Friday, March 16, 2012

Resistance (to) training

In the midst of the contraception-coverage debacle, a very har har article came out, listing other amenities the government might mandate that employers provide. I had a bit of a har har of my own, when I realized that my husband's employer provides all of this, and for spouses/partners as well. (OK, no massages, as far as I know. But there are tennis lessons. And this isn't even including the amenities offered by my own university, which I theoretically have access to, but living this far, I'm not getting much out of this year.) But then it occurred to me that I'm not really making the most of this. Of the library access, yes, and the cookies, but not the gym. And it's not merely a gym, but gym with its own personal trainer.

So I went, but it's a bit what I imagine psychoanalysis would be like. There's this great mystique around it, and you know it from movies, but then you get there and you find yourself unsure where perhaps ve to begin. It almost seemed as though the best approach would be to show up, Biggest Loser style, in a revealing, ideally unflattering, sports-bra and bike-shorts combo, and ask the trainer what she thought was most pressing.

Instead, I arrived decent, and at a loss for what I was there for. The trainer asked me when the last time was that I'd worked out, and, having just come from a run, I had to say, five minutes ago? I explained that while I go running a few times a week (didn't mention the poodle component, which might count as cross-training), jogging is absolutely it for my exercise, which evidently means that I'm missing strength and flexibility. This led to an ab exercise reminiscent of Edina's sit-up attempt with Patsy's trainer boy-toy on AbFab, and a leg-stretch not unlike when Sheldon tries to touch his toes on the Big Bang Theory. Now, if you're thinking, that's a lot of TV references, this might be a hint at why, despite being not not in shape, the gym is a not-terrible life modification.

There is now the inevitable question of sticking to it. To be continued. Or not. We shall see.

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