Lady Things: The Exercise Religion

Can an exercise bike save your soul?

Welcome back to Lady Things, the column where we run a mile in the well-worn track shoes of the people who came from Adam's rib. Last week, we talked about beauty that is, by design, skin deep. This week, we go much, much deeper, into the fat cells, the muscles, and ultimately, the soul.

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Once upon a time, women in this country had religion. Men had it too, don't get me wrong. But for women, religion was an important outlet for them: It meant a few hours break every Sunday from cooking, cleaning and emotionally supporting their husband and children. It also made them part of a community, gave them friends with a shared interest (God). It gave them a place where they could feel that crazy group bond of singing together and a little physical activity (kneeling to pray, feeling the Holy Spirit). It allowed them physical contact with people that weren't their husband/child captors.

Now, almost no one goes to church. Some reports say on any given Sunday, maybe 20 percent of Americans are in the pews. And, according to a cursory look at my Facebook page, I'm going to say most of those people are Mormons (shout out to them—they seem like they're having a great time). And it's true that women are less captive in our homes than we once were. But still, women are expected to be perfect, available mothers to their children, exemplary employees at work and hot pieces of ass that can keep their husbands' penises out of other people's vaginas.

Back in 2000, Sarah Vowell penned an essay for McSweeneys that has always stuck with me, about Tom Landry, a football coach and writer of a Christian children's comic. In it she writes:

For the women of America, SOMETHING IS MISSING. So, what are they, we, to do, now that our outlet for emotional, spiritual and sometimes even physical release is gone, a gaping, terrifying hole reflecting our likeness, staring back at us?

I'll tell you: exercise.

Last week, I went to what I thought would be the pinnacle of exercise class: an Ellie Goulding-themed ride at BurnCycle, Portland's answer to SoulCycle. SoulCycle, if you haven't heard of it, is the transcendent spin class that celebrities love. It involves a room full of exercise bikes, loud music and an instructor screaming inspirational instructions at you through a headset.

Also, it was parodied on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt:

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I'd never taken a spin class before, so when the lights dimmed and the adorable girl in the front of the room started jumping around and yelling, I looked at my friend and said, "I don't like this standing-up part." She shook her head at me and said, "Welcome to spin class."

I've met people that swear by spin class. Women have told me it changed their lives. They love the challenge of it, they drink up the slogans and the serotonin release. And I get it. BurnCycle isn't my church, but who am I to judge someone else's denomination? I go to yoga at a place with a name just as aggressive as BurnCycle, that has almost nothing to do with yoga and everything to do with sweating a lot, sit-ups and having someone in front of me telling me what to do.

Truthfully, I couldn't even do BurnCycle. My knees are pretty much always either in pain or about to be in pain and standing up on an exercise bike in a dark room while Ellie Goulding blared out of a mediocre sound system made me unhappy and uncomfortable. But the other women, and a few men, in the room seemed to really dig it. They pumped up and down in unison, apparently responding to instruction from the woman in the front. They cheered when she asked them to and sometimes she would say things that I could barely make out, that seemed inspirational, like "Do this for Happy Hour!" or "You made the choice to come here! Challenge yourself!"

Whether it's becoming obsessed with marathon running and plastering your car with 26.2 stickers, proclaiming what you did this morning in your pre-work Crossfit "WOD," or wearing a shirt that says, "Spiritual Gangster," we've taken a basic desire to move our bodies around and made it into an aggressive and competitive replacement spiritual practice.

And it's the aggression and the competition that seems to me to be the problem. Every time I stood up and my knees hurt at BurnCycle, I thought about how I didn't want to do this anymore and then how much of a failure I am and, fuck, so fat and useless and look at these other women? Skinny, perfect, able to stand on an exercise bike. It reminded me of a few days earlier when a yoga teacher said to the class, "You came here to push yourself to the edge so don't stop doing those crunches."

I thought, you don't know why I came here.

Is the person who can do the most crunches the best person? Is the person who gets up before work every day to train for a marathon the strongest person? Is the person who does every pump on the exercise bike in unison the one who is most worthy of love?

I imagine there used to be this competitive edge to religion too. Who was the most pious? Who tithed the most? Who had the biggest hat?

I don't know. I think exercise is great. It makes me feel better and happier when I exercise. But I also don't think we need to break our bodies to find meaning in our lives. Maybe, part of being a human, is acknowledging that gaping hole, not trying to fill it or distract yourself from it, but looking straight into it and sitting quietly with the fact that something will always be missing.

Or maybe not. What if there's a way to heal our bodies after extreme exercise that means we can run all the marathons we want?

Pick up tomorrow's paper for a special Lady Things-related PRINT NEWS STORY. I know. It's probably all the yoga. Good things are happening.

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