Oh. My God. I did a dumb thing to impress a girl.

You guys are lucky this blog doesn’t come with sound. The animal noises I’m making right now probably wouldn’t make the National Geographic Top 10 (if there is such a thing), and alas, the cause is not romantic in nature.

This is a carbon based life form pain symphony.

Dead lifts. Bless my trainer’s heart. Seriously. Wtf. Ow.

However, she promptly taught me a couple of stretches designed to pop the Prius-sized fist that my lower back had become back into a less-furious state. She encouraged me as I did these stretches by telling me that once the core wears out, your body transfers the anchoring position to your lower back. I think she told me this by way of encouraging me; like .. your core has been sufficiently demolished by what I just made you do, so obviously you’re doing it right. This definitely falls into the ‘cold comfort’ category, I’m just sayin’.I have arthritis in my lower and mid back. I’m not going to lie, it hurts like hell, usually. I suck a lot of Tylenol. This was a whole different kind of pain; I’d been babying my back for the last year or two as it became more of a challenge, and that was, lets just say .. not the most productive course of action.

Dumbbell curls, couldn’t tell you the weight. Obliques. Not my favorite. Power walking. I’m not even going to mention the senior mall walking tour that popped into my head as I ‘power walked’ to a strategically placed cone and back in the parking lot. When I went to start my second rotation, my trainer said ‘Do you know what Power Walking is?’ When I grunted something to the negative, because one never wants to take anything for granted when it comes to my trainer, she looked at me pointedly and said ‘Not slow.’

Then she clapped her hands, said something encouraging in Spanish and chanted ‘Go! Go! Go!’.

Yeah. We’ll come back to that.

But that’s not what you came here for, is it? No? I could see it in your face. You want to know what dumb assed thing I did to impress a girl, don’t you? Yeah. That’s what I thought.

You remember when I mentioned before about how stupid things that never occurred to me to try are popping into my head as my body begins spending more time with me, yeah? So I’m watching the wife unit do wind sprints (no idea the distance, but lets just say her cone was twice as far away as mine. From where I was standing, it looked … uh … far.) and the trainer said if she could beat her first time, she wouldn’t have to do a third run. If she didn’t want to. (Which is her way of saying ‘If you’re going to be a useless pussy and take the easy way out, I suppose you won’t have to do a third run.’ Only in trainer-speak)

My wife apparently speaks fluent trainer-speak already, and as I sat on the curb catching my breath she stepped up to the line to do a third run.

Let me tell you a little story.

Ten years ago, give or take, my body was a lot different than it is today. I was a good deal heavier than I am now, and my body and I had a relatively adversarial relationship. We didn’t care about each other, and went out of our way to prove it more often than not. I was working two jobs, sleeping four hours a night and eating trash. By ‘trash’ I mean whatever drive-thru was open at Midnight between Job 1 and Job 2. At one of my jobs I spent the better part of the night throwing around 100 pound coolers of dirt and water samples; so I was that unusual mix you’ll find occasionally – I was fat, but strong. The outer workings weren’t pretty, but the inner workings were solid.

What I saw in the mirror made me no kind of happy. I needed a change. A huge (no pun intended) change.

My body and I locked in mortal combat. It’s no place you want to be, just trust me on this.

I’d had major surgery two years before, and was as surprised as anyone when I landed back in the hospital a month after my wedding. I (not surprisingly) had ulcers at the time; and at some point my years of culinary abuse and job stress culminated in one (or more) of them finally carving such an impressive chunk out of my stomach that basically every single ounce of blood tried to blow it’s way out of my body within a 24 hour period. I was in ICU for nearly two weeks, on a strict ‘nothing by mouth’ regimen, flat on my back and mostly unconscious. Death was a viable option.They removed half my stomach and the first inch and a half of my duodenum. The surgeon actually came in and said he’d put part of my stomach on display in a jar on his desk because he’d ‘..never seen anything like that before.’  I was, even then, perfecting my status as Mr. Dubious Honor.

I lost 60 pounds. In two weeks. The change was dramatic. I was at the lowest weight I’d been since my early 20s. It changed everything about my eating habits and how I viewed living in general. I couldn’t tolerate the types of ‘food’ I’d been taking for granted any longer; my digestion process sped up dramatically – the handful of food I could eat at one time was processed and nothing but a memory in just under half an hour – and having your abdomen yanked open from just below your pecs to just above your navel isn’t exactly conducive to doing situps. My body and I came to an uneasy truce. A temporary one, but a truce nonetheless.

Fade out on the bedtime story. Fade in to a cool dark parking lot outside a gym, ten years later.

I sat on the curb, wiping sweat off my face with my shirt and watching the wife unit step up to the line for that third run.

Now, I’m a smartass. Anyone who knows me, even vaguely, can tell you that. I bounced up off the curb and went to the line beside her. I grinned brightly, clapped my hands, and said in an encouraging tone ‘..Come on, baby! You can do it! I’ll run this last one with you! For support!’  Now, anyone that knows me, even vaguely, can probably surmise I had NO intention of doing any such thing. I was all about the support, of course. That part was genuine. But running? Seriously. I’ve already made peace with the fact that when zombies start chasing me, I’m going to have to stand and fight it out til they eat my face off. This bulldog is not built for speed. I haven’t run unless someone was chasing me with a weapon .. well .. ever. But there I stood, on the line, the cool night air making me retarded, obviously.

You know how every once in a while, plans will change in your mind with a quickness that blocks out rational thought? Well, it happens to me, so hush. Sometimes they’re the best ideas I have, so don’t knock it. I decided in that split second to run. Well, as far as I could, anyway. Then turn my ass around and walk my ass back, having properly demonstrated marital support above and beyond the call of duty, it seemed to me.

Now these are sprints we’re talking about. The kind that are usually inspired by the FRESH HOT sign lighting up in the Krispy Kreme window. Don’t lie, you know what I’m saying.

The trainer looked delighted. The wife unit looked skeptical. But here’s the thing. The trainer had me run once before, the last time we worked outside. And later on, as we were laying in bed recounting the latest indignities the trainer had heaped upon us, we’d spent a measure of time cracking up over the fact that I had actually run, without someone chasing me, for what was possibly the first time in our entire history together. Once you’ve been together for going on 12 years, First Times become a rare thing, if you let them. It definitely bore remarking on, let’s put it that way. She turned to me, grinning, and said ‘… it was kinda hot, actually.’

I assumed she was being facetious. I still, sometimes, look at the world with the same eyes I did 100 pounds ago. The concept of me doing anything and looking ‘hot’ while doing it is fairly foreign to me. I don’t generally believe it, but I always appreciate the little spousal white lies she offers me periodically. And that, peanuts, was my downfall.

Fade in to sweaty people standing at a line in a dark parking lot.

The trainer hit the timer. She and the wife unit yelled ‘GO!’ at the same time. I went. I took off at a dead run. And for the first time in my entire life, it felt good. My body didn’t move the way I remembered it moving. The hampering weight that moved independently by itself when I ran before ten years ago was gone. The fatigue that had become a regular part of my daily routine vanished in a puff of adrenaline. And to my stunned amazement, I kept going. It was cool, and dark, and I was running. Sprinting. I heard the wife unit pulling up behind me, and instead of slowing, I slammed into high gear and ran full out.

Now, the wife unit is taller than I am. Her legs are longer than mine, and she’s been at this gym nonsense a month or two longer than I have. Of course she beat me back. She kicked my ass by a full two seconds. The trainer was calling out the time and I remember thinking .. ‘Hey, wait. Why is she still counting? The wife unit’s back already!’ I realized that she was counting my time. I beat the wife units’ first time by 3 seconds.

I can’t describe the sense of shock and exhilaration I felt.

Of course it was quickly followed by the uneasy realization that I was either going to puke, or my right eyeball was going to pop spang out of my head and bounce off the car door next to me. I stood up, put my hands on my hips, and actually did neither. At one point, I did think the eyeball popping out was the most viable likelihood, but I kept it to myself and gave everybody a thumbs up to indicate that they could take their fingers off the 911 speed dials on their cell phones.

I was gonna make it home this time.

Life is good.

If only I’d take my own advice …

Remember back when I made the fervent suggestion that once you start at the gym, taking time off – although it seems like a great idea at the time – almost always means it’s going to hurt twice as bad once you go back to it?

Yeah. That.

I usually love being right .. I mean, who doesn’t? This time .. not so much.

I haven’t been posting with any discernible regularity because the last couple of weeks my schedule has literally been all over the place. With the wife unit not only adjusting to the new schedule at work (and that changing, naturally, our schedule at the gym) and other responsibilities playing havoc with our schedule my wait time on the weight time has been scattershot at best.

And I can absolutely guarantee that rescheduling with the trainer and then putting the new time/date in my phone calendar for the wrong day didn’t help much either. After missing two sessions in a row, my brain was totally in fight or flight mode .. do I really need to be all healthy and crap? I mean .. seriously. No. I mean .. yes. Yes, of course I do. Geeze, now that I’ve missed two, why not take the whole week off and then start again fresh? Awesome idea! Terrible idea. Really, really bad idea.

I went back. And I could lie and tell you that it wasn’t just like starting over from the beginning. Ok, maybe not that bad, but it wasn’t anybody’s idea of a fun date. The last two times I was too delirious to keep track of how much I was lifting, or how many reps. Now that I’m back on track, I’m a little less sore each time, and it’s starting to almost feel good again by the time the next morning rolls around. The post-workout euphoria is lasting a little longer before I faceplant, and last night as I walked across the dark parking lot enjoying the cool breeze rather than wondering if I was seriously going to be able to make it those last ten steps without snorting gravel through my face, I started to be glad I was back.

Granted, I couldn’t lift my own arms, but still. And ok, my right butt cheek was furious with me, and wanted to impart that fury with every step I took. “Yeah? You think you’re cute? Keep pissing me off. Think you can make it to the car without my help? Want to find out?” Once you’ve been doing this for a month or two, your butt cheek sounding like Bruce Willis in Die Hard won’t even strike you as strange.

The recipe for pain this last time:

Hip Abductions – 80 lb, 3 x 50; Leg curls – 40 lb, 3 x 25; One Armed Rows – 20 lb, 3 x 25; Standing Dumbbell Curls – 20 lb, 3 x 25; Lat Pulldowns – 60 lb, 3 x 25. Cardio on the front end, on the bike. It felt good, right up until I couldn’t lift my arms. Good times.

If I could stop standing in my own way, my progress would be faster. My results would be more pronounced. But I am actually making progress; and I understand that like fixing anything that took a while to wreck, the fix won’t be instantaneous.

I’m lifting far more weight than when I started. I’m less winded, both at the gym and accomplishing things when I’m out wandering around loose. I can consider (whether I eventually laugh at the ideas or not) doing things again that I haven’t been able to even entertain the thought of – in over two years. Some stuff that has been creeping into my brain has literally never been there before – physical challenges that wouldn’t even have occurred to me .. well .. at any other time in my life, if I’m going to be really honest. There’s nothing that can motivate you to consider the shortest marathon in existence more than having your wife tell you she thought you looked ‘pretty hot’ doing sprints in the parking lot. Especially if you don’t consider she might well have meant ‘Oh my GOD I almost called an ambulance when I saw you go running past’. Take motivation where you can find it. Whether it’s what they actually meant or not, at this stage of the game is irrelevant.

But the fact remains .. when you can actually feel the difference when you feed your body healthy things, and make it work in ways that burn that fuel in a healthy and productive way, it gets addictive. When I get back from the gym, once I’ve gotten out of the shower, and if I can still move, I’m usually starving. What I’m finding, though, is that my body wants healthy stuff after I work out; it’s generally happier if I give it water rather than soda .. and it’s much happier when I pass McDonalds on my way home and cook up some chicken and rice instead.

It’s a ‘me’ I’m just now being introduced to. My body is grudgingly agreeing to meet me one more time. And considering our vaguely dysfunctional relationship in the past, this is a second (third? fourth?) chance I’m kind of surprised to be getting.

I was tired of the strain on my back and my knees that the extra weight I was accumulating was compounding. I was tired of being tired. I was tired of the concept of a night out being more energy than I thought I could muster. And I was tired of being depressed; which was another thing that I’ve found to be impacted by my gym time in a surprisingly effective way. It’s kicking cobwebs out of my brain that have been building there for quite some time; for the first time in two years, I am once again inspired to look ahead farther than getting through the day, and to formulate plans of not only what I want my life to be, but to see that basically .. if I can do this, then literally .. anything is possible.

I can look at myself honestly, see the places that need work, and instead of putting the blame elsewhere, or letting it float around sucking the life out of everything I do, I can fix it. It won’t be easy. It definitely won’t always feel good. But it can be done. If there’s something you see in yourself that you don’t care for .. you can change it. The only stickler is .. you’re the only one who can.

There’s something out there that you’ve always wanted to do. Why don’t you do it?

 

Intention Vs. Omgwtfbbq!?

I intended to wander in here today and tell you about how much better I felt. That was, for the record, the intention.

That was before I got up from my faceplant and realized that my legs weighed 600 lbs each, and my ass was cramping every 2.76 minutes. More rapidly, if I actually moved it.

I had recently recovered from what appeared to be a Grand Slam of illness; after a breathtakingly uninspired showing one Saturday morning where I didn’t seem capable of even reaching my personal average never mind my personal best in a workout, it turned out that I was falling prey to bronchitis – which is nobody’s idea of a fun date, let’s be honest.

But before bronchitis rolled into town on its tourbus, it’s opening act, food poisoning, came on for a sellout show that lasted until it was SRO. Well, ok, the music sounded the same as it’s rival band Stomach Virus, so technically, by the time the Woodstock of Misery was over on this patch of dessicated land, nobody really knew what the actual lineup had been.

But like the Hells Angels incident at Altamont, we knew we couldn’t host a mess like that again.

Moving on.

The point of me sharing this with you is to preface two things:

First, if you truly want to go back to the gym, or actually even go there for the first time, I will caution you thus. If you go, if you make that commitment to yourself, don’t slack off. I’m the first to understand the lure of a warm bed on a cold morning; as well as the lure of the elusive  H0stess Zinger on a medium nippy late afternoon. But if you go, keep going. Don’t think for a second that you’ll be better or more fresh after a break. If there is not blood or decapitation directly involved, keep going.

Second, If you don’t keep going, it’s going to hurt worse. That progress you were so proud of? The increased reps? The ever-increasing weight you can lift and toss around like an errant toddler? Dust in the wind, baby. At least at first. Yes, you’ll come back faster; yes, you will recover sooner than you thought. But man. It will hurt til you are screaming Madonna’s ‘Like A Virgin’ through clenched teeth.

We won’t go into my first workout back from the Skank Nation Tour 2010. Mostly because there’s not enough material to even really net a snicker; but we won’t dwell on that, will we? No. No, we won’t. I saw stars, literally, and Natasha ended up benching me about 3/4 through.

This last one, though. This was a bear. And not the warm fuzzy kind that will feed you breakfast in bed and tune up your car, either.

The batting roster looked like this:

Hip Abduction 85 lbs, 3 sets of 25

Lat pulldowns 110 lbs, 2 sets of 15, 1 set of 15 at 55 lbs.

15 min of cardio on the bike, at level 5. I had never worked on that for more than 8 min at level 1. Three sets of shoulder presses with 10 lbs while on the bike. That was a new addition too. My trainer hates me.

Core training with the goddamn heavy assed ball, chest presses, 3 sets of 25.

I didn’t see Natasha when I first got there, and a woman sat up from the mat and asked if I was waiting for her, or someone with a similar name. Between the chatter and the music that is Saturday morning Boot Camp,  I wasn’t sure, so I went with the most logical choice and said yes. She said everybody else was pretty much doing laps around the building, so I could either do that, or jump on a bike. I chose the bike, because who really wants to wake up the paramedics that early on a Saturday morning, right?

She shot me right from there over to the hip abductions, where she had me at 85 lbs. During the dismount (and I ain’t kidding, it really was) the machine snapped back on my ankle and I could not get the bitch open to get my leg out. I thought I could just press it open, but .. uh .. no. It stayed there, with my leg in it’s mighty jaws, until she came and .. I dunno, threw it a piece of gazelle or whatever it wanted to let me go. Luckily she did that before they showed up with the jaws of life and I ended up on the news as one of those freak accident guys you see on YouTube. I was not in the mood to go viral this morning.

From there I did lat pulldowns at 110 lbs for two sets of 15, and then another set at 55 lbs to cool down. At first I joked around about it .. ‘hey, you have 55 lbs less faith in me than before?’
Don’t run your mouth. That’s what I learned today. I did finish the last set at the reduced weight, but barely. She had her hand planted in the center of my back encouraging me to ‘squeeze (my) hand with your shoulder blades! Chest out! Head up! Pull those elbows back!’
Granted, I thought a couple of times I had other ideas about where she could stick her hand,  but I didn’t want to get maced, so I kept my mouth shut.

We worked core with the medicine ball, chest presses – that ‘toss it across the room to me’ thing she makes me do where she basically backs up to the building next door and then looks at me quizzically when I can’t, by the third set of 25, knock her back with the throw. If she wasn’t so damn cute I swear to ghod …

Had a 10-15 min cooldown in the middle of the workout when someone came in asking about the gym in general and Boot Camp in particular, but then decided to hang out in the office and ask questions. Which, hey, I admit did not piss me off.
She did, however, slap me right back on the hip abduction machine when she got back though. So my joy was short-lived.

The post that I had in mind, all cheerful about the progress I’ve made and how much better I feel .. urm .. that will have to wait til next time. Something to look forward to.

limps off into the distance, muttering and cursing

You know you’re in trouble when your trainer walks in wearing an ‘Overachiever’ t-shirt.

You know you’re in trouble when your trainer walks in wearing an ‘Overachiever’ t-shirt. I’m just sayin’ …

The last two visits to the gym basically left me so raggedy and wrung out I will just mention both of them here; I’ve heard that traumatic events blur together in the mind as time passes, and I’ve found that’s certainly true. Especially in this particular case. I’m not sure which took longer .. being able to control any given extremity at any given time, or finding a sense of humor about having all the personal coordination and muscular response of the average jello shot.

A couple of observations, before I go. Who invented Shrugs? Shrugging, in real life, sort of indicates a general ambivalence about a subject or topic. How in the world can you be ambivalent about 90 pounds hanging from your shoulders? I’m thinking the average person would have an opinion about this one way or another. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong.

They were part of a circuit that included various forms of rows. You remember those, right? The ones that make you see your dead ancestors? Yeah. Those. The only historical reference that pops into my mind when I do rows is a vivid mental image of viking ships crammed to the gills with suffering, sweaty, cursing men trying to move that big assed boat. Because let me tell you, it feels like I’m trying to move a big assed boat, and it ain’t nearly as easy as it looks.

This last time around, I admit I let all the red flags flutter in the wind while I did everything but admire the sharp design. I totally ignored the fact that the trainer walked in wearing a tshirt emblazoned with the legend ‘Overachiever’.

This is one of those opportunities that you have to learn from my mistake, so pay attention. I am about to drop a whole chunk of valuable knowledge in your lap. When your trainer walks in wearing an ‘Overachiever’ tshirt, and you have that momentary uneasy fight-or-flight response? Trust your instincts. They’re there from millions of years of evolution, where nature tries to teach us  how to not get smashed like bugs on a windshield. Just .. run.

Another handy point of escape that I should have taken advantage of was when she greeted me with ‘Hello gym dork at wordpress dot com.’

Women are clever. They can take an entire sentence that seems utterly innocuous, and the only thing it’s missing is the danger music from the movies, pal.

And are you thinking I did the smart thing when she said (on the second set of the circuit, yet) ‘Oh! Today’s heavy weight day!’

Ha. I’ll bet you aren’t. If I was reading this, even I would know better. It’s that whole .. hindsight is 20/20 thing going on.

I was doing flies at one point, and the conversation had drifted over to which was the quickest exit route to take  if someone was going to puke like a sprinkler, say. Much laughter ensued, it’s true, and no actual puke was harmed during the commission of the conversation. She’d pointed to the men’s room in one direction, then to the door leading into the parking lot in the other. One was deemed shorter, hence, the more intelligent choice. I admitted to some trepidation when I noticed that the concept of making me void last night’s dinner made her laugh every single time; and she sort of pointed halfway between the station I was on and the door. ‘Yep, you’d get about there and it would be ‘Hahahahaha … ohhh shoot.’ Because I know I’d have to clean it up.’

The thought of pushing me past the point where my stomach tried to literally escape my body didn’t worry her. It was the cleaning up afterward.

At least I know she’s not sweet talking me, right?

How did my mouth become the Ancient Sweatsock Burial Ground?

*smek*

My trainer suggested one of the things I do to assist in this hellish bit of masochism is to trade off every kill-me-earlier thing I drink with a glass of water. So .. kill myself a little, glass of water .. pound caffeine .. glass of water. You see where this is going.

I haven’t always been successful; after all, I’m supposed to be honest here, right? But every now and again that short term memory thing kicks in, and I alternate. Caffeine, water. Caffeine, water. And yes, for those that are wondering right now, I’ve been pissing like a racehorse. Which, technically, I already was thanks to the miracles of modern science known as blood pressure meds. What I didn’t expect, though, is that every morning this new concoction wreaks havoc on my system; and leaves me standing in the bathroom bleary eyed and doing an impressive rendition of the Sahara Desert above the equator, and Hurricane Katrina below.

Nobody warned me about this. Nobody took our intrepid hero aside and told him this whole workout / eat / drink healthier thing was going to turn him into his own freaking portable weather system. I’m pretty sure I didn’t see that in the fine print.

My trainer decided to make my triceps bilingual this last visit. The first circuit was prone pull-ups, weighted crunches (up to 60 pounds on that, and people wonder why my trainer yells ‘Breathe!’) and push ups. Three sets of each, reps increasing from 15 to 30. Then what she called ‘The Grand Finale’ .. she also didn’t specify it would be my Grand Finale, and I wouldn’t be able to get off the mat afterward for five minutes, but .. yeah. That turned out to be three sets of plank stands, dips, and lat pulldowns, which she affectionately referred to as ‘the tricep burnout circuit’  with the obligatory cardio on the way out.

She taught my triceps to speak in tongues. Actually, they were fluent in Latin by the time I staggered to the car. There’s a reason why that’s referred to as a dead language, by the way.

I’m just sayin’.

Oh! And before I forget – thanks so much to the folks that have been giving me feedback here, and the new folks who have found me and decided to hang out a while! It was great hearing from you, and I’m glad you’re here!

“Are you ready for the gun show?” … “…Uhhhh”

In which our intrepid hero has to admit that no .. he’s a little way off from ready for the gun show.

I’m starting to really like my trainer. She’s at the point where she’s cracking jokes and I’m gonna be honest – if you can make me laugh, I probably am not noticing whatever noxious thing you are getting me to do nearly as much as I would be otherwise. Which is not to detract from the fact that she totally kicked my ass today, with the equivalent of her pinky finger.

We ended up training outside today; and no, I’m not writing this from Beyond The Grave. I’d charge for that, I think.

So yeah. She went all Mister Miyagi on our asses, taking us out where you could see things like trees, and grass. And then putting us through hell, but nicely. Three sets of hammer curls, three sets of inverted curls and three sets of lift curls, one right after the other. Then she points to the wall of the building, and has me squat, with my spine against the wall. That doesn’t sound heinous at all, does it? It looks pretty innocuous when you set it out like that. What it infers, rather than saying outright, is how your thighs initially start out happy with this. But thigh muscles are like cats, or 2 year olds. They have the happy attention span of a fruit fly. Soon, they tire of the new game and are eager to go on to something else. But wait! You’re still in this ridiculous position? They might even agree to stay with you for a time. But mark my words .. when they are done, pal, they are done for real. Which is just about the moment that it’s time to start your next trifecta of curls. 3 styles, 135 reps, 3 sets. And that crazy squat thing. For longer than I care to remember.

When my arms started giving out around the middle of the third set, she looked over and conversationally asked ‘…Ready for the gun show?’  (In other words, ‘Oh .. good heavens, GymDork, have you trained your arms and shoulders sufficiently, do you think? No more work required?’) To which I replied, with my usual rapier wit ‘…..Uhhhhhhh. I’m going! I’m going! 12 … 13 … 14 ….’

The best line of the day: The wife unit was every bit as tore up as I was, and pointed out to Natasha that ‘…Yanno, I came in here this morning ready to kick all kinds of ass.’  Without missing a beat, Natasha looked over and smiled brightly and said ‘And I turned it around on you.’ Ha! That got me through those last couple of muscle-ripping curls.

She did, however, get fancy on us this morning. My last set of air-sitting (and I should have been playing air guitar while I sat there, but I only just now thought of it. Next time.) was tied to the wife units last set of biohazard pushups. (Burpees, apparently, the football players call them.) I was supposed to hold the squat for however long it took her to finish her last set of those. We both balked, staring at her like she had lost her mind. This met with the usual bright smile, and a little wave, and she was off to torture her next client, after assigning me an extra minute on the cardio at the end. Let me tell you, the wife unit never had a more enthusiastic cheerleader than she had this morning. While I held the squat by nothing but sheer piss, vinegar and sweat, I don’t think I’ve ever rooted for her to make it through a set so ardently in my life.

Cream Sauces – The expensive hooker of food.

So, this last Saturday I skipped the gym in the morning because we were supposed to go to Craft – Atlanta for dinner/date, and I wanted to still be functional enough to lift my own fork to feed myself in public.

So that left me out of the gym Sat, Sun, and Monday. Now it’s Tuesday, and I’m sitting here in my gym clothes cussing to myself. The last two times at the gym have been so intensive I haven’t even been able to find something funny therein to bring to the gymdork blog. Natasha told me last time that it was my hardest/best workout yet; which kind of left me thinking both ‘yeah, I know, bitch’ and ‘well, isn’t it supposed to be?’ well, those and ‘yay, I didn’t puke on the floor!’

I felt good, last time. I couldn’t lift my arms, again, but it all felt good. Until what? The next day? The day after? My shit hurt. Fuck. Now of course my body’s back to normal, so I can count on feeling like I’ve been run over by a bulldozer by the time I get home this morning.

Oh, and a tip? Don’t eat chicken tetrazzini for dinner the night before you go back to the gym after being out 3 days. (Cream sauces are so not my friend. They’re like an expensive hooker that gives you the clap. It feels great while you’re doing it, but in the days following you pay, and pay and pay …)

The whole idea behind this blog was to honestly document either my success at getting my old 40+ ass up off the couch and back to the gym, or my horrible, flailing crash and burn in the attempt. Since the experiment isn’t over yet, I have no idea how the story will end. I’d like to think I win, in a manner of speaking; but if I get plowed, hey, I’ll try to find the humor in it.

I have a naturally addictive personality. If something feels good, I tend to overcome all sorts of obstacles to get to it. Since I’ve grown up a little bit, I’ve tried to channel this boneheaded determination into both a healthier lifestyle (I no longer drink, or do interesting drugs like I did in my misspent youth) and a healthier head-space (I no longer drink, or do interesting drugs like I did in my misspent youth.)

Yes, I know I said it twice. It was not only such a huge lifestyle change it bears repeating, but it also is a dose of common sense. At some point, you have to quit breaking down both your body and your brain, if you want to succeed at living and being any kind of healthy as your old ass gets even older.

Drinking, for example, felt WAY better than getting up before dawn and dragging my semi-inert ass to the gym. But then I had to come to the realization that the more I drank, the stupider I looked in public, and to the people that had to bear the brunt of my conversational discharges in private. I decided, at the fork in the road between becoming one of those unshaven ranty old men that people roll their eyes about as soon as he opens his mouth, and becoming a neatly shaved ranty old man that people roll their eyes about as soon as I open my mouth, that it’s better to be neatly shaved.

Going to the gym first thing in the morning, a couple of times before I was even genuinely awake, doesn’t feel good like that did. But the sense of guilt I feel when I blow off a day is getting more formidable; and as someone raised Roman Catholic, there’s not much of a motivational factor more effective than guilt. There’s also the sense of wasting time now that just wasn’t there before. Why did I bust my ass the last visit only to skip the next? It’s a setback, and unlike the days when I used to drink, there’s no one else to blame this on but me. (No, there wasn’t anyone else to blame drinking on, either, but when you’re in that headspace, you’ll goddamn find someone to blame.)

As I got older, my body started getting pissed at all the abuse I delightedly heaped upon it. Arthritis in my spine and my knees gave me the ‘perfect excuse’ to move less, drink more, etc. And each rationalization I used did nothing but contribute to the breakdown of my body.  A catch-22, for sure.

But there are things I’m coming to understand. When I show up at the gym, and I let Natasha lash me from one station to the next, through the next set of reps I don’t think I can do, when I stagger outside afterward … I realize that no, it isn’t fun. But it’s working. And each time, I’m a little more able. I’m in a little less pain. I might be exhausted, but the next time I’ll be able to do more, and hurt less afterward.

“…Be runnin’ up that road, be runnin’ up that hill …”

You have to change the way you look at yourself, and your life, to do this. It’s a change worth making. You can save yourself, or you can let yourself slide down that tube. Which are you really going to want to live with?

And then there were two …

Ok, anybody who read the last entry (or has a grain of sense) knew I was dreading this whole gym thing, yeah?

Well, I couldn’t let them think they’d won. So with about half an hour to go, I put on my workout clothes & sprayed down the relevant joints (my knees no longer consent to leave the house with me if the car is pointed at the gym unless I hit them up with Orthogel; because they’re just that user friendly!) grabbed my keys & gloves and stepped out into the Atlanta Broil.

It’s hot here, people. No screwing around. And there sat my little car, in the sun, all damn day. Marinating, and waiting with the automotive version of a baleful glare as the paint bubbled. I finally stopped yelping and cursing about halfway to the gym; not because things in the car were no longer hot, but because all my nerve endings had been turned into the palm-sized version of curly fries. Drove straight into rush hour traffic, and sat. And cooked. And muttered strangled profanities periodically to keep myself amused while I waited for people to figure out that whole complex ‘driving’ idea.

I pulled up at the gym to a mostly empty parking lot. That momentary thrill of victory washed over me. You know the one. You crossed the finish line first, even though no one else knew they were racing, right? No? Well, screw it. Don’t dwell on it. Move along.

It wasn’t until I shoved my hands into my gloves and headed into the gym that I realized that all the lights were off. It was open, there was one or two guys multitasking .. texting while they used the leg lift, because you can’t get a ticket yet for that. I looked back into the office and the light there was on, and one of the huge guys that runs the place was back there eating something that was probably good for him and surfing the web. Neither the wife unit or the trainer unit was there yet, so I wandered over to the recumbent bike and started putting my front end work in. I actually liked it in there with the lights off, for a multitude of reasons. Not the least of which was the illusion it gave that it was actually less than the temperature of the southwest quadrant of the sun outside. I’d burned out about half a mile on the bike when the wife unit pulled up; she was still in work clothes and started her cardio with a mad sprint to the bathroom to change into her workout gear. She jumped on the treadmill beside me and we grunted back and forth. We were both determined to be there.

The only one who wasn’t, was the trainer unit. About 20 after, I went back to the office and asked HugeDude if he happened to know where she might be. He in fact did not, but said he would call her and see if he could track her down. He finally did, and brought his cellphone out and handed it to the wife unit so that they could work it out amongst themselves. A wise man, HugeDude.

Turns out she’d forgotten us.

I’m not sure if I want to be disappointed, or buy her a cookie. It’s like having someone come in to do a prostate exam and then snap the gloves off with a bright smile and say ‘Just kidding! Here, take this $20.’

You didn’t have to do something heinous, and it’s not even your fault. No one can begrudge you. That always rocks.

You too can feel like a video game survivor!

Jumped in the shower this morning as hot as I could take it.

Because when I got up, I couldn’t move SHIT.

My thighs woke me up, and once I’d experienced the spasmodic pain of standing upright, the shower was the only thing beyond 4 Tylenol that I could think of. It actually did help, a little. I’ve been trying to move the stuff that’s most angry (my triceps immediately leap to mind) and feel slightly less like I just survived a Halo drive by.

The happy news? (yes, I’m being sarcastic) is because of the wife unit’s schedule this week, we had to take the reschedule for our Thursday appt to today, wiping out my day of rest between.
Yes, the whimper you just heard was me.

How can I do ANYTHING at the gym today? Holy shit.

However – in the ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’ department … I caught my reflection in the monitor this morning, and I saw a muscle in my forearm that i haven’t seen in like 2 years. Seriously. My eyes about popped outta my head. Some form of cautious optimism is taking hold, despite my best efforts.

It’s good to have goals

And isn’t it interesting how as we progress in life, the goals we find and set for ourselves sometimes don’t really resemble the goals we had when we were younger at all?

Was finishing up a set of pelvic thrusts (and women wonder why men fall asleep after sex?) and heading for the next set of torture for my lats when my trainer chimes out some form of encouragement about the previous set of thrusts. As I was grabbing for the bar she said ‘…and pretty soon we’ll be able to bounce a quarter off your butt!’

I can’t remember that ever being a goal of mine in the past; but now that I’m past 40? I had to admit being able to bounce a quarter off my ass had a certain charm to it. At least she didn’t threaten to short-sheet me.

The other highlight of the workout came along while we were doing some variation of hammer curls. The wife unit let her weights down and the trainer turned and said ‘How many was that?’

‘Ten’ said the unsuspecting wife unit.

The trainers’ head snapped around and she looked incredulous. ‘Doubleyew Tee Ef?!’

Yeah, I cracked up.

Upped my sets to 25, keeping it at three per so far. Hammer curls, open dumbell flies, the variation on hammer curls. Lat pulldowns and pec flies. And way more weighted crunches than I even wanted to know about this morning. Also those evil freakin’ crunches where you rotate right and left at the apex. Fuck those. I really don’t wanna take those bastards out out to a movie.  Added a couple pounds on both dumbells and machines. Upped my cardio to 7 minutes on front and back ends, so up to not quite 15 min. That crap ain’t funny. I’m all about using the big ball for crunches and curls, though. It stabilizes my core so my neck doesn’t scream til the neighbors call the cops.

Because of the wife unit’s schedule this week, we’re going back tomorrow. Usually I get a day off between, so my body can recuperate; not this time. When we were trying to hash out the change for Wednesday, and it was mentioned we’d have to ride separately because of the tightness between work and the gym the trainer eyed me sideways. I finally said ‘What?’ and she made a noise and said ‘You better come!’ I made a scandalized sound and said ‘What?! If I’m not supervised you think I won’t show up?!’

Sheesh. Oh ye of little faith. I only thought about escaping a little bit. Not enough to actually make a break for it, though.