Ten minutes and about 27 gummy fish later, I'm at the gym. You might say to yourself "Why don't you just skip the candy and not go to the gym?" To you I say, Why make your bed if you are just going to sleep in it that night? Why wash your hair if you're going to the beach? Why lock your front door if you have to go out it the next morning? We do these things because they make us feel better about ourselves.
Group Power is first, so I get some plates and a bench. But this isn't a restaurant. By plates, I don't mean the china, but weights. And by bench, I don't mean the kind you sit in at a park while you admire the sun shining or read the newspaper with a latte in your hand.
I know I'm going to be feeling weak, so I only put 45 pounds* on my bar to start. This isn't the Marines. No need to try too hard. I do fine during the warm up, but then it's time for legs. The instructor advises us to double our weight, but I always take this as a bad suggestion that actually means 1.5 times your regular weight. I am a wuss and I'm not afraid to admit it. The music starts up and I heave the bar over the back of my head so that it can rest on my shoulders. Then it's time for squats and lunges.
I think squats were invented for people who have flat butts to get bigger butts, but this is the least of my worries. I've got enough booty to make a pirate jealous. And lunges? As far as I can tell, they just make your thighs bulge with muscle, which is a problem I already have. I've mentioned this in previous posts, but I have thighs like a kangaroo. Granted, I can't hop as high or balance on my tail, but these thighs o'mine are a workhorse.
For some reason, when the track is finished, I am out of breath and mostly feel like collapsing on the ground. This is what happens when you don't exercise for a week. But my least favorite track is the bicep track. Bicep work is always very difficult for me, because I have weak wrists. I feel like my wrists are doing all the work, not my arm muscles. Because of this, I have very fit wrists. They are super tiny, which makes it impossible to find bracelets that don't slip off. Unless they are Hello Kitty bracelets, because children's jewelry usually works.
Fifty-five minutes later, Group Power is over, but do I go home and faint on the couch? No. I stay for kickboxing, because it's my favorite class. Plus, you know, I'm a bad ass. Whenever I am in Group Kick, I pretend like I am Alex training in the Division compound, or Sydney Bristow training at The Farm, or maybe even I'm a Ninja Turtle practicing in the sewer.
I really enjoy the moves for the most part, but there is one particular move that I find uncomfortable: scissors. All you do is criss cross your legs back and forth, but I've found that all this jumping causes my brain to hurt. Like, my brain isn't strapped tightly enough into my head and it just kind of shakes around in there while I'm jumping around, and it gives me a headache. I once had a stuffed kitten with a similar problem. It had a special ball in it's head to make it sound like it was purring when you pet it, but after having the stuffed animal for a few years and dragging it all over the place, I think the ball kind of loosened up, because GreyFeather started to sound more like a baby rattle than a purring cat. But I digress.
I throw punches and kicks and do jumps that would clear a stack of encyclopedias,** but thank the Lord when we are two tracks away from finishing. We've just got to do our ab track and the stretching track.
"Does Tracy usually make you do a victory lap?" Our substitute instructor asks before we get our mats.
"Is that what you call it?" I think. Because I call it the Lap of Torture. But I suck it up and jog around the gym twice, which is much like jogging around the entire city perimeter, except that you probably won't get mugged, but there's no 7-Eleven to stop at and get a Slurpee either.
After the dreaded lap, I lay down on the undoubtedly germ-drenched mat to torture my abdominals into submission. It's not much fun, but it's better than doing scissors or bicep curls. I actually have a pretty good set of abs, but you wouldn't know it by my ability to do a full sit-up. You might be able to catch a glimpse of my muscles when I do laundry though. When my washing machine breaks down, I just use the washboard called my stomach to scrub those clothes clean.
**a stack of two. Let's not get crazy.
I had the same stuffed kitten!!!
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