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“Hot Bod” is a weekly exploration of fitness culture and its adjoining curiosities.
My early exposure to unusual weights began during a period of fitness quarantine known as the Great Kettlebell Deficiency. Necessity spawned inventive alternatives. I’ve learned that four bananas weigh about a pound, a bottle of wine weighs about 2.5 pounds, a gallon of water weighs a little over 8 pounds, and a 12-pack of seltzer weighs about 10 pounds. I once heard an instructor strongly recommend holding white clawed cans as the girth is smaller and better suited for people with smaller handles. Many of these spare dumbbells contain a liquid (coconut milk) that obviously sloshes when you swing it. Other items contain smaller pieces (orzo pellets) that shift in a satisfying cavalcade: small, individual attachments to gravity instead of a blow. The weight of these items is often asymmetrical, which requires special attention. There’s another physics to lifting it up when I curtsy elegantly. In summary: These objects don’t feel static and I appreciate them for that.
Then I noticed that a new class of heavy things was emerging. In the corners of discreet, architecturally shiny gyms, I discovered the Ubarre, a wonderfully curved horseshoe shape that weighs between 4 and 16 pounds. Last year Bala, maker of coveted alpha girl wrist weights, introduced the Power Ring, a bold donut that weighs ten pounds that could fit over my head like a necklace – and a few weeks ago, he introduced the Beam, a shaky one , 15 pound yardstick with a girth that anyone (not me) could describe as girth. Among these, I’ve tried FitFighters Macho Steel Pants – a recycled fire hose that is filled with steel and whose weight changes in five pound increments the longer it gets. While the kettlebells have returned to the market in abundance, by the time they were gone, quirkier bedfellows have joined the mix.
Oddly shaped or unevenly balanced weights are a natural draw for anyone interested in what the pros call functional fitness. I really wish this had a funnier name because it’s an approach to fitness that I really like: it’s about strength and endurance applicable to the real world. This force will help you lift a heavy cast iron pan from a tall shelf onto the burner, or carry your suitcase up stairs, or pull your toddler up. In order to seek strength that works in the real world, it’s only logical to work with objects from nature, not the gym world – or lifting weights with cool shapes and shifting loads that add to the eccentricity of the actual Mimic things you would be wearing. I held the Steelhose Ascendant while I did my favorite tree chopping exercise, and saw him extend my opposite arm further as I lifted him to one side. This movement applies to lifting almost anything that is not a compact weight above your head.
But I am most attracted to special weights because their oddities require a more scrupulous commitment. Carefully raising and lowering your gallon water jug so that no liquid explodes from the plastic cap is much more important and interesting than using an endless self-contained kettlebell. And the stranger the weights, the more they seem to be asking me to think about my shape. Especially out of the eyes of an instructor, I want constant reminders to maintain a balanced, supportive demeanor. When the weight is harder to balance, I’m much more likely to focus on making sure I’m at least balanced. In particular, while exercising with the three foot beam, I noticed how much more carefully I lean into my oblique turns.
And then of course it looks like this – and I’m only as flat as my vanity muscles. Many of these new weights are rounder, more feminine, and more fabulous. They’re not that straight forward and factual, and most importantly, they’re not that embarrassingly obvious. The Ubarre seems like a statement in a business feminist’s apartment. I’ve also seen these crazy people magnetize unsuspecting passers-by, I guess, because they don’t look like a boring dumbbell. I saw my partner and sister both float to the power ring and ask, “What is this?” just as they lift it up. It’s like a Venus flytrap, but one that will make you want to do an unplanned lock of biceps. As in life, crazy people are so much fun because you never know how to handle them.
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