Funny Thing Two and Funny Thing Three….

Second funny thing: BFF Stephanie and I were working in the free weight area of the Kimberly gym one evening. There were a lot of people there. Then these two meaty looking guys came in and tossed a big rubber thingie on a bench. One of the guys then proceeded to unpack the rubber thingie, and it was some kind of shirt or jacket, much like (yet different from) a wet suit. So Guy One starts to put the jacket thing on, and Guy Two is helping him, but it seems to be several sizes too small.

The bar bell with the massive weights on each end was suspended, wobbling a bit, over Guy One, who was wearing the rubber suit. Guy One dropped the weight fairly quickly to his chest, then pushed it all the way back up with a huge ejaculation of sound. Guy Two grabbed the bar and helped Guy One position it back onto the stand.

One rep.

Then, for the next ten minutes, Guy Two helped Guy One get the rubber shirt off. Grunt, groan, push, shove, pull, snap. Finally it came off. And they left.

Made me laugh.

Funny story three: This is not really a funny story, but rather, a bald faced exploitation of the fact that you are reading this for the purpose of me showing off.

This was the same day as the Adventure of the Rubber Shirted Man. I wanted to do a leg press at what was my maximum capacity at the time I had left the states to see if I could still do it. That was 800 pounds. There was a leg press machine very much like the one I used at the gym back home. So I started out by counting out 300 and loading that up on the machine. I tried that and it seemed a lot harder than I expected it to be, so I decided to not try for the 800. I put 200 more on the machine, to make it an even 500 (plus the unknown weight of the carriage, usually about 50 pounds).

I pressed the 500 about 12 times. It was very very hard, but I did it. Normally, I would do 500 pounds at 30 reps or more. So this was something of a disappointment.

Until I went to remove the weights from the machine. Something didn’t seem right. I realized I was holding a weight that was labeled with one number but seemed to be the wrong size.

It was then that I realized what I had done. I had just leg pressed 500 kilos. 1,100 pounds.

I had a couple of muscles hurting the next day. And a couple of years later, when NASA crashed that space ship because they messed up the units of measurement, I didn’t say much about it….

… Continued …

When working with a personal trainer, the first thing you have to do is to calibrate. Then, if the trainer does not crank it up to a higher level, she’s probably not worth her fee.

As part of the deal, I got six hours of trainer time. I knew from my reading that working with a personal trainer was a good idea if you don’t know what you are doing, and I didn’t know what I was doing. A good personal trainer could save you from injuring yourself, and help you to be more effective in your training. I’ll tell you about some of the things I learned about this later.

Lenora was one of the personal trainers at this gym, and it eventually became clear to me that the sales rep and head trainer with whom I’d met when I joined up figured out that I wanted to work with a serious personal trainer, and so they matched us up. And I’ll tell you this, since that time I’ve watched a lot of trainers working with various clients, and there is a great deal of variation across trainers, and across trainer-client relationships. There are people throwing away their money, and there are people who are getting a very, very valuable service.

I was determined to be in the latter group, and as a trainer, Lenora was determined to be in that group as well.

Lenora is medium to tall in height, and thin like a stick. She has a sweet face with soft brown eyes and a pleasant countenance, a quiet conversational voice and a very polite manner. When we first met she was very formal in her introduction, and after a few pleasantries and technicalities, she came to the key question.

“How hard do you want me to make you work.”

“Well, harder than anyone else you’ve ever worked with.”

A pause.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I figure that if I don’t work hard enough to puke at least once every few sessions, we’re not working hard enough.”

She looked at me for a moment, trying to read how serious I was being. Then, just as she turned away to lead me to the evaluation area, she said, “Very well. We can do that.”

She may not have realized that I could see the grin appear across her face in the mirror towards which we were walking. Within three weeks I was to throw up once, and I was to collapse on the floor once. And those were the only times I was to see her grin in just that way again.

… Continued …