exercise diary

[ironymaiden]

did my first real trip to the gym last night.

proceeded to get lost on the way to the locker room and spend a lot of time rooting through the filing cabinet to find my little record sheet with the plan of stuff i'm supposed to do.

put on my headphones and mostly had a good time.

except for the bosu squats. they were murder. they are, of course, the thing that will really really strengthen the small muscles in my legs and help to stabilize my knees and ankles. *cries* (stand on extremely unstable curved surface. squat low, stand up, repeat. keep your back straight and eyes ahead. seems like it should be easy, but is completely not what your body wants to do when all signals say "we're falling!")

there's this twisty crunch thing where i sit with bent legs and keep my toes off the ground and hold a double-handled medicine ball (10lbs). turn torso and whack the floor on the left, whack the floor on the right, die floor die. it's my favorite. (and while i'm happily bouncing the ball i'm secretly practicing absorbing impact. woo.)

most denizens of the gym at eightish on a weeknight seem to be of the normal person obeying their doctor's orders variety, with the tiny woman doing a million dips and the dude with studs running down the middle of his scalp lifting freeweights thrown in for spice. i'm fine with this. i also love that one of the tvs in the cardio area is tuned to the History Channel. as requested, i am not wrecked today, but i still feel like i worked last night.

Comments

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

I wanted to ask about your Kung Fu place. I'm thinking of getting started taking a martial art (mostly just for the exercise) with one of my classmates. But would a heavy, uncoordinated total novice be welcome at your place? Is it terribly expensive? Where in town is it? Would you rather I found somewhere else to go? I know that sometimes its weird when different parts of my universe unexpectedly show up in others... Any advice?

[ironymaiden]

heavy uncoordinated total novice is fine. no one is judging you except yourself.
it is not terribly expensive. (costs on website.)
Belltown, so not hard to get to from school.
nah. i think my sifu rocks and there are many women in the class. the number on the website is his cel phone, go ahead and ask him questions. he's happy to answer them and may talk your ear off. if you want to come, come.

you are allowed to observe, and you are also able to do a free first class. for you, i would come and observe a class to see what goes on with the various groups of students. the first class is all about horse stance, making a proper fist, and throwing a punch (and you don't get to see much of what other people are doing).

horse stance is a bitch. early on just doing that and throwing punches can be enough to make you feel sick. (si hing J says he passed out at his first class.) i'm not saying this to scare you off, i'm saying that it feels really hard and that is totally normal. you have to have the guts to refuse to be mortified if you have to go sit for a while, and the willingness to get up and try again. the whole class gets asked to do pushups most days. you do what you can and work up.

also, i will not be offended if you try it and decide it's not for you.

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Thanks. I'll definitely look into this then.

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

But would a heavy, uncoordinated total novice be welcome at your place?

My experience (w/ karate and not in Seattle) is that martial arts is where you find the heavier women. I'm fairly large (5'8, large-framed, and 30-45 lbs overweight) and I'm average-to-thin in my dojo. And newbies are always uncoordinated at the martial arts, so don't let that scare you off. :)

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

BOSU squats = ow!

I know they're good for me, but they're always pain when my trainer has me do them.