If you live in chaos, you can get a decent cardio workout just by tidying, moving things at speed off the floor of one room and into another
A couple of years ago, I was trying to place the entire fitness industry on the arc of feminism, with my friend who’s an aerobics teacher. What does it mean, if we’re all dropping a load of time and money trying to hone our glutes? Is it straight objectification? (Must look better to fit society’s view of female form! Must be best self to maximise market value in a neoliberal frame!) Or is it a story of emancipation and strength? (I don’t need a man – I can push over a car using only my thighs.) She said, “You’re partly looking at an aerobics class full of women who no longer do their own housework. The amount of physical activity is the same in a class, it’s just that nothing gets any cleaner.” So really it was more of a Marxist question than a feminist one, but never mind that now.
What I’ve been ruminating on recently is the question: is the amount of energy you expend cleaning the same as an aerobics class? Well, one: only if you plan it to be. Two: there will be gaps in the workout, but you can fill those with bodyweight bolt-ons. Three: cleaning demands – craves – music, because it otherwise drops to a sedate pace. I’d even suggest making some 20-minute 160BPM playlists. (I’ve got a musicals playlist, and everyone hates it: my mister because he hates musicals, the children because they say every time they hear The Greatest Showman, they know I’m going to be in a really self-righteous mood. This doesn’t deter me, as I am possessed by my own righteousness.)
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