Remote Conditioning

The gym is a place where you're supposed to sweat. I understand that. I get it.

Few people should expect to leave the gym without sweating. If you do, you probably haven't exercised to an extent that your visit to the gym was worth getting out of bed. Going to the gym and expecting not to sweat is like going to your favorite restaurant and expecting to leave hungry, or watching a Jack Black movie and expecting to be entertained. It doesn't compute.

I, for one, am a free sweater. Forget lifting weights or running the track, I'm the guy who works up a sweat changing his clothes in the locker room. Sweat brakes on my brow just lacing up my sneakers. I'm fairly certain I had to reapply deodorant the other day because I thought about climbing a set of stairs, so what happens when I really do exercise? By the time our spin class at the gym is over I've cycled enough sweat out of my body it looks like I'm personally trying to create a new Great Lake on the floor around me.

I'm perfectly accepting of the idea I'm going to break a sweat at the gym. What I don't expect is for the gym to make the decision for me. That's what happened the other day when My Lovely Wife and I arrived for our non-cycle day of non-aerobic strength training. By strength training, I mean we planned to hit what I think of as the "old people" machines. 

You know the old people machines, don't you? They're the machines hidden away in a deep recess of the gym that work only one or two muscles at a time. They don't get your heart pumping, they apply their own non-adjustable hydraulic tension, and they leave with you with absolutely no sense of gratification at having completed a rigorous morning workout because, let's be honest, you haven't. You sit, wiggle your extremities for two minutes, then move to the next machine when the light turns red. It's essentially a timed game of musical chairs during which there's no music, no knocking anyone to the floor, and no winners.

The old people machines are a great day in our weekly workout for several reasons. For starters, less laundry. If I'm not sweating straight through my cycle shorts like I've lost bladder control, then there's no reason to wash the gym shorts I wore for less than two hours. And if my shirt isn't soaked through like a live sponge at the bottom of the ocean, then there's no reason to wash the hoodie that keeps the crisp fall air from hitting my paper-thin drenched shirt. Second, the kids might actually hug us like we're not covered in some grotesquely horrid bodily fluid, because we're not. Finally, no sweating. Not even a healthful, shimmery glisten.

The other day, however, the temperature in the gym was hovering somewhere between tropical and solar flare. Turns out, like so many large buildings these days, the thermostat is remotely controlled by a system five states away that, on this particular day, was combating an Arctic front moving through North Carolina that none of us realized had befallen us.

Somewhere in Atlanta, Tallahassee or Terre Haute was the solution to our heatwave, only it's doubtful anyone that far away cares much about an emergency air conditioning adjustment at five-thirty in the morning just so I don't have to get clammy while pretending to work out.


© 2015 Mark Feggeler

Yoga Broke My Clutch Muscle

I am not averse to trying new types of exercise.

Long ago -- twenty-one years ago, to be precise -- I broke free of my comfort zone for the sake of true love and thoroughly embarrassed myself in front of a room full of strange women by attending my first-ever step aerobic class.

The experience was not unlike running naked outside the glass-walled cafeteria of my college campus at noon. Not that I ever did that, but one of my roommates seemed to make a hobby of it. One day I saw him flash by as I dined with friends near the windows. If he could have overheard the comments people were making, he might have opted to find a new hobby. And it seemed natural that the people surrounding me in that step aerobic class twenty-odd years ago probably were thinking similar things about me. At least I did everyone the favor of keeping my pants on.

As I stepped and grunted and sweated profusely to music I hated, avoiding the judgmental eyes of women who clearly thought the only reason I was attending their exercise class was because I couldn't afford to buy porn, there was no misunderstanding that I was a fish out of water. The next morning drove that point home when every muscle in my body that I ever knew I had, along with dozens of other muscles in places I never expected muscles existed, launched a massive protest. Since then, I have alternately exercised and not exercised depending entirely upon time and desire. Maybe I simply couldn't find room in my schedule to hit the treadmill, let alone walk around the block. Or I might have had the time, but not the inclination. Be honest, sometimes it feels really great to throw fad diets and cautionary medical wisdom to the wind and eat unreasonably satisfying quantities of pizza and chocolate.

But lately, despite a slightly protruding potbelly, I have been dedicated to the whole exercise thing. Four mornings a week at the gym for cycle class, plus one morning on the treadmill, and even though my belt might still strain a bit under the pressure, I feel pretty good about my overall physical condition. Even my doctor agrees, and he almost always finds some vitamin deficiency, hormone imbalance or predisposition to some condition or other to lecture me about.

So, when My Lovely Wife suggested I try yoga, I was all in. She has tried in the past to talk me into trying hot yoga, but I was too smart for that. I break a sweat when I blink too fast. And not a glistening movie star sweat, either. When I sweat I mean it. Sweat pours from my head like water from a ruptured dam, my shirt quickly soaks through (front and back), and my sweaty palms can barely grip the handle bars of the exercycle without risking slippage and a concussion. Hot yoga? Exercising in a room cranked to one-hundred-plus degrees? Ummmmmmmm, no. But regular old yoga in an air-conditioned room with industrial size fans? Why not.

I honestly didn't know what to expect from yoga, other than it would stretch me beyond my limits. Halfway through the class, after getting the hang of downward dog, warrior, flying eagle, and half a dozen other slow-motion disco dance moves, I was sweating and grunting and doing my best to hold position. But when the class ended it all seemed to have gone by rather quickly, leaving me wondering whether or not I had actually worked any muscles at all.

Later that day, however, various muscles around my body began to voice their objection -- upper back, right buttock, thighs, abdomen, arms, left buttock. Driving was an interesting experience, particularly since my car has a manual transmission. I squeaked like a dog's chew toy every time I had to shift gears. Several times it crossed my mind that driving the eight miles from our house to the pool in second gear wouldn't really be an imposition for the cars behind me. Patience is a virtue, right?

But after several days and a return to the routine of early morning cycle class, my body has recovered and I find myself eager to return for another yoga session. Something about the calm pace of the class has me hooked. And how bad can any exercise regimen be when you can do it in bare feet? And when the class ends, you get to lay back on the mat, close your eyes, and fall into a relaxing mini coma.

The only way they could improve on that is to have waitstaff standing by serving pizza and chocolate.



© 2013 Mark Feggeler

Exercise Shmexercise...

Some people go the gym looking like they have no need for it. I see those frustratingly healthy folks five mornings a week without an ounce of fat on their bodies and I want to smack the crap out of them.

Other people go to the gym looking like they accidentally stumbled into the place while trying to find the nearest all-night bakery. I fall into this latter category. Four mornings of 500-calorie-burning, 22-mile-distance-covering RPM classes in the indoor cycling room, plus one morning on the treadmill, and I still rival the Pillsbury Doughboy for body shape and muscle tone.

I know what you're going to say:

   "Cut out the carbs!"

   "Count your calories!"

   "Stop eating 27 ounces of dark chocolate every day!"

Now that you've got that out of your system, let's start the return trip from LaLa Land with acceptance of the fact I will never, never, ever, never cut carbs out of my diet.

Bread, for example, is awesomely delicious and last I checked, most breads are made of carbs. And not just regular old white bread used to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carbs can be found in many different varieties of bread. Bagels, banana bread, challa, ciabatta, dinkelbrot, doughnuts, hushpuppies, hoecakes, monkey bread, matzah, pretzels and pumpernickel all are wonderfully effective methods for delivering carbs to my belly. If bread is delicious, and bread is made of carbs, ipso facto carbs are delicious.

It's not as though I haven't made the effort in the past to scale back. I've tried wraps but they aren't satisfying. I've eaten vegetarian burgers without the bun, but every time I do I end up wondering why I did it. And not to go all religious on you, but Jesus didn't tell the disciples he was the gluten-free, sugar-free, rice-flour, non-cross-contaminated specialty diet loaf of life. He said he was the bread of life. How much more of a product testimonial do you need than that?

Maybe making better fashion choices would help my self-esteem.

Just the other day, not long after cycling like a maniac for 50 minutes and feeling really good about myself, there I was walking the dog down the street wearing white socks, black sandals, gray shorts, bright red sweatshirt, and a sweat-stained black baseball cap, with my hand shoved down my pants to free a fistful of leg hairs from the deathgrip my cycling underwear had on them. It's difficult at times like that not to suddenly experience an overwhelming self-awareness. All I needed to complete the ensemble was to drool a little and urinate on myself.

I must face the fact I will never be the trim, wavy-haired, strutting-around-the-locker-room-naked-because-he's-totally-comfortable-with-his-body kind of guy. I will forever be the pudgy, balding, one-towel-to-cover-my-fat-ass-and-a-second-towel-to-drape-over-my-shoulders-to-hide-my-moobs kind of guy. I will always leave the gym after a strenuous workout looking like a dishevled, crazy, homeless man who just ran five city blocks to outrun the cops.




© 2012 Mark Feggeler