Feeds from Toronto StarAdventure TravelAll Sci Tech stories Ann Douglas: Parenting Antonia Zerbisias: Broadsides Argos Football Beach and Sun Brandie Weikle: ParentCentral editor Cam Harvey: Global Finance Canada CD reviews Chris Zelkovich: Sports Media Watch Cruising Damien Cox: The Spin David Bruser: Fitness blog David Grossman: High School Sports David Olive: Everybody's Business Doug Smith: Toronto Raptors blog DVD reviews Editorials Environment Event listings Family Vacations Fashion & Style Food Global Voices Insight Jays Baseball Jennifer Speedy: YourHome editor Jim Byers: Travel Jim Kenzie: The Driver's Seat John Leblanc: Crank Wheels.ca John Terauds: Sound Mind Leafs Hockey Linda Diebel: Political Decoder Malene Arpe: Stargazing Michelle Henry: Pregnant Pause Movies Murray Whyte: Contemporary art News alerts Ontario Outings Patrick Cain: Map of the Week Randy Starkman: Olympics Raptors Hoops Religion Restaurants Richard Griffin: Baseball Sandy Naiman: Coming Out Crazy Science Shopping Skiing Stuart Laidlaw: Medical ethics Technology Television Top Business stories Top Entertainment stories Top Living stories Top News stories Top Sci Tech stories Top Sports stories Top stories Top Travel stories Top wheels.ca stories Toronto FC Soccer Twitter.com StarSports Video game reviews What's On World All Feeds |
David Bruser: Fitness blog - Feed
Find the latest news stories from Toronto Star on the topic David Bruser: Fitness blog. |
 SickThe restraint needed to curb my post-smoking diet of peanut butter and beer ... The awkward early stages of acclimating to the gym locker room, mastering sweat towel etiquette and learning how to run on a treadmill ... The aches and pains following exercise my body hasn't felt the likes of since high school gym class ... The embarrassment and sense of mortality after pulling a muscle leg-lifting 20 pounds ... All that I have been through since quitting smoking in early 2008, the weight gain and struggle for physical reclamation, and it turns out none of it can hold...
|
 A regularI have crossed over. From bemused observer to garish spectacle. From the guy who sniped from a slow-moving treadmill - "Hey, look at the old guy wheezing on the elliptical. Look at Bobby shortpants with the high socks, ha, ha, ha. Oh, and shhh, look over there at the guy so muscly he can't move his arms" - to an object of mockery. Once a cynical outsider sent to observe the wildlife, I am now as much a part of the gym's flora and fauna as bad techno and those faded, signed posters of B- and C-list actors and athletes....
|
 One against 73,000I aim to work out this week more than usual. I have a reason. I'm a little scared of something that's coming up. Actually, a lot scared. On Sunday I am going to a place where grown men, and women, bark. Not at each other but at the scene unfolding in the green bowl below. These people wear masks, transforming into over-sized, rabid bulldogs. They wear brown and orange. The testerone, and the alcohol-soaked hopelessness, will be plainly seen and felt - in the beer line, in the line-up for the washroom, even in the parking lot. In my time...
|
 No basketball in midtownMy brother-in-law has always loved playing basketball. But now he lives in a Hong Kong neighbourhood where opportunities for a pick-up game are somewhere between slim and none. He is visiting Toronto for a few weeks and wants to play. So, from where he is staying near the upscale Yonge and Eglinton neighbourhood, we set out yesterday to find a ball. We didn't need a $100 leather ball or one endorsed by the NBA or one blessed by LeBron himself. Just a regulation-size basketball. Shouldn't be hard, you would think, in a city that is home to an NBA franchise....
|
 No shortsMy legs are pasty white, making my leg hair look more coarse and dark than it actually is. I would need several consecutive days in the sun and a tub of baby oil to darken the skin and bleach the hair. I don't have that kind of time. I could eliminate part of the problem with a razor, like one of those swim or bike enthusiasts. But I don't particularly need to be more aerodynamic. Plus, as a matter of principle, I will not shave body hair. (It's a moral stand I can easily take because I am not gorilla-hairy....
|
 Cramped styleThe tight economy has hit my gym. What was once a three-room gym - spacious everywhere, with each machine and bench surrounded by enough room to walk and stretch - has been stuffed into two rooms. The former treadmill area has been bricked off and presumably sold or rented to a new tenant in the strip mall. I watched over the course of a recent week as the owners or managers - not sure who they were - tried to floor-plan and figure where to fit all the machines. Their goal appeared to be saving all the equipment if not...
|
 Viennese sinsI have just returned from Austria with a gut full of goulash and sidewalk-vendor sausages that dwarf Toronto's street meat. And so it continues: Just as I hit a stride in the gym, something - a vacation or work assignment taking me on the road to cheap hotels and fast food - screws it all up. I went to Austria to meet my wife, who is on a six-week work stint far outside Vienna. After a few days in the countryside, we went by train to the historic city. But can I tell you my favourite painting from the art...
|
 Soft in the middleI am avoiding exercises that strenghten what fitness dorks call the "core." I can't explain it well, except that I really don't enjoy the way sit-ups feel. Like going to the dentist or picking up my dog's poop. Consequently, there's this odd wave thing happening on my upper body. The fatty evidence of my poor diet is sloughing south, slowly but surely rolling toward my waist. And there it sits, impervious to my workouts. As I continue to go to the gym fairly regularly, doing chest and arm execises on the resistance machines, my muscles in these areas are becoming...
|
 My new place in the transportation food chainI was stopped at a red light - right foot on the curb, back straight, dorky helmet that looks like a plum pit on my head. From my perch on the old-timey bike, I looked around and could see right into the driver's seat area of the two cars stopped beside me, without the driver seeing me looking. Both drivers had a mug of coffee within reach, assorted receipts about the console and a gut hanging forlornly over the seatbelt. Automakers ought to invent a wider "vanity" belt that girdles instead of pinching the fat into something resembling a homemade...
|
|
|
 Sorry folks ...It has been too long since my last post. I have been on the road a lot lately hustling for my day job. I am a staff reporter at the Star. The blog is extracurricular. I was on Vancouver Island for a week, and otherwise driving all over Ontario. I have been chasing leads for a story, living on Tim Hortons and the McDonald's value menu, and staying in crappy motels. One motel, misleadingly called The Grand, doubled as a sort of halfway house for men that have just been released into the probation phase of their sentence and, apparently,...
|
