Thomas Johansson

Jesper Andreasson

This book investigates extreme sports, defined as sports in which athletes challenge and transgress societal perceptions of what is humanly possible to achieve, in terms of physical training and bodily development/performance. Situated within a growing body of literature analysing the impact of new training trends on an individual’s body, identity, lifestyle and perception of his/her social surroundings, Extreme Sports, Extreme Bodies focuses on the gendered and embodied experiences of bodybuilding, Ironman triathlon, and mixed martial arts. Through their ethnographic analysis, Andreasson and Johansson present a unique and updated account of the increasing phenomenon of extreme sports and extreme bodies in contemporary Western society, grounded in the sociology of sport, body studies and embodiment literature.

Gender, Identities and Bodies in Motion

Extreme Sports, Extreme Bodies

This book compiles several years of multi-faceted qualitative research on fitness doping to provide a fresh insight into how the growing phenomenon intersects with issues of gender, body and health in contemporary society. Drawing on biographical interviews, as well as online and offline ethnography, Andreasson and Johansson analyse how, in the context of the global development of gym and fitness culture, particular doping trajectories are formulated, and users come into contact with doping. They also explore users’ internalisation of particular values, practices and communications and analyse how this influences understandings of the self, health, gender and the body, as well as tying this into wider beliefs regarding individual freedom and the law. This insight into doping goes beyond elite and organised sports, and will be of interest to students and scholars across the sociology of sport, leisure studies, and gender and body politics.

Trajectories, Gender, Bodies and Health

Fitness Doping

April Henning

"Building on data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork, studies of online doping communities, and in-depth case studies, this book embraces the challenge of moving beyond traditional and historical doping dichotomies - such as sport or fitness, online or offline, pleasure or harm, masculinity or femininity, and health or harm - and develops new terminology to understand trajectories to and from doping"--

Jesper Andreasson

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