Introducing (our) gym bodies and fitness cultures

Brighton, James; Wellard, Ian; Clark, Amy

doi:10.4324/9781315619491-1

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Before we move to analyzing this research, it is useful to briefly address the substantive body of feminist literature on women’s bodybuilding (Boyle, 2005; Grogan et al, 2004; Heywood, 1998; Ian, 2001), and women’s growing participation in strength training practices such as CrossFit and powerlifting (Brighton et al, 2020; Heywood, 2015; Nichols et al, 2021; Washington & Economides, 2016). Although this research corpus is not specifically focused on PIED consumption, it produces important insights into the gendered dimensions of muscle, with some studies noting the role of steroids in the performativity of gender (Boyle, 2005).…”

Section: Gendering Agency and Riskmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Women’s “Performance and Image-Enhancing Drug Consumption”: An Agenda for Ontopolitically-Oriented Research

Fomiatti

Toffoletti

Pienaar

2023

Contemporary Drug Problems

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Women’s “performance and image-enhancing drug consumption” is a growing phenomenon yet remains an under-studied area of research. This essay reviews the existing literature on women’s consumption and draws on Fraser’s concept of ontopolitically-oriented research to develop an agenda for future research. Ontopolitically-oriented research applies insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS) to consider the ontological politics of research practices, that is, the realities they enact and foreclose. We argue that the current focus in the existing literature on a limited set of methods and issues risks obscuring the diverse meanings and practices of women’s substance consumption for fitness and strength-training, and genders agency in ways that further entrench assumptions of women’s vulnerability and passivity. We consider issues pertaining to the nomenclature of performance and image-enhancing drugs, the gendering of agency in formulations of “health” risks and initiation experiences, and the need to understand women’s consumption practices in relation to broader cultural changes in health optimization and digital fitness cultures. We argue that ontopolitically-oriented research into women’s substance consumption for fitness and strength-training requires greater methodological diversity and attention to the politics of data generation. It should aim to constitute women’s experiences through terms, connections and coalitions that expand our understandings of women’s agency, and the gendered and social contexts of enhancement practices.

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Section: Gendering Agency and Riskmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Women’s “Performance and Image-Enhancing Drug Consumption”: An Agenda for Ontopolitically-Oriented Research

Fomiatti

Toffoletti

Pienaar

2023

Contemporary Drug Problems

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“…Importantly however, this article focusses upon the so-called hardcore fitness market, characterised by advanced level bodybuilding, 'spit and sawdust' gyms (Brighton, Wellard and Clark, 2020) and a rejection of mainstream health and fitness. Whilst, on first glance, this community seems at odds with the commodified gym chains and glossy fitness influencer market which represent the growth areas of the industry (Deloitte, 2018), further examination reveals the same commodification and consumption in the increasingly 'gentrified' spaces of hardcore strength training (Brighton et al, 2020) as well as the sport of bodybuilding itself (see Andreasson and Johansson, 2019). With that in mind, this article asks the question; what happens when your primary site of identity formation gets locked down?…”

Section: A Note On the Health And Fitness Industrymentioning

confidence: 99%

‘No one’s going to buy steroids for a home workout’: the impact of the national lockdown on hardcore gym users, anabolic steroid consumption and the image and performance enhancing drugs market

Gibbs

2021

JCCHE

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2020 has proven to be an unprecedented year for all of us, as the ‘new normal’ of lockdown, the challenges of home schooling and the realities of living through a global pandemic have raised fundamental questions about the structure of our society and made us evaluate how we live. But how has the COVID-19 pandemic, and the subsequent restrictions upon public life, affected those of the population whose lives are contoured around the gym and bodywork? Utilising data precured through semi-structured interviews with image and performance enhancing drug-using bodybuilders as part of the author’s PhD research, this article sets out to provide a glimpse into the realities of life in the hardcore fitness community in 2020. First, the impact of lockdown on the men’s training will be explored, and their flouting of the restrictions will be described. Following this, the sample’s IPED consumption during this period will be examined, noting an overall reduction in use and a homogenisation of their favoured substances. Finally, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the IPED market itself will be explored, wherein the sample’s accounts of panic-buying, supply chain issues and declining demand will be presented. Ultimately, whilst not entirely generalisable given the modest sample size, it is hoped that this article will serve to paint a picture of life under lockdown for the most committed gym users in the population, and follow the community’s challenges during the ‘longest year’.

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“…. body’, while to revert to a non-built body marks one as ‘inhabiting a failed body’ (Brighton et al, 2021: 2).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sizing up the ‘Dadbod’: Fitness, age and resistance in a male body type

McIntyre

Negra

O’Sullivan

2021

European Journal of Cultural Studies

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This article considers the cultural significance of a body type that has been largely overlooked in contemporary masculinities scholarship: the ‘Dadbod’. Defying popular culture’s typical preference for midlife invisibility, the paunchy physique of the Dadbod (often with ‘love handles’) centres a split discourse in being the object of both celebration and opprobrium. Prevalent in both celebrity and lifestyle discourse (often in contradictory ways), we interpret the Dadbod as key to a certain kind of narrative of male retreatism from the increasingly anxious ethos of bodily regulation and age transcendence. The Dadbod suggests an alternate, possibly more radical, incarnation of the ‘body positivity’ which more commonly serves as a regulation-by-another-name discourse for women.

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Introducing (our) gym bodies and fitness cultures

Cited by 4 publications

References 1 publication

Rethinking Women’s “Performance and Image-Enhancing Drug Consumption”: An Agenda for Ontopolitically-Oriented Research

Rethinking Women’s “Performance and Image-Enhancing Drug Consumption”: An Agenda for Ontopolitically-Oriented Research

‘No one’s going to buy steroids for a home workout’: the impact of the national lockdown on hardcore gym users, anabolic steroid consumption and the image and performance enhancing drugs market

Sizing up the ‘Dadbod’: Fitness, age and resistance in a male body type

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