Poop Shute

11:04

Business has been slow for me lately, so I picked up a second job at a private gym near my house. Once a year this gym has their clients participate in a little competition. All their individual results are kept private from each other, but we trainers evaluate and decide the winners. The trainers also have our own separate class of competition. Only ours is public. All the clients get to see our progress posted on the wall. The idea is our personal motivation helps to encourage their own. Great.

We each pick three measurable areas to improve on, and the person with the largest percentage difference wins. I figured the best way to win is to pick three areas I knew gave me the largest room for improvement. I went with my mile time, the number of pull-ups I can do before muscle failure, and the circumference of my upper arm.

I ran a mile last night for time to get my baseline number. It was my first time since my freshman year of college. Eleven minutes and four seconds is by no means a respectable time, but sadly, it's better than I expected. There's a good reason for that.

Even though I know better, and I teach people to know better, I am still a typical "guy" in the gym. The typical guy in the gym loves strength training. We love benching and curling, and pull-down, anything that will make that chest and those arms pop out. But we hate cardio machines. A treadmill or an eliptical machine look like the gym equivalent of a wine cooler to us. That's for the girls.

I used to get regular cardio playing racquetball a couple time a week, but my partner up and moved to New York on me. The big jerk.

Anyway. Most male clients I've had so far have this same issue. Cardio machines not only have a feminine stigma, but more importantly, they are just plain boooOOOOooring! I use an ipod to keep upbeat music going, and still it's mind-numbing. I'm going to try PIMSLEUR SPANISH lessons for the next couple weeks, and see if engaging my brain will distract me from how bored my body is.

The arm measurement, and pull-up test also allow for a lot of improvement. I have skinny arms, and pull-ups are hard for anybody who doesn't do them regularly. And I don't. I will be getting those two baselines later this evening. I'll COMMENT those in later.

Wish me luck.