The Mystery of Lunges, or When to Clench
I always try to capitalize on other people's personal training.
"Personal training would be good for me," I think to myself as I stride, I hope, confidently into the gym each day, little printed kitchen towel in hand. It is not a gym towel, but I don't want to buy a gym towel, and I figure it will do even though it clearly depicts fat little hens in aprons in a kitchen, baking pies. Perhaps rhubarb.
The fact that I refuse to buy a respectable, anonymous white sweat towel should give you a bit of an idea of how likely I am to pay for personal training.
It's not that I wouldn't like to do it. I would. Each time that I fail to feel the burn or, worse, feel the burn all to keenly, I wonder if I am actually doing anything at all besides taking years off my life. For example, I typically force myself to churn my body on the eliptical runner for at least half an hour a day, maybe breaking on Sundays, or bank holidays. I assume that if it causes me to sweat and hurt, I will eventually lose some weight. Today, for the first time ever, I grasped those little metal handles long enough to actually read my heart rate.
You know those little metal handles. Sometime in the mid 90's they came out as some sort of Incredible Scientific Breakthrough that at long last, you will finally know what your heartrate is without, are you ready, holding your hand to your heart and counting. This is HARD. The little metal handles, however, have never worked for me. They are always there in front of me, ostensibly preventing me from pumping my arms in a reasonable running motion by getting in the way, beseeching me to grasp them so that it might PLEASE HOLD HANDLES FOR HEART RATE
PLEASE CONTINUE TO GRASP HANDLES
PLEASE PLACE HANDS BACK ON METAL GRIPS
...PLEASE
...PLEASE
...JUST ONE MORE TIME BABY I PROMISE IT WILL BE DIFFERENT
I JUST WANT YOU TO HOLD ME
...PLEase.....
This is how I feel about the little handles. Because five minutes into the Running or the Jogging or the Wheezing they still haven't told me anything that I don't already know - that I am either Holding the Handles, or Need to Hold the Handles Again.
Today, however, as I was holding the handles simply because they were put directly in front of me, like a flier for a band that nobody wants, a new machine actually did read my heart rate. It read it and then regurgitated it to me in the form of Flashing Colored Lights, which is something that I like.
The flashy lights started out Red, for heartrates that didn't rate commenting upon, the sort of heartrates you can get from straining too hard in the restroom. They then went to Green, for "Weight Loss," then into Purple for "Cardio." I don't know if once its in Cardio it ceases being Weight Loss or what. I know that Cardio refers to things that happen when I use my heart or my lungs, which for me seems like it would be everyday.
The little flashy lights then peak and go BACK into red, something categorized only as "ABOVE".
I scored somewhere between "above" and "off the charts." I can only assume that this means I am dying, and not only am I dying, but I am also not losing weight, because I am outside of the little green blinky lights.
I felt as if I was doing a pretty standard workout for me and also as if I were only running sort of Kind Of Fast and nothing that should incur a heartrate of "Imminent Caridac Arrest." I wondered how many years off my like I had taken by pedaling too much on a little wheely machine that goes nowhere, a sort of universal commentary on the futile and circular nature of life.
So I thought again today about getting some personal training. Heretofore I would typically begin a workout with Stretching in the open gym room and also Eavesdropping on Personal Training.
I am constantly witnessing people with beautiful people in tight shirts instructing them in bizarre activities involving squatting with heavy objects and incoherent tribal dances. The shit with the giant rollyball just entirely blows my mind. I tried to get out that rollyball and do crunches on it, but I couldn't figure out how to get the rollyball to roll less and crunch more. Add to this that there are always mirrors around you and you know exactly how stupid you look.
I realized that there must be some secret, some secret to these mystical exercises that Get Results Faster and other such things. I occasionally attempt them on my own just from watching, but am keenly aware that this will prabably only result in something like what happens when you go "ABOVE" on a cardio machine - you tear muscles, then you die.
For every crazy exercise you observe, there is always some key element you cannot see. "...and be CERTAIN to NEVER relax your sphincter while performing these Cherry Juggle Lunges, or you will most CERTAINLY shit yourself and everyone around you," or somesuch as that. Or perhaps just "keep your abs clenched or it won't do much good." But you get the idea. The thing is I just don't KNOW. I don't know what the key is.
However, I've realized that emulating the exercise practices of seventy five year old men, as is sometimes the subject of whatever personal training is going on, may not get me far either. Once, when one such man and his trainer were certain that my having iPod buds in my ears meant that I was actually listening to my iPod, I overheard the following conversation:
"My! That young lady certainly is flexible!"
"Yes, I suppose she is."
"That's kind of like what I'm doing... but better."
"Ha ha. Well, it is a young lady."
"Wow! Look at her go! All the way down."
That day I learned to stretch with my back against the wall, but lunges, crunches, freeweights and rollyballs remain a mystery. All I know is I workout almost every damn day and I still have backfat, so either I buy new jeans or a trainer.
I wonder which one's easier to shop for.
"Personal training would be good for me," I think to myself as I stride, I hope, confidently into the gym each day, little printed kitchen towel in hand. It is not a gym towel, but I don't want to buy a gym towel, and I figure it will do even though it clearly depicts fat little hens in aprons in a kitchen, baking pies. Perhaps rhubarb.
The fact that I refuse to buy a respectable, anonymous white sweat towel should give you a bit of an idea of how likely I am to pay for personal training.
It's not that I wouldn't like to do it. I would. Each time that I fail to feel the burn or, worse, feel the burn all to keenly, I wonder if I am actually doing anything at all besides taking years off my life. For example, I typically force myself to churn my body on the eliptical runner for at least half an hour a day, maybe breaking on Sundays, or bank holidays. I assume that if it causes me to sweat and hurt, I will eventually lose some weight. Today, for the first time ever, I grasped those little metal handles long enough to actually read my heart rate.
You know those little metal handles. Sometime in the mid 90's they came out as some sort of Incredible Scientific Breakthrough that at long last, you will finally know what your heartrate is without, are you ready, holding your hand to your heart and counting. This is HARD. The little metal handles, however, have never worked for me. They are always there in front of me, ostensibly preventing me from pumping my arms in a reasonable running motion by getting in the way, beseeching me to grasp them so that it might PLEASE HOLD HANDLES FOR HEART RATE
PLEASE CONTINUE TO GRASP HANDLES
PLEASE PLACE HANDS BACK ON METAL GRIPS
...PLEASE
...PLEASE
...JUST ONE MORE TIME BABY I PROMISE IT WILL BE DIFFERENT
I JUST WANT YOU TO HOLD ME
...PLEase.....
This is how I feel about the little handles. Because five minutes into the Running or the Jogging or the Wheezing they still haven't told me anything that I don't already know - that I am either Holding the Handles, or Need to Hold the Handles Again.
Today, however, as I was holding the handles simply because they were put directly in front of me, like a flier for a band that nobody wants, a new machine actually did read my heart rate. It read it and then regurgitated it to me in the form of Flashing Colored Lights, which is something that I like.
The flashy lights started out Red, for heartrates that didn't rate commenting upon, the sort of heartrates you can get from straining too hard in the restroom. They then went to Green, for "Weight Loss," then into Purple for "Cardio." I don't know if once its in Cardio it ceases being Weight Loss or what. I know that Cardio refers to things that happen when I use my heart or my lungs, which for me seems like it would be everyday.
The little flashy lights then peak and go BACK into red, something categorized only as "ABOVE".
I scored somewhere between "above" and "off the charts." I can only assume that this means I am dying, and not only am I dying, but I am also not losing weight, because I am outside of the little green blinky lights.
I felt as if I was doing a pretty standard workout for me and also as if I were only running sort of Kind Of Fast and nothing that should incur a heartrate of "Imminent Caridac Arrest." I wondered how many years off my like I had taken by pedaling too much on a little wheely machine that goes nowhere, a sort of universal commentary on the futile and circular nature of life.
So I thought again today about getting some personal training. Heretofore I would typically begin a workout with Stretching in the open gym room and also Eavesdropping on Personal Training.
I am constantly witnessing people with beautiful people in tight shirts instructing them in bizarre activities involving squatting with heavy objects and incoherent tribal dances. The shit with the giant rollyball just entirely blows my mind. I tried to get out that rollyball and do crunches on it, but I couldn't figure out how to get the rollyball to roll less and crunch more. Add to this that there are always mirrors around you and you know exactly how stupid you look.
I realized that there must be some secret, some secret to these mystical exercises that Get Results Faster and other such things. I occasionally attempt them on my own just from watching, but am keenly aware that this will prabably only result in something like what happens when you go "ABOVE" on a cardio machine - you tear muscles, then you die.
For every crazy exercise you observe, there is always some key element you cannot see. "...and be CERTAIN to NEVER relax your sphincter while performing these Cherry Juggle Lunges, or you will most CERTAINLY shit yourself and everyone around you," or somesuch as that. Or perhaps just "keep your abs clenched or it won't do much good." But you get the idea. The thing is I just don't KNOW. I don't know what the key is.
However, I've realized that emulating the exercise practices of seventy five year old men, as is sometimes the subject of whatever personal training is going on, may not get me far either. Once, when one such man and his trainer were certain that my having iPod buds in my ears meant that I was actually listening to my iPod, I overheard the following conversation:
"My! That young lady certainly is flexible!"
"Yes, I suppose she is."
"That's kind of like what I'm doing... but better."
"Ha ha. Well, it is a young lady."
"Wow! Look at her go! All the way down."
That day I learned to stretch with my back against the wall, but lunges, crunches, freeweights and rollyballs remain a mystery. All I know is I workout almost every damn day and I still have backfat, so either I buy new jeans or a trainer.
I wonder which one's easier to shop for.