Dufisthenics

From my past experience writing about people at the gym I know it runs the risk of offending a percentage of potential readers.  It’s a risk I have come to accept so here we go again.  Today  at the gym there was a morbidly obese woman there.  The fact that she is morbidly obese is not the key portion of the story but rather the end result of the behavior I witnessed.

First let’s offer up the mandatory disclaimer that at least the woman was at the gym, indicating some level of awareness that she has a problem that needs to be addressed.  Now that is out of the way, let’s examine the behavior that is going to cripple her in making any progress towards that goal.

Her entire workout lasted maybe 15 minutes.  She was on the cross trainer on level one for the majority of those 15 minutes, probably burning calories on par with vigorous paper stapling during that period.  Her next stop was the ab coaster, one of the worst pieces of gym equipment I have ever seen.  It’s design encourages people to use it incorrectly, resulting in no actual ab work being done.  After a few swinging reps on it I heard her say “that’s enough for me”.  She then moved to a Cybex seated row machine where she did one set with the lightest weight followed by rigorous sitting.

After her 15 minutes of exercise she walked up to the front desk and asked about getting an aqua massage, surely to relax the muscles she just worked so intensely.  When she was told there was an additional cost for the massage since she wasn’t a black card member she acted quite taken back.

This behavior of wanting to over reward yourself for what in reality is minimal effort is something I have talked about before.  At Retro Fitness I had to laugh when I saw gym goers that just completed low intensity, short duration work outs reward themselves with huge, calorie packed sweet “protein shakes” afterward so they can give their muscles fuel to grow.

Simply showing up at the gym is a good start but not nearly enough.  If you feel the need to constantly reward yourself for minimal effort you are doomed to a life of simply treading water and not improving a thing.  Hopefully the light bulb goes on for this woman at some point before it’s too late.

My lower body is a mess after yesterday, I have been hobbling around like an old man after not only aggravating my knee/IT band but also my groin on the same side. My lifting buddy was no show so I benched alone today.  I have some minor pain in my left shoulder that kept me conservative on my top end as well as the amount of reps.  I have blown up my shoulder in the past via benching and want to avoid going down the same road again.   I then stupidly tried incline bench which was even worse, I bailed on that after three reps.

Today’ Workout

5 minutes cardio/stretching

20 pull ups

Barbell bench press – 135lbs x 10, 185lbs x 5, 225lbs x 1, 230lbs x 1, 205lbs x 5, 185lbs x 9, 135lbs x 10

Pec dec – 100lbs x 10, 120lbs x10, 130lbs x 10

30 push ups