No Pain, No Gain

I am allergic to exercise.

Much like I am to prop planes, parallel parking and potted meat.

At the mere mention of the word, I starting sweating buckets without raising my heart rate and silently, but with great purpose, start making excuses for myself.

I am too tired.

I cannot breathe out of my left nostril and my right big toe aches.

I have nothing to wear.

Now is the time I really must re-organize my spice drawer.

People will tell you, even those know- it -all’s at the Mayo Clinic, that not only is exercising good for your health but it’s also good old fashion fun.

I don’t know that engaging in pain producing procedures on purpose is a whole heck of a lot of fun.

The same can’t be said about root canals, flu shots, or accidently rubbing your eye after peeling a jalapeno pepper, can it?

There is nothing fun about pain, it just hurts.

But maybe that’s just me.

See, some of my good friends – who seem perfectly sane to me- love, and I mean LOVE, flipping gigantic tractor tires on the beach on their days off and running across the Sydney Lanier Bridge with a backpack full of 30 lb bricks after Sunday service.

I just don’t get it.  But then it hit me like 200 lb weight on a 40 lb bar.  In the name of journalistic integrity, if I am going to write about this whole exercise thing and call it a swindle then I’m going to need to walk the walk, talk the talk, and put my butt in my black yoga pants and my feet inside my barely worn sneakers.

No pain, no gain, right?  And what do they say about getting and staying motivated to hit the gym?  I really didn’t know, so I Googled it and all signs point towards talking somebody else in to experiencing the same torture treatment and high risk for injury as your about to do yourself.

With nothing to lose except pounds and properly functioning ligaments, I immediately texted Alicia (she hasn’t answered her phone since 2007) and she texted back she was game.  Plus, it’ll give of something else funny to talk about over bread, pasta and wine at Tramicis.

If we start now, in January, she reasoned, maybe we would be looking pretty darn good come swimsuit season this spring.  I have long ago given up that childish notion.  All I want to do is get rid of that second roll of fat under my arms so I look decent in a tank top and, while giving directions, one of my triceps doesn’t jiggle and wiggle to some imaginary beat.  

But then came the hard part.  What method of distributing pain and suffering should we pick since there are hundreds of ways to suffer.   Kick boxing, Pilates, circuit training, boot camps, P90X, Barre….the list is endless.  But since we were talking about this very topic last Saturday afternoon on her back porch and our friend Tygh, owner and a trainer at CrossFit Saint Simons, dropped by to say hello, we took a leap of faith and told him to sign us up.  How easy was that, we told each other?  We didn’t even have to lift a pen, phone, or finger.

Fast forward two days later.

I see stairs and I cry, y’all.

Actually, it’s not just stairs, but chairs, couches and toilet seats.   After 50 air squats and 19 burpees…..alright that was Alicia…after 25 air squats and 4 burpees, how in world can I make it back up to an upright position when I can barely sit down?

I texted Alicia the next morning and asked her how she was feeling.

“I couldn’t bend down to tie David’s shoes, and when I finally did, it took me 2 minutes to get to the floor and now my armpits hurt when I wash my hands.  You?”

“I felt ok when I woke up, then sat down to pee.  I had to call out for the girls to help me get back up.  I think their life just flashed before their eyes and are now calling around about long term elderly care insurance for me and their father as we speak.”

I almost didn’t go, if truth be told.  I woke up that first day like it was the first day of school; all butterflies and nervous energy.  I even drove past the place (it’s next to Ace Garden Center*) like I was heading to McDonalds, not a 40 by 40 foot box of agony and distress.  Maybe this is the universe telling me something?  Maybe I am to have an Egg McMuffin and side of Hot Cakes with maple syrup and go back to bed.  But then I remembered something about Alicia saying she would kill me or some such nonsense so I turned around with my Smart Water and 5 calories mint and went inside the blessed thing.

I was scared just walking in.

“Don’t be scared,” Fain, my instructor told me.

I can’t help it.  I wear my emotions on my sleeve.  And when I walked in, I thought might faint.  See, there wasn’t one fancy elliptical machine or pitcher of cucumber water in sight.  Not one mirror or soft light bulb in the place; just ropes and weights and boxes and people crab crawling back and forth across the floor.  The Floor.
Like Rocky going into the ring, this stuff was for real, y’all.

But I did it.  Sure, after 100 jump ropes, 20 lunges, 20 pull ups, and 20 leg lifts, I almost went home when Fain told us that was just the warm up.  But I stayed for the work out of the day, or WOD as they call it.  And yes, when they tallied everything up on the board my numbers were a little lackluster, but you know what? I did 21 more pushups than I would of if I had grabbed that Egg McMuffin and drove home.

And it was fun.  I have to admit it.  There is a certain amount of satisfaction in doing something, anything, that didn’t seem from the get-go to be even remotely possible.  And laughing and tripping my way through jumping rope and crab crawling on the floor with my best friend was tons of fun too, even though we are now walking funny.

Sure, today I see stairs and I cry.  But in a month’s time, I will own those stairs.  They will be mine.  It IS possible. And I will take them two by two, skipping and laughing all the way.  Even if there are only four of them.

I’ll keep you posted.

 

 

*Tygh and company and CrossFit Saint Simons will soon be moving to a bigger space next to Saint Simons Drugs.