What do sex and serious workouts have in common? Both make most of us breathless and sweaty. Lucky for Australian radio host Polly "PJ" Harding, a gym session has something else in common with a hot hookup: orgasms.
While chatting with her KIIS FM co-host on air today, the 27-year-old explained that she recently experienced a spontaneous orgasm while working out with her personal trainer at the gym.
“I was working out … and when I worked out, I experienced this (audio of fireworks). It’s so embarrassing to talk about,” the New York Post reported of Harding’s confession. Apparently she was trying a new machine when she suddenly realized something was building inside—and it wasn’t just core strength.
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“So I had to do 15 reps of it. And I was about 10 in and I thought, ‘Oh no, oh no, here we go,’” Harding said. “I thought if I do 11 … but I didn’t want to look weak and I didn’t want to stop. So I kept going and then all of a sudden … I had to pretend that nothing had happened.” Whoa.
Harding’s coregasm may sound hard to believe, but climaxing during exercise actually isn’t unheard of. In fact, a 2011 study published in the journal Sexual and Relationship Therapy found that 51% of the women surveyed had experienced an orgasm while doing ab exercises. Another 27% credited weight lifting for their activity-induced O, and still others pointed to biking, hiking, or running as their cause for climax.
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Laughs aside, the unique event experienced by Harding and other women may actually teach us something about the inner workings (so to speak) of orgasms. Said study author Debby Hebernick, PhD, in a press statement in 2012: “These data are interesting because they suggest that orgasm is not necessarily a sexual event, and they may also teach us more about the bodily processes underlying women's experiences of orgasm.”
So…Pilates, anyone?