I am going to be sore
tomorrow.
I used to like going to
the gym. Then I spent hundreds of
dollars on memberships I never used because I got bored. The machines were old, the treadmills made
too much noise because they were in disrepair, and the classes were too full or
taught by people who didn’t really know what they were doing.
There was the constant
idiocy of people leaving the heavier weights on the barbells, which started to
piss me off. (Note to guys: You’re not the only ones who lift.) I’m a sucker for the Smith machine, which is
a vertical-lift barbell machine with a sliding apparatus built into it. I can do squat-lifts while balancing on my
heels with my toes in the air. I love
that thing. But it killed me to go to
the gym and find the machine rigged with hundreds of pounds of weight while
suspended five feet off the ground. At
least I could roll the larger weights off the machines at ground-level. (Another note to guys and uber-strong women: Take
the damn 50-pound weights off so someone like me, at 5’2” and middle-aged, can
actually lift something.)
Here is the real reason I
quit the gym: People weren’t wiping down the equipment after sweating all over
it. You might not think that’s a big
deal, but after years in the judo world, I’ll tell you this – ringworm sucks. Not that ringworm is prevalent in martial
arts like it is in wrestling, but I know enough that filthy gear isn’t going to
cut it in my world. It doesn’t have to
be pristine. I mean, some of the guys
would throw their sweat-soaked judo gis into their trunks in the winter and
have to thaw them out at the next practice, never bothering to wash them in between
many … any … practices. They stank
sometimes, and we all got filthy-sweaty grappling and throwing, but at least I personally
knew these people, men and women.
Those filthy-sweaty
strangers at the gym? I don’t know
them. Maybe they do have ringworm. The least
thing they could do was follow the rules and wipe down the machines. When the patrons stopped caring and the staff
stopped caring, I stopped going and stopped paying. And stopped exercising.
I’m no newbie to
sports. As a kid, I was always outside
doing some sport, from kickball to roller skating to ice skating to skiing to
bike riding to racing my brothers’ Big Wheels down the hill by the Colligans’
house. I did gymnastics at a basic
level, excelling at the vault and mini-trampoline. I played soccer for a few years and played
basketball through freshman year in high school when I realized that, at 5’2”,
I wasn’t growing anymore
As an adult I tried step
classes and cardio classes, but I’m not coordinated enough to do those dance
steps. I tried cardio-kickboxing but
didn’t like hitting the stand-up bags – I only liked hitting the Bob bag. I really, really liked hitting the Bob bag,
actually.
My boys were involved in
judo, and I finally convinced myself to try that. I was never very good at it, but I liked it a
lot – really liked throwing people and liked being thrown. I liked carrying and dragging people heavier
than I am down the mat. One night an
uncoordinated greenhorn went in for a throw during randori. He missed. I stayed firmly planted, and he broke my foot
in three places. I wrapped my foot in
duct tape and finished practice, and continued for weeks to practice with it
taped because I’m a bit of a masochist. But
I had to give that up, eventually, too.
Almost six years ago I had
my right foot rebuilt, mostly due to a very old soccer injury gone bad. Since then I’ve had that mediocre gym
experience and finally took up training for 5k races. I’m not very good at that, either. Oh sure, I did two back-to-back 5k mud runs,
which are amazing and fun, but I developed Achilles tendonitis. The recovery has been sluggish and somewhat
annoying.
Which brings me to tonight.
I am so bored with being
bored with my slow healing that I start searching the Internet for some
ideas. I try Zumba for about six
minutes, but let’s face it. Zumba is
like step and cardio classes, and I’m just not that coordinated. I’ve tried Pilates, so I do a fifteen-minute
Pilates workout. It’s okay, but it’s so …
stationary. I decide to do a few stair
runs, about half a dozen, until I realize that the constant up/down is probably
annoying the hell out of my townhouse neighbors. One hundred sit-ups later, I am about to lose
my mind with boredom. There has to be an
easier way to get some exercise inside one’s own house. (Note to readers: It’s raining hard, dark as
midnight, and only about 35 degrees out – I’m not jogging anywhere.)
Suddenly I am struck with
a moment of sheer ingenuity. I take my
workout mat, which is thick enough for me to throw a judoka on, and I rig it up
along a wall using a chair, securing it into place. I grab my sparring gloves, and I start
beating the hell out of the makeshift “bag.”
Oh. My. God.
It may not be as fun as
hitting a Bob bag, but it’s not bad. The
whack-whack-whack sound is like music to my ears, and I can feel the tension in
my neck and shoulders start to ease as I get into a rhythm. I do this for about eight minutes then figure
my neighbors might be worried I’m trying to punch a hole through the wall.
Tonight is a little bit
about reconnecting with something other than walking and jogging, which I
cannot do to my satisfaction until these tendons heal up. In the true spirit of pre-Thanksgiving, I’ve
given myself a cornucopia of activities to try.
Next thing you know, I’ll be down cleaning the dust and laundry off the
small home-gym Universal set that’s rotting away in the basement. But for now, I’ll shower and relax, maybe
take a Tylenol or two. One thing I do
know absolutely and for certain:
I am going to be sore
tomorrow.
