How Preparing for the Hunting Trip Made My Ass Look Bigger
When I started this archery-focused strength training program , I had one goal: to increase the pulling force to at least 40 pounds so that I could kill a moose if I accidentally saw it while hunting in Eastern Oregon with my dad. … As I mentioned earlier, I have never been able to focus on “losing weight” and have not been able to achieve the vague goal of “getting even hotter.” Not only is the “hot” extremely relative and constantly changing, it is difficult to track.
It’s absurd that bodies – most often women’s bodies – are subject to trends, but even in this supposedly more “body-positive” age, some body types are still considered more positive than others. I don’t know if you noticed, but the ass about it. I always had more T than A, and I was always comfortable with that. I’ve never let me down with an average number of asses before, but I would be lying if I didn’t look at the bigger asses sometimes and think, “God, if it was me.” (You may notice that something is a commodity trend, but is still influenced by it. I am not immune from capitalism and its tricks.)
Even though I wanted a big ass, I knew that going to the gym with the specific goal of pumping up my ass wasn’t going to work for me, at least not at first. Exercising to change your appearance has always led to giving up your routine. I never notice results quickly enough, and if I see some of them, I convince myself that they are not that impressive, or that I imagine them, and then I either become obsessive – I track my hip circumference with a tape measure and weigh myself. several times a day – or I get bored, I look at myself in the mirror and think: “You know what? This is good.”
Training to “get strong enough to shoot an arrow at a moose” did two things: it took the focus off my body and gave me the ability to track something tangible. (Was I able to shoot a bow after increasing the pulling force with my little wrenches? Yes? This is undoubted progress.)
I continued to alternate strength training with shooting, encouraged by my increased pulling force, and my groups became much tighter (although I was still shooting too high and far to the left). I even fired the feathers of one of my arrows, which was an achievement in itself. (A nice man from Archer’s Afield repaired my plumage, which is good, because arrows are not that cheap.)
The stronger I got, the more accurately I could shoot arrows – a marker of real, tangible progress! My arms didn’t get tired so quickly anymore, and I started to enjoy the lift because it was good for me. (Like a Leo, I am drawn to things that I am naturally good at.) After a while, I began to see and feel how small muscles crawl out of my arms and legs.
All this finally convinced me that the exercises “worked”, and that lifting weights can really make me stronger and change the shape of my body, although this shape may not be exactly what I had in mind. My arms were a little larger, my hips were sticking out in my jeans, and my butt sat a little higher. I start to play with the idea of incorporating a little vanity into my daily routine as a pleasure. I asked Beth to give me more exercises, including ones that would “make my butt bigger,” because it’s good to diversify your assets – even though a fat ass won’t necessarily help me catch a moose. Beth told me to do hip thrusts and I did.
I don’t know when my pulling force reached 40 pounds – I have to go to the shooting range to measure it, and I didn’t go every week – but when I checked the pulling force a couple of weeks before hunting, I was 45 pounds, which is five pounds. more than the minimum. I started shooting long range and in the field behind my father’s house and got pretty accurate at 25 yards.
Not only did I reach my main goal, but I also lifted more weight. Now I can pull 200 pounds with my hips, pull 135 pounds, squat 110 pounds and crush very ripe melons with my thighs. (I don’t know if these weights are impressive or not, but I know they are much higher than I was told to lift “like a woman.”) And my ass? It’s bigger and rounder and that’s all I wanted it to be. It was fun to have this silly secondary goal, but only because it was secondary. (I don’t think I would keep going to the gym three or four times a week if that were my only driving force.)
After all this climbing and shooting, I felt good. I felt prepared. I was ready to hunt. Strength training not only strengthened my shoulders and improved shooting, I felt that I actually had at least some control over my body and its abilities, and believed that I could change that if I wanted to. Will it all add up to catching a moose in a sack? It was yet to be seen, but I was confident that I could track them down through the dusty terrain of Eastern Oregon without too much trouble — thanks in no small part to my mighty ass.