In mid-December, at the Lift Off weightlifting competition in NYC, I attempted a 280-pound deadlift for the first time in my life. I pulled the bar off the floor, got stuck at knee height—gah, it still haunts me!—all while I peed myself in front of at least a hundred strangers.
I locked eyes with my partner Jen. Then I cleaned up the puddle.
That is a pretty good summary of being a 47-year-old woman with three children. It was also a spectacular clue that my pelvic floor had been struggling for years. I was getting really strong while simultaneously neglecting one of the muscle groups that mattered most.
They’re the same ones that contract when you come.
Full disclosure: Professionally, at Cosmopolitan more than a decade ago, where I oversaw health content and led a (way-before-its-time) streaming fitness video channel called CosmoBody, there were many versions of a “better sex workout” on the platform, with companion pieces in the magazine.
The trainers and I were not leading with vascular physiology. The premise, unstated but implied, was that a hotter body would get you a better sex life.
It’s true that how you feel about your body is closely tied to what happens in bed. Among 214 women, body image predicted sexual functioning independent of BMI, per a study in Psychology of Women Quarterly. And exercise moves that dial whether or not it changes your body composition: across 57 exercise interventions, people who lost no fat and gained no fitness felt better about their bodies anyway, according to research in the Journal of Health Psychology.
I’m glad for every woman we got into a gym. The framing we gave her is the part I’d expand. That’s what this post is about.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.