FIT CLUB
ELLE.COM.AU / @ELLEAUS 193
It took an Olympics and a lot of lycra to get
Amy Starr off the couch and to the gym. She
shares how she got her fitness mojo backI
knew it wasn’t great. I’d had
a nausea-filled pregnancy and
then a baby and the chronic
sleep deprivation that can
often come along with those
magic little bundles of milk and
dribble. And somewhere along
that wobbly old line, aside from
the whole growing-a-human
thing, I had inadvertently kind
of just stopped using my body.
Like, it was functioning, but not
exactly working. The grand old
girl was still transporting me
from A to B – from an office chair
to my house, from the baby to my
bed – just fine. She was getting
by. But that’s about it. And
I hadn’t even noticed.
Then I was sent on assignment
to Rio. The Olympic city was
buzzing. I had endured a 42-hour
journey to get there. I was soaked
in excitement (and mosquito
spray) for the Opening Ceremony,
all 5,000 hours of it. I cheered
almost as loudly for Gisele and
her epic stadium-length runway walk as I did for our
team in green and gold. I mentally ranked each country
based on how chic their uniforms looked (for the
record, USA and France: yes; Sweden and Norway: no,
please try harder in Tokyo). There were a bazillion
fireworks and the whole shebang ended in a glitterdrop to end all glitter drops. And
if you don’t get emotional at
sparkly bits cascading over the
faces of 80,000 others, then you
might have to head straight to
your nearest hospital, because
you’re probably missing
something essential right there in
the middle of your chest. Yep,
everything was going nicely.
Competition started the next
day, and I, like many people
watching from the sanctuary of
their sofas, was in awe in an
instant. And I had an epiphany
within about a minute of the first
whistle blowing. Here it was,
right in front of me: what bodies
are meant to be doing. What
mine definitely wasn’t. And
hadn’t in a couple of years.
Moving. Reaching. Stretching.
Pushing. There I was, sitting in
a stadium seat, eating lightly
salted potato chips and drinking
Gatorade (to fuel my walks up
and down the steep stadium
steps, you see), and probably not really all that
capable of doing any of those things.
I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Usain Bolt winning more gold medals and having
recorded nine of the 30 fastest 100m runs in history
– inspiring! The 142cm-tall, 19-year-old gymnast
Simone Biles, who can literally fly off
a springboard, making you feel like
you should probably do an extra spin
class – amazing! Swimmer Michael
Phelps winning more gold medals than
you’ve had hot dates (that’s 23, you hussy)
inspiring you to bang out a couple of extra
kms in the pool one morning a week
before work – what a revelation! Florals?
For spring? Groundbreaking. But I didn’t
just feel: “Wow, look at them.” I was ]let the GAMES BEGIN
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PowerTube Pro,
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Women’s
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Swisse,
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