Working out has been a part of my daily (okay, okay…weekly) routine on and off for the past 18 years. Understandably during that time there have been some situations that did not turn out exactly according to plan. And now, dear reader, I will share them with you for your own entertainment:
What’s Your Density?
The University of Arizona campus recreation center is full of state-of-the-art cardio and weight lifting equipment that draws in all kinds of students to show off in front of one another…I mean to work toward their health and fitness goals and avoid the dreaded Freshman 15. During my own freshman year, my friend invited me to go to the gym with her one night.
Up until that point, my workouts usually consisted of Tae Bo or running around the track at my old middle school. I’m pretty sure that night was the first time I had ever set foot in a weight room. Anyway, my friend showed me how to use some of the intimidating machines and my discomfort about looking stupid faded away a little more with each rep.
We were about to finish up our workout when a good-looking guy with big muscles and dark skin walked across the weight room and right up to us.
“Hey. I’m Karl with a K,” he said extending his hand. At that point in my life, my experience with guys was about as extensive as my experience with weights, so it took me a second to realize he was waiting for me to shake his hand.
“I’m Beth,” I finally replied.
“Cool. Cool. I noticed you from across the gym. What’s your density?” he asked. I stared at him blankly for a few seconds trying to figure out if that was some kind of weight lifting term of which I was not yet aware.
“What?” I said after an extremely long pause and a lot of blinking.
“What’s your density?” he asked again. I looked at my friend to see if she understood and she shook her head.
“Sorry, I don’t know,” I said, quickly feeling like I was losing IQ points by the second.
“Are you Spanish?” he asked and I suddenly realized he was asking for my ethnicity. And that was the last time I worked out in the weight room at the University of Arizona campus recreation center.
Runner’s Delight
Later that same year, another friend and I decided to try some workout classes together. After sampling a few, we decided that our favorite class was kickboxing, which was led by Jason. Only he had a lisp, so he pronounced it “Jathon.”
We felt really good and strong after class one day. “Do you want to maybe go and run?” Micala asked as we walked out of the multipurpose room.
“Sure!” I said and we made our way up to the indoor track. Every track I had ever run on operated the same way: four laps equals one mile. Without any reason to believe this one was different, Micala and I stretched a little and started on our way.
We finished two laps and felt so great that we were able to have an entire conversation as we ran. Man! We are getting into great shape, I thought as we rounded the bend of the third lap. We finished lap four and decided to walk a couple of laps to cool down for the day.
As we were reaching the very end of the second cool down lap, I noticed a sign on the wall that said, “Eleven laps equals one mile.” Eleven laps. And we had done four. That means we had completed about 36 percent of a mile. No wonder we felt like it was such an easy run.
Workout fail.
MacGyver Mat
Some workouts are really hard on your body. When I do home workouts in a place that does not have carpet, I tend to use a thick yoga mat to try to break up some of the force of jumping on a hard surface. Usually the yoga mat is all I need.
Enter Insanity Max 30. This workout is pretty much a jump fest for the full thirty minutes from the warm up to the cool down. And guess what. A yoga mat does nothing to help.
I struggled through the workouts for a few weeks and had to opt for the modifier version of more moves than I wanted. Each morning I woke up and my bones literally hurt. I guess that’s what happens when you do jumping jacks and burpees and tuck jumps on ceramic tile. I managed to complete the workouts, but I knew I wasn’t getting as much of a burn as I could be getting and that was making me mad.
Refusing to let a ceramic floor get the best of me, I started on a quest to find a solution. I tried to buy a thicker workout mat. It didn’t help.
“I know!” I said defiantly under my breath as I walked the aisles in Target…as soon as I made sure no one was within earshot “I’ll get an area rug!” With an I’m-so-smart smirk, I started toward the home décor section of the store. An area rug had to work just like carpet, right? This plan was definitely fool proof.
As I got to the rug aisle and my eyes excitedly passed over cute pattern over cute pattern, I got more excited about this idea. But then I looked at the price tags. Seventy dollars for an area rug that I would abuse with my sneakers and sweaty body? No thank you.
Sigh. Okay, back to the drawing board. I returned to the exercise aisle and looked more closely at the sport rubber tiles I initially decided against. Each package contained four tiles that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. I decided to try my luck.
After working out one time, I could tell that this was not my perfect solution, but I was getting closer! The rubber definitely helped to lesson the impact of the jumping, but the squares came apart and slid on the floor, which made me feel like a baby giraffe learning to walk…across rubber tiles that slid around the floor.
The next day I channeled my inner MacGuyver and decided that I was going to best this floor once and for all. I returned to the décor section of the store, ready to begrudgingly throw down more than I wanted to spend to get an area rug. Just as I was reaching for the cheapest rug I could find, I saw something magical out of the corner of my eye.
There, sitting nonchalantly on the shelf was an anti-slip pad that you place UNDERNEATH area rugs. As soon as I picked one up, I knew I found a winner. Not only would these stay in place on the ceramic tile, but they would also provide even more impact resistance. Huzzah!
I returned to the workout section one last time to pick up another set of the rubber tiles. When I got home, I taped the underside of the tiles together so they would not break apart and placed them on top of the no slip pad. My MacGuyver mat helped me complete the best Insanity workout to date. Victory!
But I’m not going to lie, I was way more proud of myself for figuring out the mat situation than completing such a hard workout.