“The Body is Made to Move” ”The Body is Made to Move” Gym and Fitness Culture in Sweden Christina Hedblom ©Christina Hedblom, Stockholm 2009 Christina Hedblom and Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis 2009 ISBN 978-91-86071-20-2 Printed by US-AB Distributor:eddy.se ab, Visby Sweden Cover illustration: Detail of a circuit-training instructor’s movement schedule. For Aron and Frans-Ferdinand Contents Acknowledgements.................................................................................9 Chapter One: In Movement ...............................................................11 The Aim of this Study ...............................................................................................13 The Body – Positioning this Research ...................................................................13 A Translocal Field Site ..............................................................................................17 Exercise, Fitness, and Gym Culture .................................................................20 The Field: Gyms and Fitness Centers....................................................................23 Informants: Gym-Goers and Bodybuilders.....................................................25 Interviewing...........................................................................................................26 Research Materials ....................................................................................................28 Heterogeneity........................................................................................................29 Chapters of this Book................................................................................................32 Chapter Two: Entering the Gym and Fitness Center ...............35 Gym Culture, Design and Space ............................................................................35 Different Preferences...........................................................................................39 Written Gym Culture: Information, Suggestions, and Threats..................40 Categories to Think With..........................................................................................43 Rumors ...................................................................................................................46 At “the Sect”..........................................................................................................50 Chapter Three: Patterns of Interpretation..................................55 “That’s Just Something People Say”......................................................................56 Reasons for Going to the Gym................................................................................58 Norms Concerning Reasons for Exercising...........................................................60 Appearance in Focus............................................................................................66 The Affected ..........................................................................................................69 Two Forms of Hermeneutics....................................................................................70 The Demystification of Meaning as Explanatory Norm......................................73 Exercise, Aesthetics and Suffering.........................................................................75 Addiction.................................................................................................................77 Exercise as a Positive Activity and Negative Obligation ..............................80 Frames of Reference .................................................................................................83 Chapter Four: Body and Meaning....................................................87 Men and Muscles........................................................................................................87 Fitness Centers and Overtly Muscular Gym-Goers .......................................91 Looking Muscular .......................................................................................................94 Thin Girls .....................................................................................................................95 Types of Approach: Women and “Girlyness”.......................................................97 Men and Women, Looks and Strength................................................................102 Fitness as Social Life...............................................................................................104 Joining the Leadership ......................................................................................108 Chapter Five: Truths – Coping With Contradictions ..............111 How to Exercise in the Gym ..................................................................................111 “Hey Stupid, What are You Doing Now?”......................................................112 Symmetry and Stretching ................................................................................114 What Others Think and I Know: Islands of Knowledge .............................117 A Maze of Norms and Ideas ..................................................................................119 Ideas and Instructors ........................................................................................122 Ways of Coping with Contradictory Flows of Ideas..........................................125 “People are Different Humans” .......................................................................127 Chapter Six: Machines and Movement ........................................133 Imitation ....................................................................................................................133 Constructing Machines for Body Movement.......................................................136 Creating and Negotiating Scientific Authority ...................................................138 Machines and the Feeling of Body Movement ...................................................141 Increasing Body Awareness .............................................................................145 Muscle Memory.........................................................................................................148 Pain: Positive and Negative...................................................................................149 Female and Male Movements................................................................................152 Chapter Seven: Fueling Movement...............................................155 Categorization of Substances................................................................................155 What Is Healthy?................................................................................................159 Science as Support ............................................................................................160 Questioning the Factuality of the Law.................................................................161 Legal, Illegal, and “Almost Illegal” Substances ................................................165 Using Illegal Substances for Health Reasons...............................................169 No Point in Using ................................................................................................173 Food and Drink.........................................................................................................174 Indulging....................................................................................................................178 Capter Eight: Concluding Remarks – Exercising Truths ......181 References..............................................................................................185 Index ........................................................................................................195 Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology ........................................199 Acknowledgements After writing the last letter in this thesis, there are many people that I am greatly indebted to. First and foremost, I would like to thank Stockholm University, and my supervisor Helena Wulff for her immense support, help and for the time kindly dedicated to reading and commenting on drafts, for inspiring me to continuously improve. I am also grateful to Bengt-Erik Borgström for being helpful and inspiring in his capacity of my supervisor during the first part of this project. I had an early affiliation at Dalarna University, and I am grateful for support not only from anthropologists there, but also from Physical Education staff members who provided me with references for my thesis. I owe special thanks to all gym goers who shared their daily life at gyms and fitness centers with me, as well as to the managers and staff members who did their very best to make this field research possible. For reading and/ or having especially useful suggestions on parts of the text, or the full text, I wish to thank very much: Christina Garsten, Åsa Bartholdsson, Oliver Thalén, Christer Norström, Raoul Galli, Philip Malmgren, Annette Henning, Mattias Viktorin, Anna Hasselström and Laila Abdallah. Two good friends, whom I met when we were undergraduate students in social anthropology, Annika Dahlén and Mona Andersson have, even though they today are “lost” to natural sciences commented most usefully on my text. I am also grateful to all other fellow PhD candidates, anthropologists and others who have provided supportive feedback at seminars