Thursday 24 May 2007

06/05/07


Burn baby BURN
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06/05/2007, 04:57 PM
I have an idea for an interesting thought provoking post swishing about in my (largely empty) brain, but I'm just not up to intelligent today. So I'll stick to safe.Have been going back to the gym again. Love it. Love the burn, love the way it feels, love the frigid airconditioning, love watching Fox8, love the way my ponytail bounces when I run (but not my straightjacketed boobs), love the tightness in my quads when I drive home, and I love my little rituals.Did I mention I love it??Started my own strength based thing today. I've been looking at those machines for a while - you know, those complicated looking things with wires and hydraulics. You'll know them because they are populated by sweaty smelly types bursting all over with glistening muscles staring at their attractive bulginess in the floor to ceiling mirrors...Anyhoo, I've been looking at them suspiciously for a while. Wanting to be one of those serious gym people who actually uses them, but not actually really knowing what to do with them. When it's come to weights etc I've always done classes because then you can watch 30 other people in symphony demonstrate exactly what you're supposed to do. But being as it was late on a Sunday afternoon and tomorrow is a public holiday, there were very few people at the gym except from the true die hards (very bulgy) and the wieners from every American sitcom/teen movie. You know the ones, they're trying hard not to perve on the Lorna Jane catalogue model jogging Baywatch style on the treadmills, desperately hoping that if they only use the Energy Musclemeister 40000 for enough reps then she will talk to him...So I sauntered over to one of the machines that I'd watched people use enough to figure out what it was supposed to do (hydraulic rectus abdominus targetting apparatus) and squeezed in. Then kind of got stuck The resistance had been left very very high and with my less than stellar abdominals I couldn't move. I couldn't get out either and I didnt know what to do. I wondered if at closing time I would still be there, trying to look nonchalant in the jaws of the abdominator. Luckily, as I realised that little too late to carry it off with confidence, I noticed the handy little instruction panel on the side, and started crunching away. Too easy thought I. And that's the pull, because it isolates muscles you feel really good - for about the first 30 reps. And then the conviction to do the whole 100 at the initial resistance slowly wanes, and you wonder if turning the resistance down is really that bad??? I mean no one would KNOW! But I stuck it out. Yes I deserve praise spread REALLY thick. I don't care if it's insincere I will LAP it up. Aside from anything have you any idea how much my abs will hurt tomorrow I then moved on to the complicated back press machine (looked like it belonged in a Demtel ad), the leg press (knew how to do them and I put the resistance way up how good am I) and finally my nemesis the military press and bench press machines. I know how these work, it's just that well, I don't LIKE them. They hurt. I have terrible arms. Ever since I stopped playing sport and swimming they appear to have got fatter AND shorter. I practically look like Violet Beauregard with a cinched in elastic waisted belt. So logically I should be doing as much exercise as possible to tone them up and make them look slightly less terrifying to small children. But alack and alas... no. It hurts to use them so I don't, letting them store plenty of fat for the Winter. If I ever need to hibernate my arms will keep me warm and alive. But part of my whole gym thing is to try and get rid of the denial thing, plus the masochist in me loves pain. ADORES it. Truly. (Yes I am nuts). So I did as many reps as possible before I couldn't move.Then I packed up all my things, tallied my achievements in my handy dandy diary and drove home in the sunset. Someone appears to have forgotten to mention that it's actually meant to be Winter next month, because with 30 degree days of brilliant sparkling sunshine and clear blue skies that seem to be more than blue it feels more like late Summer.Weigh in tomorrow. Not expecting any change really. With the festival of screaming, the gastro bloc party and me rediscovering Winter purddings I do not have a lot of hope. BUT I am stacks fitter, and I'm happy with that.

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