An improvement on the basic weight glove
An improvement on the basic weight glove - These cover only the parts of your hands that get callusses and therefore breathe better. I am considering getting a pair: great price!
An improvement on the basic weight glove - These cover only the parts of your hands that get callusses and therefore breathe better. I am considering getting a pair: great price!
The closest I ever came to dying was over two years ago. Like many teenage near-death experiences, this one was entirely unexpected and so quickly recovered from that it barely registered as a blip on my adolescent radar screen. And yet, looking back now, I can frame the event in my mind: an inch or two one way, a half second more slowly or quickly, and I would exist either in a vegetative state or as a memory of existence, whose tenure on earth would be marked in cold marble on a sunny hill near a church in Woodbury.
I hustled over to the quad leg extension machine at Lifetime Fitness, trying to wrap (rap?) up my workout as quickly as possible. That’s when I looked in the mirror in front of me, and spotted Snoop Dogg walking on a treadmill just behind me. He wasn’t sweating. He wasn’t really dressed for working out. But I mean, if it really were Snoop Dogg, I am confident that he would be way too cool to do something like run. That’s not his style. He’s going to stroll … and look cool doing it.
I saw Snoop Dogg at Lifetime Fitness, my local gym. More on this tomorrow.
T9i Treadmill - I want this treadmill by Life Fitness. Also, they have some interesting text on their cardio homepage: “I am no longer aware of limitations.” Cool.
People are usually a little more talkative and relaxed in the weight room on Fridays, taking their workouts a little slower and shooting the breeze for a while. Some actually do not work out at all, but simply stand with their hand on a machine and talk nonsense. I looked like I was doing nothing, but I was actually between sets, and a guy walked up to me.
The best iPod case for sports - I’ve got a wonderful Burning Love case for when my iPod is at home with me (thank you, Mykala :), but I found that I need something a little more when I am running. This Incase case comes with wristband, armband, hard cover … everything you need for working out. Reasonable price, and a very rare flat A rating from Ilounge.com.
Most people who know me quickly learn I am a great fan of physical comedy: the bus rolls through the camera view, a crash is heard from screen left. Minister of Silly Walks. That stuff makes me laugh. In a departure from that usual style, I would like to formally recommend the following scene be added to whatever Stiller/Wilson/Vaugn/Ferrel movie approacheth from Hollywood’s ever-predictable jukebox stuck on repeat.
What if, everyday, people went outside and did something physical? I bet our workforce would be twice as productive if everyone slaving 9-5 could take a run on their afternoon break. Or even just run around. People’d be happier, healthier, able to cope with stress. Anti-depressant prescription rates would fall. Sleeping pills would drop off the market. Orthoscopic knee surgery rates would soar (or sore, as it were). Everyone’d be happier because they’d be healthier, and healthier because they were happier.
ROM Exercise - The price of this machine would pay for 12.5 years of a family membership at Lifetime Fitness. Is it worth it? You tell me.
I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. It was one of those simple encounters that really leaves an impact on you: I was lifting weights, and dropped down off a bar, my brain in its usual meditative/survival state that it drops into when my heart -rate is up for an extended period. So, it took me a while to absorb what was said when an older man walked past me, saying “ahh, to be young again.” The effect it had on me was surprising: suddenly, I was wondering what it was like to be old, what it means to wake up and think that there is a clock ticking somewhere inside of you.
In a glorious attempt to destroy any remaining shred of privacy I may have on this online journal, it is time to trace my running route. First, I had to trace it myself, trying to figure out how far it was. So, I bought a replacement battery for my bike distance tracker attachement. Adding an extra ‘e’ to that word gives it more authority. Anyhow, I went to the specialty battery store, which, at a sterile 66 degrees, was completely devoid of people except myself and the sales clerk. He asked me what I needed and I handed him the button battery from my bike attachement. He glanced at it for about two seconds, and walked around the counter to a shelf directly behind me, plucking a small battery from the shelf. I began to question to legitimacy of this man’s job. A battery store would be the ultimate application of the ‘self-serve’ check-out ideal: walk up to a store front about the size of an ATM, hand the machine your battery (or type in the words on the front of it), and you are able to select from the available batteries. It grabs them from an automatic stockroom, you pay, and it hands you a battery. The man in the battery store probably would not like this idea.
A bit over a week ago, I intentionally skipped my first workout in 4 years. There were a couple of times during that time when I was forced to not work out - I had my wisdom teeth out once, went on two trips, but that accounted for few and far between misses of my every-other-day schedule. In fact, I do not think I missed one workout in the past 18 months. Don’t mistake that statement as laced with any notes of pride - I learned hard lessons throughout that time, hurt people, alienated others, and battled in general to balance all parts of my life. My brain was in such a rut that it thought there would be some collapse if it didn’t get a a bi-daily endorphine rush associated with 1.5-2 hours of intense weightlifting.
The following documents my workout schedule for myself. I weigh 135 pounds, my 170% is benching 230 pounds, which is slightly under my one rep max on bench. Why am I sharing this? It’s certainly not an ego trip, this is just a convenient place to record this all. If you aren’t interested, (I know I wouldn’t be) then don’t read. Either way, I guess the world can see what my workout schedule is:
I forgot to mention (or maybe I forgot I wrote about) the basketball game we had going a couple of days ago. It was a lot of fun. Participants included me, Steve, John, Matt, Tommy, and Richard. Playing basketball in the summertime sure brings back memories. We’ve been playing every summer for four years straight. Back when we started I was a complete basketball novice - I credit basketball and fall football over there at Steve’s with helping me discover that I actually can handle sports. Tons of good memories of just plain fun competition, and relatively few serious injuries. Also, we took a picture of all of us at basketball - I plan to take that one to college; one needs to have some concrete memories of the summer. That is partly why I keep this log. Life is full of so many good times that it is good to be able to remember what actually happened. Regardless, my broken toe seems good enough to play basketball, and that’s great news.