UrbanUpdate

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With his daily P90X workouts on Capital Hill, Paul "Bowhunter" Ryan could be the most ripped politician since Teddy Roosevelt. But he’s not (that honor goes to Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock), and it’s because he’s not trying hard enough.

I know this, for I am pushing through the bone-crushingly brutal workouts right along with him. He and I are supposed to do most all of the program’s muscle-building ercises at maximum weight, maximum reps. P90X shaman Tony Horton makes clear that in order to build up those biceps and pop out the definition in those quads you must choose a weight that will exhaust you in the eight- to ten-rep range. You can shoot for twelve to fifteen for leaner growth, but working out so much means inevitable muscle bulk. Case in point: the Arms Shoulders workout (day #3 in the weekly routine) consists of fifteen ercises done twice. What are they, you ask?

Shoulders: Alternating shoulder presses, deep swimmer’s presses, upright rows, seated two-angle shoulder flies, in out straight-arm shoulder flies

Biceps: In-and-out bicep curls, full supination concentration curls, static arm curls, crouching Cohen curls, Congdon curls

Triceps: Two-arm triceps kickback, chair dips, flip-grip twist triceps kickback, lying-down triceps extensions

I’m exhausted writing that, and it’s just one day. Your arms are going to grow. My arms are growing, my belly is tightening, and I’m able to pull off more reps with heavier weight from one week to the next. (Though I am also eating a lot more food — I feel like a teenager again — so the disappearance of chub is to be determined.) I’m just doing this for ninety days, but Ole Bowhunter is supposedly doing it in perpetuity. How can he be pushing himself to the limit and not be sculpted like ’70s-era Ah-nold? I’ll tell you how: by slacking.

To be fair, we really have no idea what Ryan looks like underneath the hood. The only topless shot in the public realm is from his pre-P90X dark days. And he continues to wear suits that give the appearance of a second head budding from his right shoulder.

But let’s assume that Ryan is as scrawny as he looks in photos. What can we draw from this? Perhaps he doesn’t know how to follow through with his Big Ideas. Maybe he’s all talk and little action. He lies about fitness like he lies about plant closings.

Or we can instead sit back in our office chairs, close our eyes, and imagine that a world where the Republican ticket is Clint Eastwood and @InvisibleObama (who inside sources say is a P90X devotee) is a far, far better place.

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