It’s easy to let weeks slip by without exercising. A much-needed holiday, a new state, a new work assignment… and then around Easter, a flu that put me on the couch for a week! Lying there last week, I resolved that as soon as I felt better, it was going to be gym time. Serious gym time.
I’ve been in and out of gyms since I was fifteen years old. It started in Africa. In that country, where dust coats the house daily, common practice was to have a maid do the cleaning. (This seems irrelevant, but stay with me). My family gave that a try and found that we simply could not stand having someone in our house doing our chores for us. So instead, we made a deal with ourselves: we would do all the cleaning ourselves and use the money to take out a membership at a local health club. They had a small, well-equipped fitness room, a squash court, and an outdoor swimming pool. We did our best to exercise every day for an hour.
It wasn’t easy. When I started, I couldn’t run half a mile without stopping to rest. I couldn’t do a push-up until I was fully sixteen. I never got any better at squash. My first step aerobics class was a nightmare of embarrassing uncoordination. Then there was the time my friend Ruthie and I treaded water in the deep end one day for an hour, thinking it would be good exercise, forgetting that it was midday and shunning sunscreen. Without a doubt, it was the most painful sunburn I’ve ever had.
But part of being dauntless is pressing on. Ten years later, I miss working out when I don’t get to! I’m incredibly fortunate that my current employer pays for my gym membership while I’m on assignment. Here in Hagerstown, I joined the YMCA.
Of course, I was impatient to get started. But I had to overcome some obstacles first.
1. I needed a swimsuit. Have you ever tried to buy a swimsuit for swimming laps? It can’t fit to loose or too tight. It can’t show through. It has to be supportive. It has to have great coverage but be very open in the back to allow maximum range of motion. Oh… and it has to exist, too. Dick’s Sporting Goods? Nothing. Marshalls? Nothing. Outlet stores? Nike? Reebok? Underarmor? Nothing. Online? Don’t get me started. I spent hours online sifting through swimsuits, then hours more trying to figure out my size using a pink ribbon and supposedly true-to-scale ruler from the internet.
2. I needed to not be sick. “It’s just allergies,” I told myself. That was false. A week after I started slowing down, I was still coughing up a lung and severely congested. Being patient was a trial, but I knew exercise would just make me recover more slowly.
Last Thursday, I finally decided I was ready. My swimsuit still hadn’t come but would soon (I checked the USPS tracking twice a day). I put on my shorts, workout shirt and tennis shoes. Then walked into a Body Pump class.
A Body Pump class is where everyone has a barbell with light weights. You do reps for an hour with major muscle groups. I walked in and said to myself, great, I can do this. “Check, check,” said a female voice over the sound system. Looking for the voice, I saw a tiny Asian woman heading for the stage smiling at everyone. She wasn’t too buff. But no one in the class was overweight and that was a sure sign it would be a hard workout. Everyone else put about thirty pounds on their bar, and I have pride, so I went with five pounds.
Group exercise is a little like a room full of people dancing together, but with less coordination and more brute strength required. You all move together to the rhythm of the music. You all lift and release in time with one another. You all begin strong and finish tired. It’s easy to join in and be a part. It’s a great feeling.
The movements the tiny and smiling Asian lady led us through weren’t challenging. Squat, lift, squat, lift for singles. Then a combo. This went on for about ten minutes. Then… then I couldn’t really feel my legs anymore. What? This hadn’t happened to me in years. I’d been tired from exercise. But not this. This was different. This was my lower body just utterly turned to gelatin. The rest of the class was doing lunges and I was standing there with a five-pound barbell across my shoulders trying to get my quads to respond. Well, I thought grimly, walking probably won’t be an option tomorrow.
My legs kept up this non-responsive act through the next day, but I convinced them to take me back to the same class Saturday morning. Things started to get better as my body re-adjusted to my normal exercise levels. This week, I’m even starting to regain muscle mass! It’s too easy to fall into an inactive lifestyle. But, for this adventure anyway, it looks like couch potato time is over and done.
Serious gym time, here I come.
~The Dauntless Princess~
