Solo Book Club
"A Physical Education" by Casey Johnston. Recommended!
Casey Johnston is 22 years younger than I am, but she grew up in a similar culture in which every woman, from a young age, wanted to be thin and tried to make her body thin by sheer force of aerobics and dieting. This pressure and self judgment, and judgment whether implied or explicit by other people, takes an emotional toll. Johnston, a journalist, reports on her own experience with all of this. She gets inspired by a Reddit post by a young woman documenting her strength-training experience with heavy barbell lifting. Pretty soon she’s using the basic barbell lifting book Starting Strength, and joining a local gym, to teach herself to lift.
When she learns to have and to meet physical strength goals, through lifting, eating, and resting, she finds that she’s into a years-long period of personal growth both inward and outward.
My favorite aspects of the book are how Johnston shares small bits about her upbringing and her relationships—just enough to give the reader a well-rounded picture of her life and of the things she wants to change. And change she does.
I’m impressed by (and I envy) her journalism background that enables her to tell stories of living and of lifting in an efficient journalistic manner, even observing her inner life with a journalist’s eye.
If you’re curious about lifting weights for your health and fitness, and if you wonder what it’s like to get started, or even if you just like interesting memoirs of personal exploration, A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting is a fun, inspiring read.
I learned to work out with barbells at an early CrossFit gym twenty-one years ago and have never stopped—so, at 60 years old, I can still lift more than I weigh and do everything I need to do without getting hurt. I have taught and evangelized about barbell lifting for the same two decades, especially to women. So to me, the publication of Johnston’s book is a welcome and significant event. I’ll probably buy it for all my fitness clients when it comes out in paperback.
Can’t help myself: Gratuitous video below of me lifting 175x5 for the first time in a while.
Look at you! That's impressive.
I was in the best shape of my entire life when I did CrossFit. It was a bit too Type A for me, though, but I did learn the fundamentals of lifting, as well as eating right, as opposed to going on the next fad diet.
This sounds like a good read.
BTW - I used to be the finance director of a YWCA with a huge fitness program. When people quit to join crossfit, I always said "we'll see you in 8 months when you recover from your injuries." Snarky yes, but a lot of people did get injured. I also have a lot of friends who have really thrived there.