Friday Book Report: Little Girls in Pretty Boxes

Whatever it is that the San Francisco Chronicle does in selecting or training or mentoring the writers who produce its sport section, I like it.  As a group, they are funny, knowledgeable, and talented.  They will even get me to read about sports in which I have no interest because of their ability to write.  Joan Ryan is an alumna of that group and one I miss on my daily visits to the Sporting Green.

Therefore, it is no surprise that I found her book Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters to be a good one, if a book as disturbing as this one can be described as good.  It came out in 1995, but remains relevant today as the—how shall I put it—disaster that is the sexual abuse scandal in American gymnastics continues to unfold.  In fact, I am saddened that the book was not enough of a wake-up call; twenty more years of abuse happened.

Ryan details the manufacture, use, and scrapping of skating and gymnastic stars, from physical and mental abuse through staggering expense, eating disorders, death, and destroyed families.  There are almost no voices of sanity in the wilderness of ego and greed on display in the service of exploiting little girls.

Let’s say no.  The machine of ultra-competitive sports is bad for all of us (Hi, Football, I’m looking at you…).  We all need to move our bodies.  It is good for us to want to be our best and to push toward that goal.  We do not need to get there by abuse and we definitely do not need to condone the abuse of others for our entertainment.

Try Pilates?

Every kind of exercise is not for everyone.  However, here are a few reasons to consider Pilates.

•      It helps with posture, which makes us feel better and look better.

•      It improves flexibility.  We lose range of motion as we get older, but Pilates can help stop that trend.

•      It improves form.  The kind of attention we pay to movement in Pilates translates to better movement in our other activities.

•      It helps our breath.  When we have a chance to tune into our breath, we calm down and become more efficient.

At my studio, a Pilates evaluation and first session are always free.  Check it out!

I see the weights; now what?

Weight lifting seems confusing at first.  What are we supposed to do?  How do we choose the right weight?  How long are we supposed to keep on going?  Let me help.

When we do a weight workout, we want to work out all the muscle groups.  (If our goal is body-building, it gets more complicated and we might work out different muscle groups on different days, but for most of us, we want the whole body on one day.)  That means we want to work lower body, upper body, and abdominals, ensuring that we work both the front and back of the body.  That means that we want to push and pull with all our extremities and bend both forward and back.  There are many ways to do all those things, which is good: we won’t get bored.  I’m not going to go into detail here, just give the principle and we can all go home and apply it.

At first, we choose the right weight by pure guesswork.  If we choose something too light, we will know because we will feel like we could lift all day.  A choice of something too heavy will be even more obvious by the second or third repetition.

How heavy a weight we choose also relates to what we want to accomplish and how many times we intend to lift it.  If the goal is increasing strength, we want to pick heavier weights and lift them fewer times (no more than 10 reps, and sometimes as few as 1!).  If our goal is to improve our endurance or to look more “toned,” we will choose lighter weights and lift them lots of times (12 to 20 reps).

If we belong to a gym, odds are that there is at least some kind of orientation program that can walk us through the basics of the weight room and give us a basic routine.  If we’re working out at home, there are lots of resources available.  And there is always the option of hiring a trainer to tailor workouts to our needs and goals.