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Squatting, curling, pressing, sprinting and preparing meals\u00a0with the ideal combination of fats, carbs and proteins dominate hours of female bodybuilders\u2019 lives. Such women also spend hours perfecting posing routines and give a final few more to spray-tanning and hair and make-up styling for competitions. They may be on the competition stage for\u00a015\u00a0minutes, showcasing what they worked a year or more to build. Such dedication to building muscles and sculpting bodies is rarely understood, much less appreciated, by anyone but other (female) bodybuilders. I\u00a0understand these women.<\/p>\n
I also understand women and men for whom caffeine and computer screens are constant companions. This group produces conference papers, articles and monographs that, most often, are appreciated by only a cadre of specialists. This group also spends innumerable hours in classrooms and offices. That time combined with the solitary hours spent on \u201cour own work\u201d steals time that we could spend with friends, family or even interesting strangers. Outsiders\u00a0often deem such work\u00a0to be\u00a0as much a \u201cfreak show\u201d as they consider female bodybuilding to\u00a0be.<\/p>\n
I double up on the freak. I am an associate professor of English \u2013 working towards becoming a full\u00a0professor \u2013 and I\u00a0am also a competitive female bodybuilder. While each of these \u201clives\u201d invites imbalance, bodybuilding is helping me to fight some imbalances I\u2019ve developed in academia.<\/p>\n
Paradoxically, my move away from suffering-the-pressures-of-tenure-even-after-achieving-it arose when I\u00a0saw myself taking a similarly pressure-laden approach to bodybuilding, which had also brought me some success. After two years of competing, I\u00a0had become \u201cpro-qualified\u201d, which meant that I\u00a0could enter a professional competition in a United States Bodybuilding Federation contest.<\/p>\n
Early on 8\u00a0October 2013, I went to the gym to do sprints on the treadmill. I warmed up; I pressed the button to raise the speed, and when my left toes hit the treadmill, I felt a shooting pain around my ankle. I\u2019m not one to stop for pain. I\u00a0stopped. I\u00a0intended to walk it off. I\u00a0couldn\u2019t. I\u00a0changed shoes, drove home and called the orthopaedist. That morning I\u00a0learned that I\u00a0merely had an Achilles pull, but that meant that I\u00a0had to wear one of those fashion-forward grey boots for at least four weeks. At that point, I\u00a0was planning to compete in eight weeks.<\/p>\n
A few days later, I\u00a0was getting my roots dyed\u00a0when my stylist told me that I\u00a0needed to take \u201cemergency\u201d measures to counter the breakage I\u00a0was experiencing.\u00a0Although\u00a0part of the breakage arose because of my many hair bleachings, my dieting was also contributing. Within one week, I\u00a0had had to admit that while my training was creating a more fit and muscular body, it was also making a more vulnerable one, one that I\u00a0had to start treating differently if it were to grow any stronger.<\/p>\n
Those events alone didn\u2019t lead to a healthier approach to my bodybuilding or to my academic life. I\u00a0felt great relief when I\u00a0decided not to compete because of my injury, but I\u00a0also felt great loss because of that decision.<\/p>\n
I then felt guilty and confused because of my relief, worrying that it might indicate that I\u00a0didn\u2019t want to compete any more. The relief, guilt and confusion echoed the feelings that I\u00a0had had after receiving tenure and publishing my book. Reading about other women who had entered bodybuilding competitions shook my confidence as well. They admitted to eating disorders and exercise addictions and, in essence, told others not to\u00a0take up bodybuilding. The thing is, I\u00a0didn\u2019t want to stop, so I\u00a0decided that I\u00a0needed to re-sculpt myself into the not<\/em>\u00a0extreme bodybuilder\u2026and academic, while I\u00a0was at it.<\/p>\n There are a few keys to my relative success in this undertaking, and,\u00a0perhaps\u00a0surprisingly, they are not all about moderation.<\/p>\n I was drawn to bodybuilding because of the intense work that it requires and its relatively unusual nature for an academic. I\u00a0like seeing the surprise when I\u00a0tell people that I\u00a0am both tenured and a competitive bodybuilder. There is a rush when doing multiple sets of 200lb+ squats. Seeing the teardrop definition of my quads emerge is invigorating. All that said, increasingly heavy lifting and consistent dieting tax a person physically and emotionally. Moreover, I\u00a0didn\u2019t have a lifelong sports career, so when I\u00a0committed to bodybuilding, I\u00a0was learning new skills and entering foreign territory. In short, I\u00a0took some significant risks that didn\u2019t promise significant rewards, and certainly no academic ones.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t always feel so separate from academia when I\u00a0was in the gym, however, because to progress, I\u00a0had to engage intellectually in my training. I\u00a0had to think about form, about, for example, pushing through my heels and keeping my shoulders back as I\u00a0squatted. My intellect didn\u2019t always help, however. I\u00a0could often understand an exercise but not make my body\u00a0execute it correctly. And reading more wasn\u2019t going to help. The result was that I\u00a0experienced a new type of vulnerability.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t react well when I\u00a0hit such impasses. There is a plyometric pull-up exercise that continues to elude me and sends me to cursing. Caught in one of those blue streaks, I\u00a0was struck by its similarity to trying to capture a key argument when writing. That recognition didn\u2019t make me capable of nailing the exercise or unblocking myself the next time I\u00a0struggled with an argument. It has, however, led me to concede to three intertwined situations: the necessity of repetition, the reality that gains are incremental, and the probability of setbacks in bodybuilding and academia.<\/p>\n Spending\u00a010 months working to build muscle has\u00a0repaid me with some satisfying physical gains. But now I\u2019ve allowed myself to enter some academic situations in which the gains aren\u2019t at all certain. For example, I\u00a0have experimented with team-teaching \u2013 work that doesn\u2019t guarantee promotion or tenure notice, can add to one\u2019s workload and involves relinquishing control. In the\u00a0autumn 2015 semester, I team-taught with a biologist. Our course\u00a0covered genetics and literature, a topic I hadn\u2019t explored, and the majority of novels we dealt with I\u00a0hadn\u2019t read at the time of agreeing to the course. I\u00a0didn\u2019t feel as in control in that classroom as I\u00a0typically do, but the discussions were stimulating. I\u00a0don\u2019t plan to write about this collaboration,\u00a0and it didn\u2019t\u00a0lead to a new research project, yet I\u00a0will teach with this biologist again, because she and the subject material introduced me to thought-provoking ideas and writings.<\/p>\n In my research, I\u00a0am now exploring Victorian women involved in higher education and athletics. Obviously that topic holds personal significance, so perhaps I\u2019m still seeking a comfort zone, but this work is moving me to unfamiliar fiction and to critical lenses that I haven\u2019t used extensively. I am not certain that this project will yield the next book, on which my promotion to full professor depends, but it is pressing me to read challenging works and even to ask for direction again.<\/p>\n Writing this article is a departure as well. I\u2019ve never written such a personal piece, and, as I\u00a0write, I\u00a0am uncertain about the venue to which to submit. At points, the impulse to delete has been overpowering. I haven\u2019t deleted, however, because I\u00a0would have liked to have read an article like this soon after I received tenure. I\u00a0probably would not have been able to take its advice\u00a0\u2013 that is, to seize \u201ctenure freedom\u201d to risk more, to use it to feel vulnerable and thus (perhaps) to learn more \u2013 but maybe when I\u00a0started bodybuilding and indulging a curiosity in some rarely read Victorian novels, I wouldn\u2019t have felt quite so guilty.<\/p>\n