Description
Drawing on empirical research, this fascinating new book explores the embodied experiences of ‘gym goers’ and the fitness cultures that are constructed within gyms and fitness spaces.
Gym Bodies offers a personal, interactive, ethnographic account of the multiplicity of contemporary gym practices, spaces and cultures, including bodybuilding, CrossFit and Spinning. It argues that gym bodies are historically constructed, social, sensual, emotional and political; that experience intersects with multiple embodied identities; and that fitness cultures are profoundly important in shaping the body in wider contemporary culture.
This is important reading for students, tutors and researchers working in sport and exercise studies, sociology of the body, health studies, leisure, cultural studies, gender and education. It is also a valuable resource for policy makers and practitioners within the fields of sport, leisure, health and education.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introducing (Our) Gym Bodies and Fitness Cultures
James Brighton, Ian Wellard and Amy Clark
Chapter 2: Conceptualising Gym Bodies
James Brighton, Ian Wellard and Amy Clark
Chapter 3: A History of Gyms and the Evolvement of Contemporary Fitness
James Brighton, Ian Wellard and Amy Clark
Chapter 4: Embodied Methodological Considerations
James Brighton
Chapter 5: Gym Spaces
James Brighton, Ian Wellard and Amy Clark
Chapter 6: Being Personally Trained
Ian Wellard
Chapter 7: CrossFit
James Brighton
Chapter 8: Spinning
Amy Clark
Chapter 9: Reflections
James Brighton, Ian Wellard and Amy Clark
Appendix 1: Judgement Criteria employed
Appendix 2: WOD Acronyms in CrossFit
Appendix 3: The original ‘Girls’
