Tales from the Y

Since today is a day off from working out, I thought I'd entertain you with some of the very strange things I have seen in my short time working out at the YMCA.

I have already commented on the number of people who go to the Y to push their feet lazily back and forth on an elliptical machine and call it a workout, but what I may not have been clear about is the sheer numbers of people at the Y. I have only been there a few times when it has not been insanely crowded. Granted, I usually go directly after work, which is when everyone goes, but I can not believe the amount of people who mill around, not even in workout clothes, taking up space and getting in the way.

The hallways are constantly filled with children running around aimlessly, gripping onto candy and sodas, and usually spilling both everywhere. These same children tend to find their way into the cardio and weight rooms, getting in the way and playing with the machines. There is a rec room for these kids to go to, and I assume that their parents expect them to be babysat by the television and pool table while they work out, but there is no one keeping these children corralled.

Old people aren't much better than the kids. They're bigger, slower, and in most cases, naked. While the kids run around the hallways getting in the way, the old people waddle around the locker room taking up space in the hallways with their big exposed rolls of fat and making it impossible for you to squeeze by them without touching some part of their body.

They also seem to think that since they've been on this planet X number of years, that gives them the right to talk at the top of their lungs about their diarrhea problems while showering in the open. I don't know about you, but I prefer my friends to have their clothes on while I talk to them. Or, at the very least, I would turn away while talking to a naked person. Not these people.

They're naked in the hot tub, naked in the hallways, naked when they're doing their hair, naked just roaming around talking to people, naked sitting on the stools provided to place your workout bag on, and my favorite-- naked while going to the bubbler.

This deserves a proper explanation. There was a little old lady wandering around with only her granny panties on the other day. The waistband came up to just under her armpits, and her boobs hung over, literally to her belly button. I had thought that boobs drooping to your stomach was an urban legend. This woman proved me wrong. She had a big smile on her face, and was slowly wandering around, pausing to talk to people. She never made an attempt to cover herself, just smiled and wandered. Finally, she decided she was thirsty, so she went to the bubbler. Since I was doing my hair, I could see her in the mirror behind me. She went to the bubbler and let her boobs spill into the drain as she drank. I will never drink out of that bubbler again.

Finally, there are the people who don't seem to understand space boundaries. For instance, I was using the mat to do sit-ups, sitting at the far left end of the mat. There was room for at least two people to my right. Fatso plops his butt down right next to me, rolls onto his side so his face is almost touching my right arm. He starts doing some kind of weird side crunch and screws up his face so he looks like he's constipated. He starts grunting, expelling hot air onto my arm. I couldn't do my exercises anymore, so I got up, grabbed my towel and stomped away. He paused, looking confused as to why I was so angry.

I'll try to relate more of these stories as time goes on. For now, it's back to work.

Catch-up

I have not quit, I have not given up. I have not... posted in quite awhile. The last post I made was just before my day of good news, so it is odd that I never got around to writing about the greatest things that have happened to me yet.

I'll cut straight to the point, since two weeks is a lot to recap. Two Fridays ago, I weighed myself. 154lbs. One pound less than the previous time I weighed myself. That's not the good news. The good news was that I lost a total of THREE inches off my hips. Two in one week, three in total. Incredible. I was just elated. I put on my pants, and sure enough, they fit much better than they had a week ago.

Over the last two weeks, I've struggled to maintain a steady workout schedule. First, I was met with a deadline to finish my tissue paper walls in my office so we could sand the floors and move closer to finishing the renovations. Then I ran into some personal issues-- both emotional and physical. I won't get into my personal issues here.

Some of the physical issues had to do with my running. About a week ago while running on the treadmill in front of a window, I discovered that my body swerves back and forth in an S shape when I run. If you were to take a video of me and slow it down, you would see: S, backward S, S, backward S, etc. It's really odd and hard to explain. Picture a very slow wacky waiving inflatable arm flailing tube man, and you've got the idea. I believe this has something to do with the fact that I couldn't seem to run any faster than my 8:57 time.

Three times in a row, I ran a mile in exactly 8:57. I started slow, sprinted at the end, sprinted at the beginning and slowed down at the end, and tried to go for consistency, and still I was getting that time. It was insanely frustrating. I relayed my irritation on the Crossfit forums, and one woman suggested that I slow down, try for two miles and come back to it. The thought of two miles makes me hyperventilate, so I decided to try to push through it. I came up with 8:43. I was ecstatic... and completely out of breath.

I have asthma, so Tony made me call my doctor and get an inhaler, something I haven't had in many years. It was embarrassing to pick up the thing. It immediately brought back memories of middle school and having to use the face mask because some moron doctor I had thought I was too young to figure out how to use an inhaler without it. I never took the mask to school, but being prescribed one was enough to humiliate me forever.

The inhaler doesn't seem to do me much good. I tried using it before I ran twice now, and it seems to just make me think more about breathing too much while running. I find that I have to get into a "zone", where I am semi-conscious when I run. If I focus too much on my breathing, I panic about the possibility of my airways constricting, and of course, they do just that. If I focus too much on my feet, they will wobble and fall in the wrong place.

Finally, my biggest problem with running has been the ball of my left foot. After working on things near the floor at the house, I noticed that from flexing my toes back, my foot was swollen and painful. Almost to the point where I was unable to walk. This has happened before, and I went to the Urgent Care because I couldn't put any pressure on it. They told me I had gout. Gout. I kid you not. I do not have gout. They are idiots.

Finally, I broke down and bought a new pair of shoes. Despite what I've read about thin soles giving your feet more contact with the ground (and therefore greater control over your run), I figured that more cushion was the way to go, and I purchased Nike Plus shoes, along with the running device that plugs into my iPod Nano. I used it for the first time today, and it told me I ran a mile just over 8 minutes. I had forgotten to tell it my stats (weight and height), so although that was exciting, I am not counting that time.

Since I'm on the topic of today's workout, I spent about five minutes on today's official WOD. That wasn't counting the extra round of rowing 250 meters and 15 push presses with 16lb dumbbells. I had forgotten to start my stopwatch, so to punish myself for not going to the gym yesterday, I decided to start over, thus making my total number of rounds 4 instead of three. It wasn't the hardest workout I've had, although I think that push presses would have been harder with a bar. Dumbbells are easy to move independently, the bar forces your arms to move simultaneously.

I have been thinking about my push-up skills a lot lately. I can not do more than 10 push-ups without feeling sick and forgetting to breathe. Since this movement is so essential to upper body strength, I feel like I need to improve it dramatically. The WODs are helping to achieve this, but I decided it's not enough. After reading about the 100 handstand push-up challenge, I decided to do a similar thing with regular push-ups, working my way to being able to complete even a single HSPU.

The way the HSPU challenge works is on day one, you start with a single HSPU. Day two, you do two, day three you do three, and so on. I know I can do 10 push-ups without stopping, so today I did 11. Tomorrow I will do 12, and I will keep going until I can do enough where I feel I am ready to start elevated push-ups. At that time, I will start again at five, or 10, adding one every day until I increase the elevation. Some day, I will do HSPUs, and I can't fucking wait.

One last thing, and I will consider myself caught up. I know I have mentioned the Zone diet in the past, and I have been trying to follow it. It has confounded me. I know I'm supposed to avoid refined carbs and eat more veggies, but I needed a more definitive base of knowledge to be able to succeed, so I ordered the book Mastering the Zone. It finally came in the mail today, and I plan on reading it immediately.

Queen of the Workout Room

I really shouldn't be writing. It's past my bedtime, and I've had a long day. I did sleep in a bit this morning though, and I don't have to be to work until 10am tomorrow... yeah, I know. I should wake up at the same time every day. I do, though--within a two hour time frame. I usually wake up at the same time every day regardless. I have noticed lately that I am sleeping much lighter. I wonder if that has anything to do with the workouts.

I should warn my readers that today's post probably will be a lot of rambling. I don't have time to form complete thoughts or sentences. I just want to get down what's been going on lately so I can clear my mind and pass out.

First, the best news ever. Katy has joined the CF forums and is now doing the WODs. She has done three so far (including today's) and I couldn't be happier. Well, except for the fact that she beat my time on "Cindy," but even that was just more motivation to get my times down and start busting my ass even more than I already am. Her posts on the forum are hilarious. I tried conveying how funny it was that she posted how she lifted her Swifter mop handle (to learn form) and then proclaimed that she had achieved a personal record on the forums, but when I did, Tony just sat silent like he couldn't fathom why that was making me laugh so hard.

It's odd, I've never been a competitive person, but when I saw that Katy had done better than I did and it was only her first day, I was stunned. I wanted to do better immediately. She has years of experience with Capoeira, and I'm sure that has given her the upper body strength advantage. She should be coming home this fall, and when she does, I'm going to drag her to the gym with me. I can't wait. By that time I should be hot.

I weighed myself this morning. I try not to do that every morning, but that scale is so damn tempting. I'm at 155. That's a half pound less than my lightest so far. My weight seems to be fluctuating, but I'm hoping that this means it will start dropping again soon. I don't know what more I can do physically without injuring myself.

The Zone diet started today. I'm still reading about how to do it, but I know now that I'm supposed to eat a certain amount of protein, carbs and fat per day. It's amazing how much this diet lets you eat. You just have to eat in proportion. There's about a 1:3 ratio of protein to carbs, and I still eat way too many carbs. I used to think it was great to eat fruit at my desk all day, now I'm trying to snack on nuts and yogurt so I don't get too much sugar in my diet. It's really hard. Still, I'm full, and that helps. It's easier to ignore the sugar cravings when you're stuffed. Besides, I still have my no calorie, non-cancer causing stevia packets.

If you don't know about stevia, I suggest you look it up right now. It's a natural sugar derived from the stevia plant, and unlike aspartame and nutrasweet it doesn't cause a shitload of problems with your immune and nervous systems. Also, it's guilt free. It's expensive, but totally worth it. I'm not sure how it bakes yet, but I plan on finding out.

Nutritionally Challenged

I've decided that working out just isn't cutting it. I've lost 4lbs, gained back 2 and I've only lost one inch off my hips in a month of busting my ass. It's time for some more drastic measures.

No, I'm not quitting. For crying out loud, put your pants back on.

It's time I started actually following a sensible diet. One that doesn't include binging and purging (not that I've ever done that, but I hear it has fantastic results-- and terrible consequences), starving, weird foods (I will not eat 10 bell peppers a day), or laxatives. I have a terrible addiction to all things sugary. I love sugar, and not just the white stuff you sprinkle in your coffee. I love all sugar and refined carbs. From white bread to brownies, I just can't get enough of the stuff.

And it's making me fat.

So, it's got to go. I've tried to just randomly select healthier options when I make my meals, but that's not working. I need structure, discipline and a plan to follow. That's the whole reason I'm still doing Crossfit. If I'm told what to do, and I understand the directions, I'll do what I've been told all day. If I have to chose for myself and the two options are mashed potatoes, white bread or salad with dressing, I couldn't tell you which one of those things is the best option.

Crossfitters typically follow one of two diets. The Zone Diet is less restrictive, but easy to follow and divides foods into three categories: protein, carbs and fat. The idea is to get equal "blocks" of each. The other diet is the Paleo diet. I don't know much about it, except that it requires you to give up dairy. That includes cheese. I refuse to be a vegan freak (sorry, herbivores) and therefore I will try the Zone Diet.

The Zone consists of "blocks", you get a certain number for each of the three categories listed above. The easy thing is that you get the same number for all, all day. For instance, according to the Zone Calculator, I get 15 blocks protein, 15 blocks carbs and 15 blocks of fat. There are downloadable charts that show what a block of each is. A block of carbs would consist of far more food than a block of fat.

Another way of looking at it, to simplify further, is to divide your plate into thirds. One third should be full of lean meat, while the other two thirds should be full of vegetables or fruit.

With Tony's G-day creeping ever closer (the day we will both have to give up eating gluten), I am sure that my diet will adapt to this style of eating quite quickly.

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For those of you who take pleasure in reading of my day's activities at the gym, here is today's update.

Today's WOD was to do as many rounds of the following in 10 minutes (Buttercup level):
Row 250 meters
Sumo Deadlift High 45lbs, 15 reps
10 assisted pullups

I've never seen a sumo deadlift before today, so I tried the move out with the 45# bar first. I did a few of them, being careful when I pulled the bar up to my chest, because I read that the upright row can shred your shoulders. This part of the move did not feel comfortable to me, so I kept mostly to the lower portion of the move. I also tried to do a power clean, as well as an overhead squat, both of which I was terrible at, so I practiced basic movements and squats until I felt warmed up and ready to go.

Then I did 10 pushups and 10 situps. Situps are nothing, but the pushups are still brutal. I'm doing them on my knees, but I hate them by the 5th one every time.

Finally, I went up to the cardio room, because the rowing machine and the assisted pullup machine are very close to each other in that room, and I decided to skip the 45# bar for dumbbells instead. The Y won't let me bring a bar upstairs (I haven't tried, but I know what they'd say), and since these rounds were as many as I could do in 10 minutes, it made no sense to run downstairs and up again, where someone would most likely be using the equipment I needed by the time I got back.

The gym I go to has one working rowing machine. Never before have I ever seen another human being on it. I practically had to dust it off the first time I used it. On top of that, every time I do use it, I get odd stares from people as if they’re not sure what it is I’m doing. Today, however, the slowest woman in the world decided to use it for a half hour. When she finished, I thought I would get to use it, so I went to gather up my stuff, but by the time I looked up, a 95 (or thereabouts) year-old man was settling down on it. I wanted to scream.

So, I substituted running 100 meters for rowing. I had read that this was acceptable, but it still made me mad. I was able to complete three rounds in just over 10 minutes, but my legs were screaming by the second round. This workout was definitely not my favorite.

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Also, one last irritation to share. On Friday, I skipped the WOD in favor of some good old fashioned running. I went two miles, and I was disappointed that I was only able to clear it in 18:57. However, I took some pride in knowing that this was still far better than what I was able to do even a month ago, and I've never ran so fast or so long in my life.

That day, Tony called me up and left me a voicemail just as I was in the shower. He wanted to compare 2 mile times. His was something like 17:30. This is his second time running in over eight months. I screamed at him on the phone. I was so angry. I will not rest until I beat him.

Organization of Life

I've never been one for organization. My room is a disaster, my bathroom the same. When I get home, everything I'm carrying gets spread out over whatever open surface is available. I have very few "homes" for things, and as a result, I am often looking for my keys, wallet, favorite shirt, or, lately, my sheet of paper with my workout times from the gym.

The YMCA is so kind as to provide slips of paper with golf pencils so that those of us who time our exercises can write down said time, tuck it into our gym bags, and then promptly lose it somewhere between the gym and home. This has become a problem lately, since I am actually making an attempt to keep track of times and make comparisons to past times, weights and measurements.

Therefore, I have decided to become completely anal retentive about the subject. In order to prove that this is indeed paying off for me, I need to be able to compare times to times and measurements to measurements. What could possibly be better than using Excel?

Google, in their infinite wisdom, has created a Documents page, so that anyone with internet access who wishes to view a spreadsheet anywhere in the world may do so. Tony and I have been using this brilliant creation for months to keep track of finances for the house. Today, I will put it to another use.

May I present: My First Chart!


Isn't it beautiful? Well, except for the last bar that shows that I gained weight. Hence my obsession with loosing it. No matter what I do, it seems to want to stick to me.

However, if you observe the following evidence, you will see that although I have gained back some weight, my hips are getting smaller.

Oh boy! One inch down! With my handy Excel graph I can now begin to obsess over that! Hooray!

Another downer: Tony just started running again and he's already beating my two mile time by about a minute. I ran two miles yesterday for a time of 18:57. I was so proud of myself. The last mile was done under 9 minutes, but the first mile I spent a lot of time ramping up. Then here comes Tony, "Oh hey, I just wanted to compare. I got 17:30, how did you do?"

I must admit, I did want to kill him. There are those of us who struggle to be above average with everything in life, and there are those who just seem to glide right through. I am the former. Tony, the latter.

Actually, that's not a fair assessment at all. I'm just bitter.

On top of it all, I twisted my knee and the ball of my foot has shooting pains every time I step on it. I think I need to learn to run. I have a feeling I run like a retarded child.

Soreness, While Not Necessary, is Inevitable

After talking with Anthony about whether being sore after a workout, I decided to post the question to the Crossfit message boards for a definitive answer from a trainer.

Let me explain: I've been wondering if I've been working hard enough lately. My weight went up a half pound when I weighed myself last week. However, my pants are looser than they have been and in general, things seem firmer than usual. Tony even said that my arms were in decent shape last night when we were joking around. Still, I worry that I'm not doing enough, especially given the weight situation and the fact that although I've been expending a ton of energy at the gym, I haven't been waking up sore lately, and I'm disappointed that the results are taking so long.

So, I asked the forum for input on how I was doing. I said I've been giving it my all (I have), but since the first week I haven't noticed any soreness that was debilitating. Here are the answers I received:

"I"m almost always sore, but usually not so stiff I can’t move. You probably did plenty, but just note what you did and how long it took and next time bump it up a bit . . ."

"From what I’ve heard, there’s no correlation between soreness and amount of cell damage you’ve caused/effort you’ve exerted in your workout. From what I hear, that’s a myth propagated by the bodybuilding community. I also heard that the slow ‘negative’ part of a rep is what mostly causes the soreness, hence in bodybuilding the ‘count 2 up, count 4 down’ timing for a rep.

I think the Crossfit way is to just do things until you are totally depleted (barring sudden injury or worse)"

"There is more muscle soreness caused by the eccentric portion of the movement. The eccentric component is stretching the muscle under load, which causes more damage. High rep RDL’s will cause more soreness than high rep deadlifts. Jumping pull ups accentuating the negative causes more soreness than pull ups. An ancillary topic of concern is heavy eccentric movements have been linked to Rhabdo, but that is probably for another thread. We don’t pursue being sore the way a bodybuilder does, it generally has no bearing on the amount of power produced in a workout.

Oh and GOOD JOB today Laura!"

(This last post is from the top trainer and moderator of the site. I'm not sure if he thinks I'm Laura or if he's referring to someone else.)

Of course, today fate paid me back for my question... in pain. I decided to try out doing back squats with 55lbs. It was quite enjoyable to see that I am now able to squat below parallel and keep my back straight. I don't rock forward onto my toes as much either anymore. However, the weight made my legs shake, and somewhere around squat no. 35, I realized I had very little strength left in my legs. I forced myself to finish it anyway and topped out at 40 squats. That means that I moved 2,200 lbs yesterday.

Wait, did I do my math right? That would mean that I moved over one ton of weight. That can't be right. Calculator says... yes. I am right. That's insane. I can't even begin to comprehend that. I feel much like Superman must have after he picked up a car for the first time. I am invincible!

Anyway, returning to the topic at hand-- I am sore. My butt is sore, my quads are killing me, my hamstrings are tight... and, like the idiot I am, I decided to wear heels to work today. Ladies, if you've ever been out dancing and spent some time "dropping it like it's hot", you know that the next day, the last thing you want to do is put on a pair of heels. It's as if your muscles bind up in resistance, making you look more awkward than a cowboy when you walk. My excuse was that my pants need to be hemmed, and I needed to wear heels or they would pool on the ground.

Today was rest day, and I was grateful. I doubt that my legs will have fully recovered by tomorrow, but I'm about to get some rest so they can heal overnight.

Lesson Learned

First, the good news: I set a new personal record today! I ran a mile in 9:31. A mile. Me. Running. On an incline- well, for part of it anyway. I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever ran a mile in under 10 minutes. I can't even begin to tell you how excited about this I was. My legs still don't like to cooperate, they get heavy and sluggish, but my lungs don't burn like they used to. It's a rush, especially when I step off the treadmill and I feel like I could keep going, maybe even do a second mile.

I didn't though, because I was worried about exhausting myself before I started the WOD. Today's WOD was 32 pull ups and 32 bar dips. So I made my way over to the assisted pull up machine and jumped on. The minute I reached for the bar, I knew it was going to be a hard workout.

You see, I strayed from the prescribed WOD yesterday. I decided that I didn't want to make an ass out of myself doing box jumps in the gym, and I was pretty sure that throwing a ball at the wall repeatedly would get me kicked out. So instead, I decided to do "Barbara" again. I did that workout about a week and a half ago, and it was my favorite so far. Barbara consists of 4 rounds of 4 pull ups, 8 push ups, 12 sit ups and 16 squats. It truly works everything. The last time I attempted this workout, I did crunches instead of sit ups. This time, I wanted to see if my time went up with the full sit ups. It was a bit slower than the prior time I attempted this workout, but I was gasping for air by the time it was over.

So when I pulled myself up today on the pull up bar, I could feel the tension in my arms, fighting against me as I struggled to pull myself up. I ended up using a higher weight to assist me, but I was still fighting to make the last few pull ups at the end.

Lesson learned: don't stray from the WOD. Typically, workouts don't use the same major muscle groups two days in a row, to keep from overworking and straining muscles. There's something to be said for just doing what you're told and not having to think about it.

Once again, I'm exhausted. I'm also ticked off that the whole bedtime thing is cutting into my nights out. Friday I was out until about 1am, and I felt terrible the next morning. I still woke up at 7am, right on time, and it was extremely difficult to fall back asleep, even for a moment. I don't like waking up that early, and I hate, hate, hate feeling like I'm going to fall asleep on the couch at 9pm while trying to watch Scrubs. I also need to get some more motivation to kick my butt out of bed on the days that I don't work until 11am. I might not go back to sleep, but I don't exactly get out of bed and conquer the world either.

I've been craving a coffee, ice cream, cookies, any kind of treat lately. For the most part I'm able to keep it at bay. I don't really eat a whole lot, but I do snack on cereal throughout the day.

I didn't report on Friday, but I gained a half pound. That was really hard to see. I've been working my ass off and I'm gaining weight. That's not exactly incentive to go to the gym. So lately, I've been incorporating more cardio into my workouts. I try to run or use the rowing machine. Everything else is just crap. I used to spend hours on the elliptical with no results, now I'm running like crazy. Hopefully I'll start seeing more results from that.

I should rephrase that. I have seen results, but they're small and slow. My pants fit better, but they're not loose yet. I can wear a few shirts that looked terrible three weeks ago, but I worry that I'm not getting results fast enough. It's hard to ignore the diets and plans out there that promise 10lbs lost in 15 minutes, but I know if I go about doing it that way, I'll never keep it off and I'll never make a change.