matthearn.com

I really have to start writing things down as I think of them. Because I’m pretty sure I had two really quality ideas for posts over the past 24 hours, but I can’t remember any of them. So obviously in this case I’m going to talk about silly crap I may have noticed while walking around, because of course all of that lameness is permanently burned into my brain and needs to be shared.

I went to the gym again yesterday; I’m really starting to enjoy doing so, or at least, I enjoy the thought of having gone, once the deed is done. I certainly don’t enjoy driving out of my way to get there, having to park 1/4 mile away, and walking over. I most DEFINITELY don’t enjoy the actual lifting of heavy objects, because it hurts. A lot. And I don’t enjoy the part where about 24 hours later, I lose the ability to move around. The euphoria of going home and crashing on the couch after a hard workout, however, > *. Not that I’m really seeing any major results. I certainly can move a lot of weight on the ab-abber machine, but there’s still a good 3/4″ of fat over the muscles, so any rippitude developed there remains unseen. Also, my biceps muscles look good for about an hour after the workout, but by the evening they’ve returned to their usual flabby selves.

My ass, as usual, looks outstanding.

I even have a whole workout process, and I document what I do thoroughly. I have a specific order of exercises that maximizes the amount of rest I give a group of muscles before they are exercised again. For example: I don’t do the bench press right after the shoulder press, since both require the triceps muscles. I write down the reps I do per set, and the amount of weight with which I exercise, and all that excellent stuff.

Unfortunately, since I have a specific order to my exercises, I am subject to the exercising whims of the other people in the gym. I work in the faculty/staff gym of the Carpenter Sports Building at UD (I am technically neither faculty nor staff, but my wife is the latter, and nobody’s kicked me out yet because I’m relatively well-behaved, compared to the students), so most of the other exercisers are older, averaging I’d say about 50 years of age, but going as high as 65 or 70, I’d say. The apparent style of workout for these folks (and, to be honest, anybody in any gym) is to sit on one machine and do set after set with lengthy rest periods in between. This of course means that that crazy old man is going to be sitting on the bench press machine, frantically lifting weights approaching 17 pounds as fast as humanly possible for about 30 seconds, followed by a good 7 minutes of rest while his stroke symptoms subside. Repeat. 7 times.

I, meanwhile, have to rearrange my weight-lifting regimen, and usually find myself well into my second set of exercises on all the other machines while I wait for some old fart to finish using the seated row, or the lat pull, or the abdominal machines. (I’m always amused to see some 57 year old guy, about 60 pounds overweight, working his abs at level 0 like he fully expects to step off the thing looking like Eric Nies. GIVE IT UP OLD MAN. GO GET ON A TREADMILL.)

(Those of you who are 57 years of age or more and are insulted that I called you old: stop aging.)

Here are a few of the people I see at the gym at various times when I go:

• The slender, moustachio’d gentleman of about 55 or 60 who is clearly in FAAAR better shape than I am or ever will be. Every time I go to the gym, he is there. He lifts weights for tone and strength, I believe, ’cause I can lift more than he can, but mofo appears to be able to run a mile in about 6.5 minutes, which is roughly twice my current top speed.
• The two little secretaries, both around 60 or so, who come in, sit at a machine EXACTLY as I’m beginning to walk towards it, talk and giggle for a while, do exactly three repetitions of a bench press or bicep curl with almost no weight on the machine, and then leave, their workout complete. Note that I’m not saying they do three repititions on each machine: they do 3 repititions on one machine, selected semi-randomly, and then they leave. And the machine they use is always the machine I need at that particular moment.
• Any number of random middle-aged professors, desperately trying to hold back the grim reaper by damaging their shoulders by sitting at the bench press machine, doing set after set with the worst exercise form I’ve ever seen. I’m no expert, but I think if you’re doing a bench press by shrugging your shoulders up to your ears, holding your breath and letting your eyes roll back into your skull, you’re just asking for serious trauma.
• A bunch of younger UD employees in various shapes and sizes. Some of them are very fit, and some of them are not so much. I’m about average by the standards of others in my age group, which makes me feel nice. Of course, if I go down to the student gym (on weekends the employee gym is closed), I’m a fat slob with horrible hair. Still, a little ego-boosting never hurt. It’s why I watch TV.
• The piece de resistance, a funny little man I like to call Luigi. He’s like a pocket Albert Einstein; same hair, same moustachio, same European looks. This guy, however, is much more entertaining. He always wears green sretch pants, which are tucked into his socks, which are worn under a pair of running shoes that he may have purchased in 1967. He has some kind of purple stretchy device with a small ball, about golf-ball-sized, sown into it, and carries it around like some kind of security blanket. Equally entertainingly, he sits down at a machine, takes a deep breath, and does about 300 repetitions at very low weight, moving the weights only about 2 inches (doing a full range of motion on a given machine moves the weight bars about a foot). It’s not as entertaining to read about as it is to see, trust me. Every time I see him I smile.

I think I go more for the entertainment than the exercise. Which I’m sure you would deduce were you to see me at the moment, gut blubbering over my belt like jello.