Category: swole

Gym Brain

Karen

As I sit here thinking of reasons why I could skip today’s workout, I realized I’m almost at six years of really pretty consistent gym-going. I love being strong but wow did Swole Woman nail it with this reminder of how our primitive brains don’t actually want to expend excess energy:

Exercising is sort of uncomfortable. In and of itself, it’s probably not going to be crazy fun. But accepting this feeling as the pyrotechnics of a primitive, no-longer-useful survival mechanism can be very powerful. Making peace with the discomfort is part of the whole thing, and so is reassuring ourselves that it’s temporary, survivable, not a threat to our lives.

It sounds silly, maybe. But these things are not intuitive to our dim human natures, which only want “eat food,” “sleep,” “have sex,” and “lie down in puddle.” It is reasonable that we need to give ourselves some support and structure. The starting will be the hard part, mentally and emotionally. But as we get going, new mechanisms take over to hold our hands and remind us that we are built for this, have been doing this for hundreds of thousands of years — that even if it’s against a certain instinct, the process is still inscribed deep in our bones.

OK, time to put on gym tights and tell my bod, “We are built for this, have been doing this for hundreds of thousands of years.”

 

 

Essays That Are Not About The Gym But Could Be

Karen

Heather Havrilesky shared a recent essay about her voice lessons and practicing a new thing even when it feels silly: “immersing yourself in borderline absurd practices, habits, and behaviors that don’t achieve much, that look laughable or foolish to others, that appear as a burden or an unnecessary hassle on the calendar…”

She goes on to talk about how we all talk about pursuing our passions but the reality of it is just a lot of unglamorous showing up, and wow did I feel that about going to the gym three times a week for five years and watching the weights move up glacially slowly:

Gaining mastery of a new skill is mostly drudgery. You sit down and do the hard work and you marvel at how bad you are, day after day. That’s the road, and there is no end point, there is just more road, endless road. Even though we talk about passion like it’s this heavenly blast of light and sound that drives you forward to greatness, real, genuine passion often feels more like some Cormac McCarthy novel where things go from bad to worse and you never arrive anywhere at all. But somehow (also like a Cormac McCarthy novel!) the bleak trees, the pavement, the bitter cold wind, all of these things are weighty, lustrous. You are almost dead of course, always almost dead, but somehow more alive than ever.

LIGHT WEIGHT

Karen

Friends, I finally, FINALLY got a new bench press max yesterday. I hadn’t moved more than 85 pounds in two years but yesterday I kept putting plates on and 95 pounds went! tf! UP!  YEAH BUDDY!

I’d set my last max of 90 pounds probably three years ago and have just been stuck since then, but for the last six months I’ve really been hitting accessories (dumbbell bench and back) and I think that did it. (That, and my brain shutting off so I couldn’t overthink it.)

Like all Gym Stuff, there’s a metaphor for life in there–keep trying, don’t be afraid, and do those reps until failure:

Never Too Late

Karen

The She’s a Beast newsletter pointed me to this story about a Redmond woman who, at the age of 94, is setting powerlifitng records:

At 90, she could deadlift 93 pounds clean off the mat. That’s in the record books. And this weekend in Reno, Nevada, she’s going for another world record — lifting 104 pounds at age 94.

…This extraordinary ability came late in life. Kuehn said she never worked with weights, played sports or even did much exercise until she was in her 60s.

“Oh heavens no,” she said. “Never. But I did like to sew.”

 

Delightful!

Max Week

Karen

We’ve cycled to another week of trying to get new weight maxes at the gym. Between the extra sleep and all the pie last week, I’m feeling STRONG–I got 155 for a new squat max this morning! Sure, another woman got 260 and the young dudes are hitting 330, but I’m still proud:

 

Light weight, baby!

Swole Talk

Karen

It’s been max week at the gym this week. On Monday, I didn’t try for a squat max since we were focused on front squats and front squats can go straight to hell (still figuring out what to do with my long arms there). On Tuesday, I tried for a bench max but ended up missing my old max by two pounds, since my elbow decided to start hurting. But TODAY, it was deadlift max and I got a new one–210 pounds!

Lifting has been such an exercise in patience for me. After the first few months of beginner gains, my progress slowed (as it does) and it was really hard for me to accept that I might be at my current bench max for years (I have been!), that it might take me another three years to actually do a pullup, that my age is also kind of fighting me even as I get more gains.

But deadlifts are “my” lift, the one where long-limbed people actually have an advantage (unlike squat and bench) and I’ve been working hard on my form. So I’m really proud of this! I left the gym this morning feeling the most accomplished I have in…6 months? Longer?

I’m so glad I picked up this hobby. I love being strong but I love being a beginner at something just as much.

 

 

Strong At Any Age

Karen

Speaking of badass old people, I found Joan MacDonald on Instagram (via Swole Woman) who started weight training with her daughter at age 71 and now can do things I can’t (like pull ups):

 

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A post shared by Joan MacDonald (@trainwithjoan) on

Sure the physical transformation is amazing (let’s hear it for squat butt! yay Joan!) but her captions are really great, too. From this post:

Don’t ever tell yourself you can’t do something. Lots of people my age have gotten to a point where they are so afraid of failing at something that they don’t allow themselves to try something new. I had that mindset too and it didn’t serve me. Making myself learn new things, new apps, learning how to use an I-phone, learning Spanish, learning how to meditate, learning how to exercise properly, heck all of the things I have been trying to learn to do these past two years have made me a better version of who I am today.

Tuesday Project Roundup: More Gym Tights

Karen

Still going to the gym, still making tights for the gym, still waiting to get my bench bigger, which is why I’m still going to the gym four days a week.  I have to remind myself that 16 months ago I could barely use the 10 pound dumbbells to bench press, so I am making progress. But my upper body progress is slooooooow.

Anyway. Now that I’m at the gym in the mornings, I have to pay a little more attention to when class ends so I can get to work, which means I’m reaching for my tights with pockets more. So here’s another pair of Greenstyle Super Gs with phone pockets: The fabric on these was a lucky find from Fashion Fabrics Club–brushed nylon Supplex (my favorite tights base) that’s super soft and luxurious. The burnt orange is very fashion-y, too.

Here’s a slightly better lit still from a form check video that shows the pockets in the side panels. This is 70 pounds, which is 80% of my max of 85 pounds, and it was moving pretty well. Slow and steady, right?

 

Friday Links

Karen

1. I didn’t get a new max on bench on Tuesday, but last night was max effort on deadlifts (my favorite) and I broke my last record by 15 pounds–for 150 pounds! More than my body weight! Soon, I will deadlift a car.

2. I didn’t realize this but Heather Havrilesky, quoted yesterday, writes the Ask Polly advice column for The Cut. (Again, Austin Kleon clued me in, this time via his newsletter.) This week’s column was like one of my therapy sessions, i.e. very true to how my anxious brain gets worked up about something and how I get called out (gently) for thinking instead of feeling. (That is praise; you should read it.)

3. We got a lot of snow Wednesday; it’s already starting to melt and today is going to be over 50 degrees. It’s time to break out this quote from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe:

And now the snow was really melting in earnest and patches of green grass were beginning to appear in every direction…Every moment the patches of green grew bigger and the patches of snow grew smaller. Every moment more and more of the trees shook off their robes of snow. […]

“This is no thaw,” said the Dwarf [to the White Witch], suddenly stopping. “This is spring. What are we to do? Your winter has been destroyed, I tell you!”