driven fitness fantasy. After the jump, how to save money and kick ass in this shallow, workout-obsessed world.
Let's examine three fitness programs profiled in the last two days:
1. Crossfit, via the NYT—CrossFit is an internet-based cult of fitness for psychos, itinerant preachers, ex-killers, and crazy people of all stripes. I have met some people who do CrossFit, and they are scarily in shape and also not at all fun to be around. All you have to do is complete the psycho workout routine posted online every day. Sample, from Friday:
For time:
15 Handstand push-ups
1 L Pull-up
13 Handstand push-ups
3 L Pull-ups
11 Handstand push-ups
5 L Pull-ups
9 Handstand push-ups
7 L Pull-ups
7 Handstand push-ups
9 L Pull-ups
5 Handstand push-ups
11 L Pull-ups
3 Handstand push-ups
13 L Pull-ups
1 Handstand push-up
15 L Pull-ups
Post time to comments.
Seriously, just forget CrossFit. It will make you insane.
2. Gyrotonics, via the NY Sun—Gyrotonics is based on a huge, complicated machine that is specially designed to extract money from the wallets of idly rich women. It looks like this:
The hustle is that you have to go to some particular specialist on this particular machine to help you unlock its magical potential, while you pay them handsomely for their secret knowledge. Here's another idea: grab a towel, pull it till your shoulders feel stretched out, then go run stairs until you're in shape. Fuck gyrotonics.
3. "Hollywood's Dirty Diet Secrets," via the NYDN—finally, something real. Also, sick. Did you know Hollywood starlets go on crazy crash diets which consist mostly of smoking, drinking coffee, and doing coke, supplemented only by lettuce or boiled eggs or lemonade or something equally ridiculous? Yes, you probably did know that. Combining laxative tea with fasting and five-hour daily workouts reportedly produces some real results. The downside is that you will be totally dead pretty quick. But yes, you will leave a pretty corpse.
What does it really take to get fit? Nothing more than an iron will, the Eye of the Tiger, buckets of sweat, hours of pain, days of hope, years of conquest, and THIS:
Comments
WTF?! I never got paid for that phot shoot!
I got your Super Squats right here!
The real 'secret' to weight loss? Eat your arm, bitch: it worked for me.
4. Cocaine.
meh... looks like too much work. Besides, my overweight body, plus the weight of the casket will give my pall bearers a much needed work out.
That Cross-Fit routine is much easier if you hire people to do those for you.
Forget all that. The Shovelglove Sledgehammer Workout is the key to fitness:
+ Watch video
I am perfectly happy with my "Kinda Lame Squats."
[shovelglove.com]
You left out one category of crossfit practitioners: drifters.
Masturbation has kept me splendidly fit. And I have Bruce Lee-like forearms.
I think there must be some mixup -- Gyrotronics is the centuries-old craft of fashioning gigantic wooden sex machines.
And "CrossFit" appears to be an elaborate masturbation schedule.
I learned from Mariah Carey one 4th of July that you can just have your abs drawn on with a brown pencil.
[www.stallonezone.com]
SPOILER ALERT!
Those amazon reviewers really give away the ending to Super Squats.
A cautionary tale, to be sure. Absuing steroids apparently caused that guy's left arm to grow a blond head.
Where is that woman's other leg? Or are her thighs just so strong from doing handstand push-ups that she's able to latch onto him like a koala and hold herself upright?
The reason that I'm fat and out of shape is that I've been neglecting to do "L Pull-Ups" in between those 64 Hand-stand push-ups I do everyday?
You forgot the part where the media wants to laugh at you and your feeble attempts at losing weight.
When are people going to realize that none of these trends or fads will ever replace good old fashioned exercise abuse and forced vomiting?
If you're on a tight budget, I find that Super Squirts usually gets the job done.
Crossfit was designed by commies.
i just go to Pilates and hope for the best... it lets me drink more champagne.
@Sheila: Don't forget that NO-Xplode!
Re: that couple on the cover - The guy's abs are distorted and frightening, and dude looks like a lady.
@Colonel Mustard: Good call. I'm pretty sure that pose is anatomically impossible to pull off. But they didn't look human to me to begin with.
@Colonel Mustard: I also wonder... if they are standing on the same height floor... is she a giant, or is he a wee overly buff munchkin?
Umm, could anyone actually fit that "gyrotonic" thing in their apartment?
My fitness technique is all about the bottle:
@depardoo: Did you know that Bruce Lee weighed only 135 pounds? That's what it said on some cute ad I saw on the Internets. Don't know if it's true, but it makes me want to lose weight since that means I outweigh him and that makes me feel weird. Do not want to give up chocolates, red wine, and french fries, but would work out in the pool with Michael Phelps...oh yeah...
Why is s/he clawing at him? Still mad over the great leg incident? Hungry?
@Unfun: I may be saying too much here, but I, um, wrote several articles in that issue, and edited several more.
I also like the current Vogue in which an exercise fanatic quits her gym, finds herself eating less (because she's less hungry, duh), and actually loses weight! Works for me.
@marvel girl: We keep ours in the observatory.
Um, is anyone else getting kicked out over and over again by the servers and told that their password doesn't work, or is something bad about to happen to me?
just get on Jimmy Tango's Fat Busters diet and ride the snake.
RIDE THE SNAKE!
@moff: you too?
To keep fit I run up and down the mountains of Scotland chasing tourists. Swedish ones are the best, as they seem to have little sense of direction, and get easily confused between left and right, making them easier to maul. Apparently this is down to the language, as the Swedish for "left" and "right" is the same word. When I catch a tourist, I lift them above my head and spin them around, so that centrifugal force deposits their passports and backpacks on the ground below. I find this simple method of attack keeps my body fit, my brain active, and my blood-lust sated. I normally do this naked but for a baseball cap to keep the glare out my eyes. I have thighs like an oak, an abdomen like a Volkswagen, and arms like the neck of a Bolivian donkey.
@BalknChain: [Nods gravely]
@TedSez: Shovelglove! That s**t is the best.
Guys like Mr. Men's Health there in the photo work out 2-3 hours a day. Every day.
Forget abs. All a person really needs is a good haircut. Plus, at a salon you get to sit around reading US magazine. Not that I don't see people in the gym doing exactly that...
@KarenUhOh: IMO, the best part of the Super Squirts is the beneficial weight loss.
@GollyG: And a manicure. I may be fat and broke, but my nails are PERFECT!
OMG where's her other leg!?! If it's exactly behind the front one, that is one weird-ass, possibly physics-defying, pose. Otherwise, we know her weight-loss secret..
Face and ab transplants will some day be routine. Until then we have Super Squats. And paper bags.
My secret: just have an unpredictable stomach disorder, be too poor to buy meals that you can't digest anyway, ride the f-train (2 million steps a day), live on the 4th floor of a walk-up, and you too will find yourself slim!
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