TickleSpot Challenge #1: Hit the gym; don’t let the gym hit you

[Ed. note] Part One in a 12-part series of weekly adventures by Hailey Uhler. This week she hits the gym hard. Can she go every day for seven days without breaking something vital?

Yes, I realize it seems absolutely cliché to start out a new year by forcing myself to go to the gym. It’s not like I haven’t told myself to do this before (how curious that those endeavors always ended with me and a handful of Dove chocolates at the end of the night…okay, two handfuls) but never have I forced myself to use any of the scary weight equipment I haven’t tried before (read: anything except the seated row and lat pull-down). I’ll be the first to admit I have workout-anxiety—each time I go to the gym, I’m sure that every person there is staring at my love handles as they jiggle on the treadmill or the muscle-bound man 10 feet away is waiting for me to drop a 10-pound dumbbell on my foot. So, for a week, I decided to commit myself to exploring the gym daily, inhibitions aside. Ish.

Conditions:

I must use the gym every day for seven days.

I must try one new weight machine every day. No matter how long I have to stare at it before I figure out how it is used.

I must break no vital appendages in the process (you’ll have to take my word that this is a legitimate challenge).

Day 1:

Since I’m taking advantage of a free 7-day pass handed off by a friend, I’m required to have a chat with Jon, an Urban Active employee, whose main job, I’m pretty sure, is to talk in enough circles to confuse potential gym members into believing they’re getting a helluva discount by joining this gym. I smile and nod through Jon’s carefully rehearsed sales pitch, all the while wondering how I managed to walk onto the set of a Bo-flex commercial. Seriously. Every person here is unbelievably fit. Suddenly I feel like I should lose 15 pounds before I’m allowed to work out here.

Jon shakes my hand and sends me off to explore the fitness jungle. I hop on an elliptical for 30 minutes on the interval setting, my usual weapon of choice, and take in my surroundings. Each cardio machine comes equipped with a TV. Very nice. I turn mine on and it shows static and the dreaded “No signal” screen. No matter, I brought my iPod and I’ve got a good mix on shuffle.

30 minutes later, I’m drenched in sweat. Has it really been that long since I’ve had a decent workout? The holiday cookies on my hips say yes. I muster my pride and move over to the weight machines. I sit down at one and try to appear as if I’m nonchalantly catching my breath while I furiously study the instruction diagram on this machine. I finally decide that if I push up on these handles, then I’ll be using it correctly. Here we—oh, wrong. Pull down. Got it. Oh, I see now. In no time, I’m two sets deep in a triceps-burning fury. Jillian Michaels, eat your heart out.

Day 4:

Pulling myself out of bed this morning is a challenge. Have I aged 50 years overnight? I lift my arms to stretch and wince almost immediately. Yowww. The things I do for honest reporting, really.

I drag myself to the gym and onto the elliptical for my cardio adventure. As I get my heart pumping I survey my fellow exercisers from my second floor vantage. The good news is I’ve discovered where the good-looking men of Columbus, Ohio go on their lunch breaks. Hello, gentlemen. If I wasn’t the kind of girl who sweats like a dude and smells like feet after she works out, I might be happier about this discovery.

I forgot my iPod today, so I spend my workout people-watching. A cute blond with rockin’ calf muscles makes his way through the free weights and settles onto the leg press. I watch him add disc after disc of extra weight on both ends of the bar until there’s no more room. I count the discs on one side. Six. I do some mental math and realize he has 270 lbs. on each side of the bar (this takes a minute, as my math skills leave something to be desired). The man is about to lift 540 pounds using only his legs. I stare in disbelief as he does two full sets with the weight of three grown men.

My pathetic cardio workout suddenly feels like it’s for a senior citizen. Going to the gym is really killing my self-esteem.

The weight machine I try today is for legs. I sit down, thinking this exercise should be fairly simple— I just watched Iron Man lift a quarter of a ton, how complicated can a few leg lifts be?

Pretty complicated. The first challenge is figuring out how I’m supposed to wind my legs over and under these bars. And then I lift—no, that’s wrong. Hmm. Oh, kick back to draw my legs behind me. This is strange. I’m making a face when I turn to my left and see John Mayer’s twin stretching with an amused look on his face, not five feet away. I blush and quickly finish my set. I knew I should have put mascara on before I left the house today.

Day 7:

It’s the last day of my first TickleSpot Challenge, and I have to say, I’m ready for a break. I do feel much better for having exercised consistently over the past week; however, I’m feeling a bit burnt out today. Maybe seven days straight was a tad ambitious.

My cardio routine is the same as it has been all week—30 minutes on my favorite elliptical. I’ve been reading up on the benefits of my challenge—that is, the weight lifting portion. As it turns out, by adding strength training to your workout, you can burn 30-50 more calories per pound of muscle you gain. The experts recommend strength training 3-4 days a week for optimum results.

Today, I decide to face the beast I’ve been avoiding all week long: The Ab Blaster. That’s not its technical name, just the one I’ve given it based on watching people use the equipment all week. At first glance, it looks like an arcade-style basketball shoot-out game with a long bench attached. In actuality, I am to sit down on the bench facing the canvas “hoop,” grab a medicine ball, lean back with the ball above my head, then sit up and toss the ball into the hoop. Repeatedly.

Wearily, I put my iPod away (no sense in ruining my mp3 player AND breaking my nose) and have a seat on the bench. I reach for a medicine ball—oofh, those are heavy—and convince myself that the integrity of journalism depends on my completion of this challenge.

After my first 10 reps, I’m sure I’ve given myself an ulcer and take a moment to make sure I haven’t. Maybe I overreacted. Okay. 10 more.

With a final grunt, I toss the last medicine ball into the hoop. Success!

TickleSpot Challenge #1: completed.

Hitting the gym every day allowed for plenty of thinking time, mainly about body image. In looking around the gym, I saw a good percentage of attendees who likely fell into the “8% body fat or less” category, while the others were working to get there. I belong in the latter group, to be sure, but I realized that there has to be more to it than that for people to come back to the gym each day (unless they, too, are masochistic reporters chronicling their experiences).

What I found by the end of the week is that I actually enjoyed the way my muscles felt after testing a new weight machine. I liked adding an extra five minutes to my time on the elliptical, just to see if I could take it. I wanted to challenge myself to find out if three sets of triceps dips were too many (they were!). I realized that these incredibly fit people must find joy in issuing similar challenges to themselves. For me, I came to the realization that regular fitness isn’t just about looking great, it’s about pushing limits and finding out how much your body can actually do.

And, of course, the eye candy isn’t so bad, either.

Related posts:

1. TickleSpot Challenge #2: Drop the Hairbrush Microphone