Tag: gym

GOOOOOOOAAALS

It’s January 12th, in the Year of our Lord 2018, do you know where your goals are? Some, and I hope many, are crushing it right now. The rest of us mere morals may have already faced tests. Let me know if any of these scenarios are familiar.

It’s the 1st, no one really starts today anyway. 

Is that you? If you’re off work on 1/1 you may be hungover and don’t have the head nor the stomach to do anything other than get past it. If you’re not hung over and at home you may just be feeling like a lazy snack monster and munch all day, throw in some college football and it’s a wrap on the diet tip for the day.

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It’s the 2nd, you go to the gym and it is packed!

If you are a consistent gym goer, you know the deal. All the resolution folks are there. On top of it these noobs are using “your treadmill, your leg press etc., ” so you’re out of your routine. Your attitude is now stank and the subsequent workout is trash, because you’re focused on them using “your” stuff.

The holidays are over except at your job. It’s your co-worker’s birthday, cake and ice cream are being served.

You just got back to work, ready to roll on your new program, or restart your old one and of course without fail, here comes the birthday cake.  There is always a birthday at work or some event that first week that involves food. I’m not talking about nuts and berries and salad but cake and ice cream and other sweet/salty/rich delights.  Whatchu gone do? Eat the cake/chips/enter junk food name here of course.

 

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I’m here to tell you that it will be okay. The universe is not out to get you and your love handles, this is just life. As a HUMAN we are always tempted by the stuff we are not “supposed to have.” Also as a human, you have choices and there not either or, nor punitive just be flexible. Hungover? Yeah you should probably take it easy. Noobs filling the gym? Celebrate the fact that they made a decision to get moving. Use their addition to the gym as an opportunity to do something different.  Try some different equipment.  Take your workout outside (weather permitting OR workout at home.  There are tons of videos on-line for FREE that will do you just fine.

Don’t throw in the towel folks.  Keep up the good work and if you fell off, get back up and try it again.  Being healthy and fit isn’t a one day affair, it’s a lifetime of healthy habits.  I know I’m going to keep it pushing.

Until next time, see you at the gym, the trail or somewhere else, because there ARE options.

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Photos: MsThorns

This is the Gym: Do You Read? Edition

As documented before I am a cardio queen, loathe to do strength training. However at this stage of the game, I’m thinking about doing more. They say (the doctors) that strength training, especially as you age, is good for strengthening bones and what not and may help prevent osteoporosis. I do what they say sometimes and grudgingly hit the weights, mostly at home, but occasionally at the gym. One of my fave workouts is the PF 30 at Planet Fitness. You hit all the body parts and get in a little cardio in 30 minutes. Of course I do additional cardio after that but when I hit that PF 30 circuit I’m focused, completing the circuit in the order it was created, sometimes. Why sometimes? Because PEOPLE! Lord Jesus be a fence between me and these mugs in the circuit room lifting all Willy Nilly.

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I walk in, alone, put my ear buds in, start my house music (all soulful house mixes welcome) and start the circuit. Then here comes Stretch Armstrong. He’s here to use the step to stretch before his workout. Not a problem, he’s at the last station and will be long gone before I get there. I’m cool until the entrance of the Wonder Twins. They are here to do chest and shoulders and that’s it, oh and talk to each other a lot and take too long and cause me to skip those two stations and come back. They finally leave, I double back and get back on track until I see Old Time Rock and Roll enter the room. He’s a 50 something like me and is going hard on one step, no other equipment. He has that grit on his face like he’s straining for a marathon. I’m like bruh it’s not that deep, please move.  By the time I get to his station I’m good, he’s finished the marathon.

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Believing I have left all interlopers behind me I proceed to move through the last 5 stations and wouldn’t you know, Abs of Steel shows up for the ab machine. She does, I don’t know how many sets and how many reps, and I throw in the towel. I finish my abs separately which I needed to do more than that station anyway. But, that doesn’t negate the fact that mugs came into the express room and did everything but the express circuit @$*%^+>#(%

Look I’m all about mugs going hard for their workouts. I’m happy to see people working out especially those of us who are a certain age or older but, I need y’all, use the equipment for its assigned/posted purpose and keep it moving. However, judging from this experience, some of y’all don’t read,  at least not gym signs anyway.

Until next time see you at the gym, where I hope to find you adhering to all posted signage.

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Photos: MsThorns

 

This is the Gym! Nose Knows Edition

Last weekend was the last weekend for walking outside as everything is starting to bloom. My nose knows as it has started to trouble me. My nose also knows what gym smells like. My regular gym isn’t so bad because its pretty big and airy, nevertheless gyms, fitness and yoga classes invariably smell like funk, must, food, feet and or farts. Gross as they are those smells are expected at the gym, but what happened on this particular weekend, Lord Jesus almost put me out.

I’m on the treadmill, mad and cranky because I’ll be spending an hour on it instead of outside on the trail.  After about 20 minutes I finally got my mind right as I listened to Rakim tell me how to Move the Crowd and am hitting my stride. At 22 minutes, this chick rolls up to the treadmill on my left.  The treadmills are this close together

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When she starts walking she blows my nose all the way up with her PERFUME! Now why she came next to me I don’t know because even with one section closed for maintenance there were at least 10 other treadmills for her to use. I’m like this heffa is trolling me right now with this perfume.

I’m thinking she won’t last, I can wear a treadmill out so and I knew that when it came Survival of the Fittest on the treadmill I would win.  I was dead wrong.  22 minutes went to 30, went to 40 at which time Sucka Ni**a was playing… how appropriate. Q-Tip says “So concisely, musically we are the herb so sit back and light me, inhale my style is kinda fat reminiscent of a whale…” I inhale and start coughing and praying she would leave.

She didn’t.

She was on the same one hour program I was on.  I got off and she was still walking, she won.

I understand mugs want to smell fresh and all but THIS IS THE GYM, you are excused to be funky.  So ye old broad asks each of you ladies and gents to save your store bought fragrances until after you shower and are GONE from the gym. Members especially old broads will thank you.

P.S. in spite of the extreme duress I got the time in.

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Photos: MsThorns

FLO (For Ladies Only) – Fear Not Your Body

Oh the gym locker room. I don’t know what it looks like for dudes but for chicks it’s a place in which we can be our most demure, and most pensive selves.

Enter the Naked Evangelist.

I find it more than difficult to keep a towel on while simultaneously applying lotion and deodorant and dressing piece by piece without breaking a sweat. I’ve made attempts to dress with a towel on only to reach the same ending, towel landing on the floor me sweating from the effort and ending up naked anyway so I stopped trying. I’d always wondered why we (women) do all this covering and tucking. Was it modesty, fear? Was it a learned thing because we certainly were not born with towels on. Then one day I got a clue.

I was in the locker room heading to the shower, realizing I’d forgotten my washcloth I made a u-turn back to my locker. A woman who had dropped trou to weigh herself, let out a yelp, and said how embarrassed she was to be seen “like that” followed by the words “I’m so fat”. I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes, not at her but at the words. I told her, something to the effect that the scale doesn’t always say what you want, but that she had a good body, a body that works, one that got her to the gym that morning, she agreed, smiled and I kept it moving.

Women apply so much pressure on themselves because of all the images and all the words that tell us what we are supposed to look like, what is beautiful, what is fit, what is desirable. All of it is such a crock. Your level of health and fitness cannot and should not be measured by anything except you and science. Are your numbers good – blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar? How’s your stamina, strength, flexibility? All of these factors are measurable. Media driven beauty/societal standards of beauty are not measurable, they are subjective and every changing.

Look, every woman has a day when she’s not feeling or looking her best, bloated, bags under the eyes, whatever the case may be, but what that day looks like is entirely up to you sister. However, that body that you have, the ONLY one you have is a great body. It lets you do what you need to do and get you where you need to go and if it doesn’t there are folks that can help you get there, without judging you. Oh and you’re at it quiet that little judgmental chick on the inside, she’s nothing but a phony, she’s not you.

So here’s your challenge, you don’t have to do it in a gym locker room, do it at home. Stand in the mirror butt-NEKKID and take a good look without judging. Thank you body for being there and serving you well day in and day out, promise it that you will take good care of it and honor it in all you do and tell it that it is FABULOUS. It’s your body, go ahead and love it.

Until next time see you at the gym, the Naked Evangelist will be there cheering for you sister, with your fine self!
Cheers

Photo: MsThorns

Must Be the Music

20140220_215739Have you ever sprinted out of your house to get the gym in the morning (afternoon/evening) and left your headphones at home? I have and it was the absolute worst.  Having to listen to the piped in gym music, even when I know it, can be brutal. I prefer to have a choice of tunes to suit whatever it is that I’m doing and whatever it is that I’m feeling. My music selections usually go something like this:

Cardio days – Cardio is usually running on the treadmill unless I’m nursing some god-forsaken injury.  I listen to just about anything within my taste range which would include R&B, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Pop or Rock. Here are a few selections from Thursday’s cardio session:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMZ65DA9pPs

Lift days – I lean toward something more uptempo/upbeat in any of the above genres in addition to some old-school House. I always pick uptempo stuff for lifting because of my love-hate relationship with pushing and pulling weight. Something uptempo or upbeat gets me through the drudgery.

One thing I do not do is wear headphones when running outside for two reasons: 1)safety – I don’t want anybody or anything creeping up on me; 2)I like to hear birds chirping, kids playing, stuff like that.

For sure there are some who can workout without a headset, I’m just not one of them.  Music for me is a little something extra – motivation, distraction and sometimes the only opportunity I get to listen to new music uninterrupted.

What about you? Do you listen to music when you workout? Why or why not? If you do, I’d love to hear what type of music pushes you through those sets, reps and miles.  Feel free to let me know in the comments, or in reply to this post on Twitter or Google+.

Until next time, see you at the gym, where I might be rocking Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) or John Coltrane, you never know.

Photo: MsThorns

Another Guy At The Gym

Because the knee is doing funky things right now I’m spending more time on the gym floor with the weight equipment. My “soccer mom” gym Planet Fitness is great for my needs. The equipment is always operable, there’s never a wait for anything (at least not early in the morning) and the price is right. This past weekend I went in at early evening and lo and behold “that guy” was there.

I’m headed to the back where you do all your abs, stretching and such. The back also contains the adductor and abductor machines which I hit last before the ab work. There are two of each machine, only one is available when I roll up but I figure somebody will be done by the time I finish my set. Two machines opened when I finished. One didn’t, the one with “that guy” on it.  I always time my workouts and since the clock was ticking I wanted to know how long he would stay on. I got a bit more than time with this one.

That fool on the adductor next to me definitely was not doing thigh work. What he was doing was sweating all over the machine with his headphones on doing some weird swooping movement for his… abs?  I want to say DUDE YOU’RE ON A THIGH MACHINE WTF? Clearly he didn’t know that those machines are the exclusive territory of the big thigh mamas like me.  Now homie would throw a few reps in for good measure but go right back to the swoop and sweat. While all that was going on I completed, adduction, abduction, abs and stretching which took 18 minutes at which time he finally vacated.

So I’m submitting another entry to the “don’t be that guy at gym” series as follows: “don’t be that guy who is using the machine for purposes other than what it’s made for and stays there like he’s on his La Z Boy at home.”

If you’re that guy, please stop this foolishness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-91_iXATY8

Until next time, see you at the gym.

 

photos: mine