My exercise routine over the last few years has been mostly constant, I am proud to say.
Sure, there have been periods of a few weeks in a row during which I would slack and go only twice instead of, for example, three times a week, periods of lackluster lifting and running, and even several weeks of drought. But ever since I was a freshman in college I’ve worked out pretty consistently. I would blame the burgeoning of my routine on these factors: that I was confused and alone for a sizeable portion of my time during my freshman year, that this in turn made me depressed and feel like I needed to find something to do, and that I had been angling to keep up with exercising since I stopped running the year before.
After class then, especially when winter became spring and the weather was tolerable enough to jog in, I began looking forward to the end of my classes, daydreaming about how my run to the gym would go and how much I would lift that day. I didn’t take many of the classes because they were too late (I did homework in the evenings) or because I was nervous trying them by myself. So I jogged and lifted and stretched, then jogged home and stretched again to inevitably collapse on my floor for a while. While it didn’t make me happy, it was a good step in giving me peace for the time being.
Sophomore year my lifting became something of an obsession (thanks to another little obsession whom I now live with), and somewhere along those lines I lost sight of the fact that I could lose myself in the elevated pulse of my body, the burning muscles, and the sweat rolling down my back. I had begun to go three days a week with a set schedule. The next year it continued, only I got up earlier and pushed myself and my lifting partner harder.
This is what drove us to not lift anymore; I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of working out. When I went by myself I felt too annoyed with the people around me. I wasn’t comfortable in the gym without my partner. But my partner never wanted to go when I wanted to go, and we started disagreeing on what kinds of workouts to have. His kind of day would not give me the results I wanted to see, and vice versa. Lifting and exercising, so part of my life, had become drudgery. I kept doing it out of duty, mostly, and to avoid the angry guilt that bubbled up in me if I didn’t go.
Senior year was the worst; I was lazy and unmotivated. I still went in the mornings, but it was more just something to do and get out of the way so I could enjoy breakfast, than exercising and improving my body.
When I came down with a knee injury in December, I thought I wouldn’t work out again or see my body transform at all. This depressed me and de-motivated me further. My partner all but told me he no longer wanted to work out. We tried everything but I became convinced that he no longer wanted to work out for any reason; really, it was myself that I was trying to convince to keep going. We took up swimming to combat the laziness but by April, I would wake up by myself in the mornings to the cool silence of the hall, pull on my running shoes, and walk to the gym for a swim and to lift.
I stopped calling my lifting partner when it became clear to me that we were now on different paths. After several weeks of nothing, of sleeping in during the mornings and avoiding asking anyone to breakfast, I suddenly felt the urge to try swimming again for real. Drop lifting. Just swim. Improve that for a while. So I started getting up again, although the first time was the worst; it was always chilly in the mornings, and dark, and the prospect of putting on a two-piece and diving into the cold, still waters is about the least motivating scenario I could think of.
But I went. I stopped lifting. The first day I was free, I swam as long as I could, about 750 meters. That was as far as I could go for the moment, the top end of my cardio capacity, and when I tried to pull myself out of the water (as is usually easy for me), I could hardly do it and had to use the ladder instead. And although my hair froze on the way back to my dorm to really shower, I felt that overwhelming sense of peace and contentment that I’d found once on a long run while the sun set. There seemed to be nothing better. That day, I floated and enjoyed everything.
Summer came, and I joined the pool on purpose to have that feeling again. It was never quite the same though, but I spent the whole summer with the knowledge that at the end I would be moving again. My partner and I sometimes met up for a work out here and there, but mostly it was informal and infrequent at best. I tried my legs on the bike but found it unnatural and clumsy, and by August I didn’t have the time or the energy to concentrate on lifting. I went out occasionally between packing, saying goodbye to my friends, and making harried trips to Georgia and back, but it did not suit my lifestyle to exercise much.
When I got to Georgia, I was feeling the same things I felt when I was a freshman. I still feel that way a little bit, I think, but I believe I’m coming out of it slowly.
I hadn’t worked out in over a month at all. I was eating too much (food is so good… but I eat what I want, even if it exceeds my necessary caloric intake for the day and is not burned off by exercising… thus leading to weight gain), doing too little, was depressed and sleeping a lot when I could. And I was sick. When I got really sick, I felt as though my body was cleansed for a while, since I hadn’t been able to put food into it for two weeks. I told myself that once I was better, I’d do something about my health.
I looked around at gyms but didn’t really make much effort to join. I’d just started my new job, didn’t have any money, and was scared of going alone. And the boy had told me I shouldn’t just go because I felt guilty, that I should enjoy the process. I had sulked a while at that, annoyed that he might be telling me that I went for the wrong reasons (I’d wasted so much time at the gym for those supposed wrong reasons then). And then one day after work I decided to just go and do it. I brought my clothes. I went to LA Fitness and signed up, haggled a bit and got a slightly reduced rate that day.
I haven’t made a mistake so far as I can see in joining that gym. I’d wanted to join it anyway; LA Fitness is just under the movie theater, behind the ticket counter so that people walking into the theater get a clear view of most of the floor of the place. Even standing outside and looking in, I could see the rows of machines, the open floor space, the young, healthy people having fun. Maybe they do it on purpose, or limit the demographic so that only people under 35 can join (I have not seen anyone over that age there ever, for the most part), thus making it enticing for a young, twenty-something like me. Whatever they did, it worked on me. I joined and started going.
Attending classes didn’t really appeal to me until I realized I was bored with jogging and then lifting. I had picked up a schedule and decided within a week to go, and have been going for two months now. After the first class, on a Saturday, I was hooked.
Suddenly, I felt that flare again, that flare of pride in myself and what I could do. In one day, not only did I stop being a pansy and being afraid to go do something new by myself, but I lifted for an hour straight under instruction and with twenty other people and loved every minute of it. There seemed to be a reason, a purpose for lifting even during that very first class. It was made clear what was expected of me, and there was also mutual understanding that if I kept with it, I would get better. Suddenly I had a goal again, something to reach towards. And a goal was the something that I had lost for two straight years while I lifted and ran.
I went to other classes during the week and found myself more and more excited to go to the gym after work and on weekends. Each class I’ve been to has its own unique environment and personality, no doubt reinforced by whichever instructor teaches. Monday night’s step class is run by a bubbly, energetic, yet forceful woman who must take crack before she comes in every time. It’s Monday. We always work on Mondays! she shouts as she walks in the door. Tuesday’s step teacher (who is also the Saturday instructor) comes in looking grim and serious. Although she is really very nice, she attacks each class as though there is nothing more serious and demanding of focus in the world. Do not lock your knees! is the most-oft quoted phrase there, and most of the people there are afraid to disappoint her. So, we don’t lock our knees. Sunday’s yoga instructor is kind and warm, but breathes a spiritual energy through the whole class that makes it imperative to perform every asana as precisely as possible, all the while maintaining a connection with one’s body and the world at large. I walk out of every class feeling refreshed yet tightened, and at peace.
The only classes that have been disappointments to me are the ones whose instructors are either too green or too out of shape. Green instructors–and by green, I mean new–treat each class as though nobody will be able to follow their directions. They walk every person through every step and stop if someone messes up, just so we can wait for them to fix their mistake. The classes are slow and tedious and usually unfulfilling.
Instructors who can’t do the exercises with us… ? I took one such class tonight, one I was damn well so excited about I nearly cried from happiness when I saw they were teaching it. Mat pilates, Wednesday nights from seven to eight PM. I showed early and was the first one there. Made pleasant small talk with the instructor, who was nervous because it was her first night teaching the class here.
Well, I was so cold by the end I was shivering and could hardly stretch. My heart rate had never so much as skipped, and I was so NOT warmed up I could hardly jog to my car. Instead I threw on my hoodie, rubbed my arms, and teetered stiffly to my car in the garage. Turned up the heat as high as it would go. Most nights I’m so exhausted and warm from the class I have all the windows down and have as little clothing on as possible while I drive home. But not this night.
Perhaps it was first-day jitters for this instructor. Maybe not. I don’t know. All I do know is that the pilates were more than elementary. They were unchallenging and far too slow. I think they should be taught as strength training using only your body, similar to yoga but with more conditioning and core strengthening involved. Maybe I expected too much (having always done terrifically hard DVDs. My favorite is 10-minute pilates, during which I break a sweat in the first three minutes, and can hardly keep up with the ‘legs’ portion of the disc). I know what I wasn’t expecting was an instructor who could not sit up straight because she was so out of shape. Instead, when it came time to put our legs out straight in front of us and sit with a flat back, she resorted to walking around and telling us what to do. And so, my respect and excitement plummeted; I simply find it difficult to retain hope that I’ll get better when my own teacher can’t do the things we’re supposed to do. And where then is the motivation to practice and try?
I had worked out a rotating schedule during which pilates appeared every week for three weeks as part of my strength-training regimen, but now perhaps I’ll scratch it and attend Julie’s class an hour earlier (the crazy, hyperactive step teacher who leaves me nearly vomiting in exhaustion every class–and I say that as affectionately and enthusiastically as possible. If it weren’t for her motivation, I would go straight home every day and do nothing). The poorness of the class made it that much more difficult to smile at her when the girl shouted, see you all next week then?
….maybe not. But at least I know now where my passion lies. I love the classroom atmosphere, where I can learn with everyone else and concentrate on myself. Improve my coordination. Feel as though I’m accomplishing something, and being examined by someone who can tell me how to get better. Be part of the group.
Find peace.
