To look at Shana Martin is not to find yourself suddenly mouthing the word lumberjack as if it had just emerged through the fog of memory like an epiphany. Yet the body you see here is in large part a product of the lumberjack sport of logrolling.
To look at Shana Martin is not to find yourself suddenly mouthing the word lumberjack as if it had just emerged through the fog of memory like an epiphany. Yet the body you see here is in large part a product of the lumberjack sport of logrolling.
To look at Shana Martin is not to find yourself suddenly mouthing the word lumberjack as if it had just emerged through the fog of memory like an epiphany. Yet the body you see here is in large part a product of the lumberjack sport of logrolling. Sure she's the fitness director at Supreme Health & Fitness in Madison, Wisconsin, where she trains and teaches a wide array of group classes, and an amateur fitness competitor, but in the end, the sweat in the gym is secreted in service to the log.
Shana first rolled at 7 years of age in a YMCA pool in Madison. Ten years later she turned pro. Now 27, she's a two-time logrolling world champion as well as a top boom runner (sprints over floating logs). As simple as the sport may look to the untrained eye, it apparently verges on a sweet science.
"It can takes months or years to learn to do it by yourself," she says. "It's kind of like boxing without touching. You're both trying to gain control of the log by spinning it in different directions. The matches can go on for 10 minutes."
While logrolling today lacks the life-or-death quality that marked the activity in actual lumberjack camps years ago, there's a particularly unpleasant side effect for women.
"Logrollers probably have the least sexy legs of anybody," Shana says. "They're always bruised and scraped up from the logs." But that won't stop the two-time champ anytime soon; she's already got her mind set on the master's division, years hence. M&F
SNAPSHOT BIRTHDATE: March 3, 1980 BIRTHPLACE & RESIDENCE: Madison, Wisconsin OCCUPATION: Fitness director, Supreme Health & Fitness; professional logroller SPECS: 5'4", 125 pounds ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Two-time logrolling champion; fitness competitor ON THE WEB: www.shanamartin.com
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