So, I started at the gym today. My buddy Ty hooked me up with a pretty sweet deal over at Lifetime Fitness on Houston Levee. I strongly suggest you go over there if you are looking for a gym to join. The place is like the Taj Mahal of fitness. I drove down there last week to get my membership started up and was blown away by how nice it was. My excitement was shadowed by the fact that we had a tornado heading straight for us, but let me tell you something, it is amazing.
I was freaking out at first. The place is massive. Walking up to the building is intimidating enough. There is a culture of people that go to gyms that I have nothing in common with. these are the men and women who wear all the athletic gear that none of us normal people would ever fit in. The size and shapes of their bodies show the extreme discipline that comes to those who are faithful gym goers. And they like to show it off. Scantily clad fit people all over the place. And in walks the fat dude...
It's almost like the old westerns. Everyone in the saloon, drinking and playing cards. Then, the new guy in town busts through the double doors with the black hat on, a snarl on his face, and daring anyone to say something out of the line. Yeah, that was me.
I walked around and looked for Ty. He wasn't downstairs. Up the stairs I go. I don't have a problem with stairs. I saw the elevators and thought, "Maybe I should..." "NOOOOO!!!!!" Yeah, definitely don't take the elevator at the gym. You are there to get in shape, so take the stairs and and get some cardio in before the real workout begins.
Ty was at the fitness services desk. I almost didn't recognize him. Over the past few months, he has been growing his beard and hair out to play Jesus in our Easter musical. It ended this past weekend, so he cut the Jesus look and went back to his old clean shaven self. We talked for a bit then headed to the computer to get some information in and to...weigh. Urg. I don't think I have ever weighed in front of anyone outside the medical community before. Ty said there was a more accurate scale downstairs. We went downstairs and weighed. It swayed between 456 and 459, so we stuck with 458, which is the one number it stayed on the longest. We went to go back upstairs. I saw the elevator again...NO NO NO!!!
Up the stairs and to the treadmill. I missed my friend the treadmill. I use to hang out with him every morning. We got me set up to take and started with the evaluation. I started at a nice 2 mile per hour pace on a flat walk, which was easy. I could do this all day. After we checked my heart rate, he increased the incline. 0 to 2. Still easy. I walked for a bit, checked the heart, raised again. 4. Not bad. Then up to 6. Hmmmm. A little rougher. Legs were burning a little. Back was tightening up. Sweat started trickling down my face. Ty handed me a towel. He asked me how I was doing on a scale of 1 to 10. Ummmm, 6. Up again. 9. Mountain climbing now. Pretty tough. I hung in there for a bit, checked the heart rate, then did the cool down. I was feeling pretty good. My back was hurting a bit, but other than that, I felt good.
We went to a different part of the gym and did some stretching. The stretching area was right by the stairs. Awkward. All of these fit people coming up and down the stairs staring at the fat guy stretching. The back was all back to normal and then we went to the an interesting looking machine that Ty seemed a little to happy to see. I don't remember what he called it, I want to say it was a Telekinesis machine, but that couldn't be right. I tried to move it with my mind and it didn't do anything. It was a big and white and shaped like a coke machine, with arms coming out of it connected by rubber bands with handles. There were a couple of slots in the bottom of the machine, no cokes, just a spot to adjust the weight. Ty got the weights adjusted and had me do a few exercises. The first was a lunge and push with the rubber bands, which wasn't bad. The second was a squat and pull, which was an evil exercise. Finally, I did a sort of baseball swing to work my core, which, before today, I thought could only be found in an apple.
After that, we headed over to another machine. This machine is evil. I think it was invented in the medieval times to torture overweight prisoners to compensate for overcrowding. I think if we used it instead of waterboarding we would have found bin Laden 9 years ago. It is the elliptical machine. If you ever watched infomercials, it reminds me of that old machine where you ski and move your arms at the same time. It makes you move every muscle in your body. Ty wanted me to do it for 10 minutes. He even showed me the nice little fan feature it had to keep me cool. Unfortunately, I could only do 5 minutes. When I went to stop, I couldn't do it. The machine just kept going. It took everything I had to make the machine slow down. I think it took more for me to slow down than it did to get it going. The machine finally released me from its grip and I jumped off of it. As we walked away, I could have swore the machine laughed at me. It was either that, or the guy with 1% body fat on the machine behind me. I am going with the machine...
That was the end of the workout. Ty and I talked for a while and then I went to leave. Elevators, NO!, then back out the doors to the real world.
Feeling good. Not hurting. Actually feel stretched out a bit. Can't wait until Thursday when I go back.
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