Transcript:
[00:00:04.750] - Oliver (Host)
Welcome back to another episode of English and Beyond. This podcast is designed for people who don't speak English as their native language, but already speak the language at an intermediate to advanced level. If you find anything difficult to understand in this podcast, please have a look online at www.morethanalanguage.com, where we publish a free transcript to help you understand any difficult words. If you are enjoying these episodes, please do remember to rate wherever you listen to it and share the podcast with your friends who are also learning English or already speak English well and may just want to practise their skills. Sharing the podcast really helps it to grow, unsurprisingly, and guarantees more content for the future.
[00:00:52.950] - Oliver (Host)
[00:01:33.930] - Oliver (Host)
When I was little, I couldn't bear to hear, that is, I hated to hear, the word muscles. I have no explanation of why this would be, but I guess it was to do with both the sound of the word and its implications. I think as a young boy, I felt very insecure about masculinity because I was worried about being too obviously gay. Being gay generally meant being bullied, and I wanted to keep as low a profile as possible and not draw attention to myself in certain circumstances and situations. I felt safe and successful in the classroom, but sports were another matter. It wasn't that I was unsporty as such; I wasn't especially uncoordinated, and I was pretty quick, but I always felt very anxious about team sports. Like many people, I dreaded when the PE teachers, the sports teachers, would choose two of the most athletic boys, the most sporty boys, who would then select teammates one by one from the rest of the class. And I, like everyone else, worried about being chosen last. So instead, I focused on certain sports where I didn't think I would stand out too much or when no one else would be impacted, really, by my performance.
[00:02:53.040] - Oliver (Host)
For me, these were cross-country running, that is long and middle distance running over countryside terrains and swimming.
[00:03:00.810] - Oliver (Host)
Both of these sports allowed me to rely purely on myself. There wasn't really a team result that depended on me. I wasn't going to have people laugh at me or get annoyed if I missed a goal or a tackle on the football pitch, if instead, I was doing a solo race in backstroke, my favourite swimming stroke. So I think, growing up, I felt quite conscious that I was not the typical boisterous, unrestrained, rough boy who enjoyed nothing more than tearing around the football pitch with his friends. Instead, you'd be more likely to find me and my friends reading in the corner of the playground. I was also absolutely stick-thin, thin like a tree branch. And so that image of masculinity, the muscle-bound action hero, felt very far from my then-current state, an unattainable dream, and therefore the word itself may be served as a constant reminder of something I would never be, that I could never be. My parents, in the way that parents are wont to do, in the way that they have a habit of doing, remind me very frequently of the irony of the fact that I hated this word, because over the last few years, I've been quite obsessed with muscles, even more than learning languages.
[00:04:18.090] - Oliver (Host)
I have dedicated time, effort, and money into this new hobby, this new pastime, to a degree that I've never experienced before. If you listen to the Spanish podcast that I do with César, you will already know how much I love going to the gym nowadays. It's a love that I've come to quite late in life. I'm 35 now, and I've been really committed to the gym, that is, going four to five times a week for just over three years. It's had a big impact on my life in general. I've felt much more confident. I've eaten much better because progress in the gym is impossible without a good diet, and it's provided a healthier structure to my life that has helped me to achieve other unrelated goals because of my commitment to the gym.
[00:05:07.990] - Oliver (Host)
This journey is actually very typical for gay men, I think. Many of us feel very self-conscious about a perceived lack of masculinity or worries about not fitting in in a sports setting when we're young. And many of us have a tendency to avoid team sports as a result, I think, although it goes without saying, of course, that this is absolutely not true for everyone.
[00:05:32.170] - Oliver (Host)
However, as we get older, many gay men actively want to start taking part in sports, I think partially to make up for the fun that they missed out when they were younger because of that insecurity, and partially, I think, as an attempt almost to fix that lack of masculinity from their youth. I think that's also why many gay men, why many men in general nowadays, chase unrealistic goals around having a muscular physique and why in London, at least, steroids are so common. I think the idea for a man is that if you have a visibly muscular physique, it demonstrates immediately your masculinity.
[00:06:11.690] - Oliver (Host)
But this is also another example of the same journey being experienced in reverse by women. A UK organisation, Women in Sport, found that more than 1 million teenage girls who considered themselves sporty once upon a time, that is good at sport and interested in it, disengaged from sport following primary school, which finishes at the age of 11 in the UK. Most responses to the survey cited the following reasons for giving up a sport: one, a fear of feeling judged by others, 68%, a lack of confidence, 61%, pressures of schoolwork, 47%, and not feeling safe outside, 43%. I think it's really remarkable that the biggest fear that these girls had was the fear of feeling judged by their peers. Now, I obviously don't believe that you can or should force young women to carry on with sport if they don't want to. But I think it's interesting that so many young women give up sport, they stop pursuing sports, when they go to secondary school. So to discuss this topic, I've invited a friend of mine who I think will have an interesting perspective on the topic.
[00:07:24.980] - Oliver (Host)
Martha and I were at the same university, but we actually barely knew each other at the time. But in introducing her, I can't help but include her biography written by her agent. She has an agent...she has an agent because she's becoming a bit of a bizarre celebrity, as I'm sure we'll talk about. But this is my introduction to my guest, Martha. "Martha is an avid urban gardener who has been growing her own food since her early 20s, and now has well over a decade of experience. She has amassed over half a million followers with her simple down-to-earth how-to gardening guides on Instagram and TikTok. Largely focusing on growing food in small places, she's also passionate about gardening for wildlife and growing an abundance of flowers. Her goal is to demystify gardening and make it accessible to as many people as possible so that they can have the confidence to take advantage of whatever space they have."
[00:08:23.960] - Oliver (Host)
What they didn't include in this biography is that Martha is also really strong. Like, really strong. So Martha, turning to you now.
[00:08:35.140] - Martha (Guest)
Hello.
[00:08:35.430] - Oliver (Host)
First, hello, I need to congratulate you, right? Because this past September, you've achieved a goal that you've been working towards for a few years.
[00:08:45.230] - Martha (Guest)
Are you talking about the competition I just did?
[00:08:47.980] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, so many goals, apparently.
[00:08:52.300] - Martha (Guest)
Yes. Well, I have to say it's quite funny to have the many strands of my life presented to me all at once. The gardening is one thing, and then being strong is the yin to my yang, I guess. Yes, I recently won a competition, not a big competition, just at my gym.
[00:09:16.880] - Oliver (Host)
But still, you know, what was the nature of the competition?
[00:09:21.400] - Martha (Guest)
So my gym looks very scary: it's full of tyres and hammers and some pretty big blokes. But it actually runs a queer strong competition, which is interesting in the space of Strongman, which is the sport that I do, because a lot of competitions are very binary. They're men and female categories only. At my gym once a year, we do a competition where there's two categories, and they are male non-binary, female non-binary. You can actually pick. I mean, even if you identify as a woman, you could take part in the male category. And it's, yeah, it's a very different vibe to a normal Strongman competition.
[00:10:03.370] - Oliver (Host)
So they have the kind of conventional categories of men and women, but then you can also enter either of those.
[00:10:08.860] - Martha (Guest)
Yeah. In fact, anybody can enter any of the categories. So I guess that they're sort of just, they're not really prescriptive labels.
[00:10:16.830] - Oliver (Host)
More like advisory.
[00:10:18.020] - Martha (Guest)
Advisory, exactly. I suppose, I mean, mostly, I think there was one woman who did the men's category because she's really strong, so she just wanted to do the heavier weights. But yeah, the whole vibe is very queer, right? So all of the people who are doing the spotting and the timing and the judging, they were all in sparkly outfits. We had a drag queen doing the compère. We had lots of rainbow flags everywhere and it just is a really nice inclusive vibe. Last year, actually, it's the second year that we've done the competition. People travelled from really far away because they couldn't take part in competitions near where they lived because they didn't feel like they fitted into either male or female categories.
[00:11:01.920] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because it has never occurred to me to... I'm obviously not strong enough to take part in a Strongman competition.
[00:11:10.310] - Martha (Guest)
Of course you are!
[00:11:11.010] - Oliver (Host)
It's not the thing that I'm pursuing. I'm much vainer than that. I'm just doing it for the vanity rather. You know, my muscles don't need to actually work -
[00:11:20.110] - Martha (Guest)
- do anything!
[00:11:21.110] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, they just need to look good. But it, what you're talking about actually relates a lot to what, what I said in my little speech, doesn't it? That lots of us feel intimidated away from sports. You don't need to be gay or something like that to feel intimidated. Lots of us just see a gym like your gym and just assume that it's going to be full of very unfriendly, super intimidating people.
[00:11:47.980] - Martha (Guest)
Yeah, judgmental people, I think. You think people are going to think you're silly or that you're doing it wrong. And actually, on the point of women not feeling like they can engage with sport, I know many women, some of them very close to me, who feel really put off by sport. They say, "Well, I'll get it wrong and I hate doing it. There's nothing, I won't get anything from it." I think that so much of exercise, particularly for women, for so long, has been framed around, can it make you thin and therefore attractive to the male gaze?
[00:12:24.080] - Oliver (Host)
That's really interesting, because if you don't mind me interrupting you, I was here waiting for you when you and when you came back, you made a comment that I thought was very you, very Martha, which made me laugh, which was you said, "Oh, I'm going to change out of these shorts now that I've shown off my legs all day." And I think that -
[00:12:46.220] - Martha (Guest)
You're really lifting the curtain, you're revealing my inner secrets.
[00:12:50.030] - Oliver (Host)
Well, worst case scena- "Oliver".
[00:12:52.920] - Martha (Guest)
(I'll) Say it again. Yes, you're really lifting the curtain on my inner secrets, "Oliver".
[00:13:01.000] - Oliver (Host)
Exactly. Hypocritically, apparently, right? I'm not even revealing my name, but I'm revealing everything about you. But I think that that's really interesting because what you're proud of about your legs, right, is that they show that you're strong.
[00:13:14.890] - Martha (Guest)
Yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously people can't see me through the means of a podcast, but I'm not a conventionally feminine woman. And so I guess in a way, I've definitely participated in gymming in past to be thinner and to feel better about myself. But I do think as I've got older - actually, I don't want to do myself a disservice because I've always been interested in competing at university where we were both together.
[00:13:43.170] - Oliver (Host)
Because you were a rower, right?
[00:13:44.860] - Martha (Guest)
I rowed for the university. I lost the reserve Boat Race. However, because I have always been slightly, I don't believe in overweight as a category, but if you're talking like BMI or whatever, slightly heavier than what we've been brought up being told we should be. I've never seen myself as a sporting person, and I've done a lot of sport. I've run a marathon, I've been a rower, I have cycled from London to Paris. I compete now in Strongwoman. But because I'm not a few specific things: slim, flexible, agile.
[00:14:28.490] - Oliver (Host)
It's amazing how inflexible I am. And in fact, I'm worse than I used to be.
[00:14:32.300] - Martha (Guest)
But it makes you feel like you're not an athlete. Actually, on the point of the Olympics recently, what was interesting is seeing how many different shapes of person you can be and still be an athlete. Because if you were to Google what an athlete looks like, it wouldn't look like me, for example. So I think that what's been really interesting about getting involved in being strong is that it reframes what a gym can do, what exercise can do for women, I feel like, because you're going for a functional reason.
[00:15:01.810] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, interesting. And actually, I want to ask a question. It's still about exercise, but also about what you talked about with the "male gaze". We went on holiday recently together. I referenced this holiday in the episode about superstitions with Charlie, because we all went on holiday as a group. And it was very interesting talking to you about body image, because we talked quite a lot about that thing and about how many women, as you said, want to have slim arms and a slim waist and slim legs. It's not always just for the male gaze, is it? It's also to get the approval of other women, that that is the beauty standard.
[00:15:44.190] - Martha (Guest)
Yeah.
[00:15:44.650] - Oliver (Host)
And yet you were, in fact, doing the absolute opposite. You were saying to your girlfriend, "Look at my arms. Look how big my biceps are!"
[00:15:53.360] - Martha (Guest)
You're making me sound so conceited. No, I think it comes from a place of insecurity right in the way that... I think I know myself and other. I wouldn't say I'm particularly masc, but like verging on the masc side of lesbian.
[00:16:10.240] - Oliver (Host)
Mask being short for masculine.
[00:16:13.620] - Martha (Guest)
- definitely seek this disapproval from our partners that we look like we go to the gym or that we look strong because in a way we're mirroring ideals of masculinity, I suppose.
[00:16:24.650] - Oliver (Host)
That's interesting.
[00:16:25.460] - Martha (Guest)
But we're not, we haven't escaped the standards of something. Do you know what I mean? Okay, I think it's sad when a woman says she doesn't want to lift weights because she's worried she'll get big shoulders or big legs or something. First of all, good luck. It is really hard, as you know.
[00:16:43.710] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, so hard. It dominated my life for years now and my legs are still stick thin.
[00:16:50.690] - Martha (Guest)
But it's this idea that I think women have been told that you so much as look at a weight and you're going to look like-
[00:16:57.080] - Oliver (Host)
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
[00:16:58.340] - Martha (Guest)
Yeah, I wish. Do you know what I mean? But yeah, I think what's sad is that so many women exercise or have been told that exercise is there just to make you smaller. I'm really interested in this idea that we try and exaggerate the difference between men and women by men get to be really big and strong in the gym and women are meant to be really smaller. I do think things are changing, though. I think that a lot of women, the strong physique is coming more into vogue, even for feminine women.
[00:17:30.220] - Oliver (Host)
I was going to say that, that it's not like it's a lesbian thing. It's not like only lesbian women want to be strong. Now, so many women express the same desire, the same hope, the same dream on their Instagrams or whatever social media they use. And I've also noticed, and I don't know whether you've seen this, but quite a few people on Instagram, quite a few women, I should say, talk about having had eating disorders when they were younger and now instead, they are, they're really proud of the healthy attitude and body type that they have because they are eating to sustain themselves and they are exercising to be healthy.
[00:18:09.370] - Martha (Guest)
Yeah. I think that we're reframing it, and I think that there's something empowering when you become a strong person, I'm sure. But for women in particular, I think we live in fear in a different way to men, in our minds as well as in our bodies, which is partly to do with inherently being weaker. I think when you find that you're powerful and actually your strength can be much greater than you think. Quite often a trained woman will be much stronger than an untrained man. A new man comes to the gym and won't be as strong as plenty of women in the class. The gap, obviously, once you get into the extremes, the gap between really strong men and really strong women is big. But between average people, actually, you can be a really strong woman. You can be as strong as a man if that's what you want to do, which I do. That's something I really want to be, which seems so silly. But it's also, I think, appeals to goal-orientated people. People that want to have a focus, want to work towards something, it just fits both of us, right? We both-
[00:19:16.090] - Oliver (Host)
Well, like I was saying, actually, it's the progression. It's a measurable progression. That is something where you can see your progress over time and you can chart the data and see how you are improving. You get that cycle of validation of what you're doing, and you get that boost from seeing that progress. And it does, I think, have a positive impact on your attitude, because I have a personal trainer who is very important in my life.
[00:19:44.000] - Martha (Guest)
Mine is, too.
[00:19:44.700] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah. Well, a therapist as well as a trainer.
[00:19:46.710] - Martha (Guest)
That's what he always says.
[00:19:48.030] - Oliver (Host)
Exactly. I remember saying to him quite early on in the process when we were doing leg day, the day when you exercise your legs, and I was hating it. And I had this very obvious thought, but for me, it was a revelation, something I really realised suddenly, that I could try to take a shortcut in the leg day by having worse form or something like that, and it might make it slightly better, but I just as a simple fact, you will not achieve what you need to achieve. So you can try to make it easier for yourself, but you will not get the results. And realising that for something as simple as the gym - in the sense that you just lift something heavy and it will make you better at lifting that heavy thing - applying that to other aspects of your life.
[00:20:36.730] - Martha (Guest)
Oh, completely. I think I've struggled throughout my life with being incredibly inconsistent. But the first thing in my life I feel like I've learned to be consistent with is the gym. I work in television, I do short term jobs. And for a very long time, I have made lots of excuses. In my 20s, there was all sorts of demands. I could never find a routine. But now that I'm older, 35, I found that I started the gym gradually - normally I throw myself in, I've got to do everything at once - but, you know, in this case, I started going a couple of times a week. I joined a gym where I had paid for six months and it was classes, so I turned up. Then after that, I went to a new gym and I went once a week, every week for a year. After what? About 18 months. Then I started going four times a week. Now I do four or five training sessions a week. But I had learn to be consistent before I could build on it. Then you apply it to the rest of your life. You go, "Okay, well, actually, I don't need to be so impatient about things because if I just do a little thing over and over and over again, it just happens without you." That's really the only secret to pretty much anything. It's like you get there if you just keep doing things repetitively over and over again, and they don't have to be big, but you've just got to do them.
[00:21:53.310] - Oliver (Host)
Do you know, I think I learned that lesson first, and this is relevant to obviously what we're doing here with languages, that again, for me, it's a very similar thing to the gym that as you just referenced, you have to be patient with a language. When you're learning something, you cannot put in loads of effort over a weekend and you'll get a big step forward in your progress. Instead, you actually need to recognise that it's just not going to happen overnight. So, listener, if you're hearing this and you're thinking, "My God, this is hard to understand!" Come back to it in a few months because I guarantee you'll be so happy with yourself when you realise how much more you get, and I think it's like that with the gym. It doesn't need to be languages or the gym, any progressive hobby.
[00:22:37.520] - Martha (Guest)
Actually, what's nice about having a measure, like you say, to come back and listen to the same thing, is with weights, you have a weight that you know you can do. And when you lift it again in six months, you're like, "Oh, I'm actually better at that now. Or that I used to not be able to do that, and now I can." And I think that anything measurable that you gradually improve on over time has that sense of satisfaction, that you can't get from anything cheap. Do you know what I mean? There's something about the things that you work for that you then can really take a moment to pause and be genuinely quite proud of yourself.
[00:23:10.970] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah. I have only one more topic that I want to discuss that is related to what I said in my speech, and you also kind of referred to it, where you were worried when I was describing the things that you had said that people would think that you're conceited. Conceited is another word for arrogant or very pleased with yourself. I know very much that you're not like that, that you are like me, someone who really beats themselves up, who is very negative about themselves. And so when you do say this thing, there's always an ironic, kind "tongue-in-cheek" sarcasm to it. And I think it's very funny that here we've got people that don't know you listening and you're concerned about what they think of you, which obviously I also think about, you know having to do this every week. And so I was interested in how you feel about that. And when you say that you feel more confident because of the gym, how does that confidence manifest itself? How does it show itself?
[00:24:18.910] - Martha (Guest)
That's an interesting question. I think regardless of what my body looks like, I feel better in it when I've done exercise. Actually, what that reveals probably is that most of what we feel about our bodies is entirely subjective in that it is about the inner workings of our mind and not the reflection in the mirror. And so how I feel about my body can change just whether I've done exercise that week, even though you'd look in the mirror and wouldn't know anything different. Being stronger, I guess to look at, I definitely am more toned than I used to be. But as I said earlier, I am not a lean person, so I've not got muscles popping out everywhere because it's covered in a comfortable amount of fat. But I think I feel strong and I feel like my posture's improved. I feel stronger in the way that I move through the world, in the way that I can jump on a bike or I can go on a long walk or I can go upstairs. For me, there's a lot of power in the functional element. There's actually one woman on Instagram I follow who has a T-shirt that says, "I'm training for my old lady body."
[00:25:27.700] - Martha (Guest)
I was watching something that said, you know, your ability to open a jar in the last decade of your life is dependent on how much weight you can carry in your forties in your hands. I love carrying weight in my hands. I do it every week. I'm like, okay, I'm going to be able to open a jar when I'm older.
[00:25:43.750] - Oliver (Host)
Everyone around you in the old folks home is going to be saying, "Give it to Martha." No, I completely agree, especially about the posture. I joke about it all being for vanity, but it is so much better for how I feel in terms of my health and It will hopefully provide a good foundation for when I'm older. Because my mum, she, I did an episode with her recently, and she was talking about the fact that she's just had to have her knees done.
[00:26:10.400] - Martha (Guest)
My Mum's just had her hip done.
[00:26:12.040] - Oliver (Host)
There we go. And the recovery if you are fit and everything like that, I think is much easier and quicker. So hopefully my interest in the gym will continue.
[00:26:23.030] - Martha (Guest)
Do you feel, like, proud of yourself? Because I think that a lot of the confidence comes from just being like, "Wow, I thought I was rubbish and I beat myself up about the fact I can't ever stick to anything." And then now, I mean, with the caveat, the point being that I pay a lot of money to go to the gym because I don't have the motivation right. I prioritise that more than really anything else in my life. But I'm still proud of myself that I managed to go and stick with something and make that a priority.
[00:26:54.630] - Oliver (Host)
I assume that - when you say you pay, is it because you're paying for the classes in addition to the personal training sessions?
[00:27:00.970] - Martha (Guest)
Yeah.
[00:27:01.450] - Oliver (Host)
Okay. So I feel embarrassed to say that, yes, I do feel proud because I think that lots of people listening will think, "Well, why are you proud of just going to the gym and lifting heavy weights and getting more muscle." That is such a pointless thing to be proud of. But I agree. I'm proud of it in the same way that I... Again, it sounds so stupid, but one of the things that I'm most proud of is learning to speak Spanish, because Spanish was the first language that I actually ended up speaking pretty well. And I had spent my whole adolescence, my whole teenage years, and then all of the time at university, trying to pick up a modern language and never having that consistency and always just abandoning a language after a couple of weeks. I don't know what clicked with Spanish, but I am genuinely really proud of having done that for the first time. And then it just - I knew that I could. And it means that I've been able to pick up other languages so much more quickly as well.
[00:28:06.300] - Oliver (Host)
I am proud of things like the gym. I'm proud of the gym because even though I said that I've only been going to the gym for three years, which is true, I had been going to the gym on and off for, like, a decade.
[00:28:19.210] - Martha (Guest)
Well, same. I dipped in and out and really intensely and then abandoned it. I signed up for a marathon because I hadn't done any exercise at all for two years. I thought, "How do I force myself? What's the carrot and the stick, the motivation and the fear that are going to make me do something?" And now it feels like it's just slotted into becoming part of my life in a way that doesn't feel so difficult. And also, you constantly have these cycles of both of us, I think, easily feel like failures.
[00:28:51.250] - Oliver (Host)
Yes, for sure.
[00:28:52.010] - Martha (Guest)
We should celebrate the wins when we manage to achieve them.
[00:28:56.290] - Oliver (Host)
The very few that we have.
[00:28:57.680] - Martha (Guest)
Very few wins.
[00:28:59.140] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah. Well, I should invite you back at some point just to assassinate our own characters.
[00:29:05.120] - Martha (Guest)
Yes, I know.
[00:29:06.230] - Oliver (Host)
Because we do have so much in common. And obviously we knew each other before this holiday this summer, but I think it was a real, a revealing holiday for us both that we have so much in common.
[00:29:16.710] - Martha (Guest)
I very often reference when I'm trying to explain my own feelings to my girlfriend that, you know, (BEEP)'s the same.
[00:29:24.830] - Oliver (Host)
Oliver's the same.
[00:29:25.660] - Martha (Guest)
Oh, that "Oliver's the same."
[00:29:27.380] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, well, it's kind of a: "Well, it's not just me!"
[00:29:32.360] - Martha (Guest)
"Other people struggle with these same issues!"
[00:29:35.460] - Oliver (Host)
Oh, interesting. Very good. I think actually, César and I have probably done the same. Wonderful. Okay, well, thank you, Martha, so much for coming in. You can rest assured that every time your career takes another new step, I will be republishing this episode to cash in. So congratulations on all of your recent successes.
[00:29:56.510] - Martha (Guest)
I didn't say I won the competition.
[00:29:58.460] - Oliver (Host)
Did you not?
[00:29:59.060] - Martha (Guest)
I don't think so.
[00:30:00.090] - Oliver (Host)
Well, we took it for granted. Yes. Of course, who else would win? So, yeah, well, congratulations on that. And thank you so much again.
[00:30:08.690] - Martha (Guest)
Thank you.
[00:30:09.910] - Oliver (Host)
Bye-bye.
[00:30:10.160] - Martha (Guest)
Bye!
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