Social Workout

Newslinks

Gordon Brown, Yoga Cults, Overexercising, and Inflatable Chinese Bras

• Gordon Brown has taken up jogging, and the snarko-Office-loving Brit press can't help noting how poorly dressed, tubby, and generally un-Obama-like their P.M. is on the running path.
• Everybody knows superelite female athletes may experience a loss in fertility from extreme training. But a new study of 3,000 women in Norway suggests that short term fertility loss can happen to women who work out daily to the point of exhaustion. Our take: Regular exercise very good. "Over-exercising" can be problematic, and especially not helpful if you want babies. Your body needs energy to procreate.
• Gyms are booming in China, but Chinese people still think cardio is weird. Also in China, inflatable bras are the hot new thing.
• Winter is gym season, people. Our man Keith Worts, C.O.O. of Crunch, tells Reuters that gym memberships spikes by up to 25% in cold months.
• Remember when we discovered that some lucky kids were sitting on exercise balls in classrooms. That was so last week. This week it's stationary bikes.
• The Post reports that city schools are suspending their funding of "Brain Education," a program with ties to Dahn Yoga, which is embroiled in several lawsuits and accused of being a cult.