On The Psychology Of Sit-Ups

Today I discovered that one can tell an awful lot about a person by the way they do their sit-ups.

Consider, for example, the bestial child who hammers his hips up and down in the most convincing rendition of childbirth (as performed by a male – bravo!) ever seen in a school room. Or the deeply caustic boy, who pushes himself up and down like a baby being rocked, calves tightening like hard-boiled eggs. Or the fellow who flaps like a bird, neck straight and stiff. Or the super-sprint of the sleek schoolgirl. Or the damsel who begins to swell and purple at the midway mark, huffing and puffing all the way to the finish, mermaid hair spread out on the iceberg blue mat.

I myself appear to be the kind of person who flags three sit-ups from the goal, flopping flat on the ground like a dead cetacean, grunting and gagging on the last available breath before elbowing and easing up again. One. Two. And. Aaaaaaaand. Three.