After a six-month hiatus, I turned and looked at the back of me. Really looked. Not in the shadowy mirror that stands propped in the corner of my bedroom, covered with dust and a film of flattery, but in the dreaded bathroom mirror.
Taking a deep breath, I peered over my shoulder and glimpsed what only excessive wattage and mandated proximity reveals: the truth. It was the same truth my pant legs and waistbands had been hinting at, but one I’d been ignoring. Desk-chair spread and beer contouring had made a triumphant comeback to my butt. Clearly, occasional running and wandering aimlessly around the gym wasn’t working. It was time to start working out. For reals.
So I called my former trainer (now working on airplanes for a large aviation manufacturer). He suggested 8 AM on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Sitting on my beer-contoured butt in front of the computer, wearing pants I had to keep unbuttoned and a shirt I had to keep untucked, I immediately agreed. Only later did I think about how my Friday and Saturday socializing might suffer. (It’s hard to rationalize yourself into “one more beer” or “just one shot” when an 8 AM torture session is looming. Especially when the torturist is a hot guy with a great smile and very visible arm veins.)
Roughly eight minutes into our first workout, I realized my Friday and Saturday socializing wasn’t going to just suffer. It was going to be nonexistent. There was no way I could do this hungover.
Our warmup consisted of more sprinting and jumping and backwarding than I’d done since high school track (all three weeks I’d made it through). We moved on to sidestepping with a resistance band: one end in each hand, with the middle under the feet. It provided not only resistance, but a glimpse into what it might feel like to have a BBQ skewer stuck through one’s buttocks lengthwise.
Then hamstring torture: hot trainer holding ankles while I kneeled; he anchored my feet and watched from behind as I tried to fall ever so slowly onto my belly. Then lunges, then calf raises, then another round of everything (twice!). Finally we “cooled down” with an easy ab workout: planks and side planks and more planks and side planks.
And that was only the first day.
Twenty-four hours after the first warmup, the second one began. By the end of it, I’d doubled my sprinting and jumping and backwarding history. I’d realized my shoulders were oddly sore from yesterday’s ab workout. My “high knee” sprints were decidedly low. And I couldn’t quite bend to the right.
Then came the workout itself. My left calf protested mightily during what was supposed to be an upper-body routine. My (already sore) shoulders were paralyzed – unable to convey messages to my arms that they needed to raise themselves. That damn resistance band came out again, but this time it was resisting my rear deltoids…and I wasn’t much of a match for it. When it came time to practice boxing jabs, I was capable of little more than girly taps against the target. I may have whined in agony. More than once. And that was before the more focused ab work.
Finally it ended. I thought about how the post-workout soreness was setting in WAY earlier than the typical “three days later.” As in it was setting in immediately.
But luckily, not everything was sore. Laying in the grass, stretching my arms overhead and pointing my toes, I took an inventory. My face, hair, both ears, and my right foot had escaped pain-free. I decided not to tell my trainer, lest he add them to the list of “targeted areas.”
Every day another story –
Sofie
