The Ecstatic Pump and the Logic of Pain: Learning Processes and Embodiment in Fitness Culture

Emanating from ethnographic fieldwork, this chapter focus on the physical expressions and intensity of embodiment that occur in gym and fitness environments. More precisely, the chapter aims to describe and analyse learning processes among dedicated gym-goers, and how knowledge about exercise, nutrition and physiology is gradually learned and physically experienced, eventually becoming knowledge 'in the body' rather than 'about the body'. The results show how fitness athletes move between different forms of embodiment and how emotionally expressive and sensational aspects of the body are re-conceptualized, turning into new tactile abilities that were previously unexplored or inaccessible. Situated within a long tradition of body studies and sociological explorations of embodiment, the chapter interprets and understand the performing body as a site for both social and corporeal sensations and learning processes.