FeralGoth’s BodyBlog

Just had a (non-fitness) friend tell me last night that I "needed to stop lifting heavy weights" and that I "shouldn’t get any bigger" and that "don’t you want to still look like a girl?!"   I told her she sounded like my mother* and changed the subject.  I don’t think we’re going to be hanging out as much in the future.  I don’t tell her what to do, even in my areas of expertise, unless asked.  Funny that the idea of "being stronger" is repellent to her, but who gets called when she needs furniture moved?  That’s right… me.   Sigh.  And let’s face it, I’m not "big" in any stretch of the imagination, only now do I think I’m approaching "balanced".

*Mom’s actually gotten more supportive, since the whole personal training thing, and the fact that some of her favorite celebrities are starting to "look more toned" as she puts it.  UGH THAT WORD… "toned"  Don’t start me on the "toned" rant.  OMG.

I have had this little black index card box for over 2 years now - and it is stuffed to the gils with all the workouts I have done during that time period (except for stuff done following a video, or a live training session where I’m following along etc. even then I make some notes).   Its fun to grab one from the beginning and look at the serious strength progress over time - I do that when going through a patch of low motivation, or to remember an old favorite exercise I haven’t done in a while.  Each one has the date and time of the workout and (if I’m not working out at home) there are sometimes little coded notes to myself on the back if I have had some personal interaction while at a gym etc - if something bad or creepy happens, I can make a time adjustment for next time and hopefully not run into them, or conversely if there is someone cool that I can trade off spotting with, or work in with, I will make sure to show up at the same time in the future  (AP = annoying people, VAP = very annoying people, C!= creepy, VC=very cool people, VCM=very cool motivating people, SB=spotbuddy, CR=crowded)   Its good to mix it up (which I know all of you know).   These days I’ll pull 4-5 blank index cards at a time and plan out a week in advance.   This kinda makes me sound a little weird, doesn’t it?  How do you organize your workouts??

So, there’s this small fiasco going on on the personal training forum, I posted a question asking how other trainers motivate their clients and nestled in with a bunch of good advice is someone telling me to "clean myself up" as if I am dirty or something?  (Dude, I gave up on that hippie deoderant YEARS ago… that stuff doesn’t work).  Some people continued to give some good client motivating ideas, while others chose to fixate on telling me things about how I look.   I know what I look like, and I know how people react to it… I’m 31 and this isn’t a freaking news flash.  The truth is, I’m not interested in the typical mainstream client, I may end up having a few, but the clients I’m most interested in helping are the ones who would never consider working with a barbie/ken looking trainer.  You know all those "fat girl" clients you don’t want?  Well, I don’t have a problem with them, and heck, I even want to help them improve their lifestyle.  They might not want to hire you because you’ll probably give them crap about what they wear to the gym… and since I won’t be constantly picking on them… they might do something crazy - like following my advice.
Which got me thinking… I was trying to remember why I hated P.E. back in school so much… it was because of the lame coaches always giving me a hard time about stuff NOT RELATED to my physical performance.  I would show up with a good attitude, never talking out of turn, never giving anyone even a slight bit of trouble.  For instance we had this one doofus who was supposed to be teaching us tennis, I had been taking private lessons on the weekends from a Dutch tennis pro and had developed a fairly wicked serve (he was not told about this), did he focus on teaching me other aspects of tennis?  NO, he gave me unending crap about the fact that I wore black socks to P.E.  This plus the blistering sun helped me to develop a rotten attitude about tennis.  Truth be known, I haven’t played since, which is a real shame, because I’m pretty ok at it and it may be a fun way to meet some new friends.   Socks aside, it seems like throughout my past, as long as there was some dang ex-football coach male teaching P.E. that same male was giving me a hard time about some aspect of my style (thanks for picking on my Chuck Taylors you jerk) which once again, had no bearing on safety or athletic performance.  I wasn’t even on a team for crying out loud, I was just fulfilling a graduation requirement.   At the same time, I sure *didn’t* have a rotten attitude about going to the YMCA and working out, or even participating in a step aerobics class (1993), no one gave me any bs at the YMCA…. and I got a better workout.
So…. what potential clients out there have had similar experiences?  As long as that client is wearing workout clothing that is safe, does not restrict their movement, and covers the legal areas then we’re good… I sure as hell will NEVER pick on anyone because of how they look when they’re my client, and if someone else does, I will support and defend my client so that they know I am on their side and want them to keep working out.  Would you continue going somewhere when you know that every time you went, someone would pick on you about something?   No wonder I keep meeting people who are afraid to ask others for help with fitness…

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in the backyard hanging from monkey bars, climbing trees, hanging on to trapese swings, climbing rope ladders, accidentally doing a lot of what essentially were wacky forms of chin ups.   Recently I’ve discovered that through some of my training I am getting close to what I as a tiny 60 lb kid used to be able to do.  Thats right, chinups.  Most adults can’t do them, especially women, which of course means that I am morally obligated to work on such things, because I’m wired that way.   About 6 months ago I could do 2, 3 on a good day, Monday I did 9.  Wednesday I managed to squeak out another one for an even 10.  After jumping up from the ground to grab the bar (been working on vertical jump as well - YAY PLYOMETRICS) - that was really funny because I wasn’t honestly expecting to be able to reach it, I jumped from a squat position and the next thing I knew the bar was in my hands and I was off the ground.  Crazy stuff!!!   Now I’m trying to remember what else I used to be able to do - I will say this though, when you’re a kid, skipping rope is waaaay easier than it is now - seriously, it seems like jumping rope will KILL YOU the first few times.

I was just poking around the internet and happened upon Gwineth Paltrow talking about her (and Madonna’s) personal trainer, Tracy Anderson and how she likes training for that "long lean look", adding that "that hard gym body look doesn’t look good on women" .  Why do so many women want noodle-like arms+legs?  To me that makes their waist, trunk, hips, etc. look so much bigger?  Has my perception been warped?  Is it because I think women with even a slightly developed muscular body should be the new ideal?  Or that I’m PROUD of my genetic propensity to put on a little bulk here and there?  Does Gwineth Paltrow think I should be ashamed of my new TOTALLY ROCKING SHOULDERS I’ve worked so hard on?  Or my superior ability to burn calories?  I think she can stuff it!  There needs to be some new "female ideals" out there, damn it.  I mean, I know who I look up to - and they lift heavy.
A note to noodle-appendage celebrities: shut up and look pretty.

On the flip side of this, I know, as someone who is studying to be a personal trainer that I am going to run into this many many times, and that I will be working with female clients who "don’t want to bulk up" etc.  And oddly enough, I’m ok with that.  One of my best friends is in that school of thought and we’ve put together a nice endurance workout that she can do at home with light weights.  I know I’m going to have several to many clients who "don’t want to look like me" and thats cool, I’m used to that, I mean damn I have facial piercings, over half my head shaved, and dreadlocks.  But I will tell you this - I think minds may be changing, when I show up at the club/around town in a totally hot dress, people are starting to think - hey, maybe muscles on a woman ARE attractive after all!

Fully back on track after vacation, I’ve even been to the condo pool a few times more - its funny, my friends have really noticed my upgraded look - and have asking stuff like HOW did you get those abs?!?!  Seems like I won’t have too much trouble getting some clients right here in the condo complex - how convenient for everyone would that be!!!

With a recent shipment of Nitrotech bars (which I am currently addicted to just a little bit - not sure why the "strawberry cheesecake" tastes as good -in a weird way- as it does) bodybuilding.com sent along a free magazine which had an article about putting random short fitness info podcasts onto your mp3 player when you work out - and then shuffling them between songs at random - the article implied that you are more apt to learn when info is interspersed between favorite songs.   I’m going to download a few podcasts, but most importantly I’m going to make a few of my own from my ACE personal training material to help me study - I’ll let you know if it improves my retention of info.  Sure can’t hurt! :)

Saw my "crazy MMA friend" at the club last night, and he’s doing quite well for himself, maybe has a fight scheduled for next month - might have to go and cheer him on.  We talk training at the club while everyone else is drunk, its pretty funny.  He’s doing this strange thing now sleeping in some kind of oxygen tent that approximates a higher altitude to try and increase his VO2max - sounds weird to me, but to each their own!

From my Mom’s side of the family comes the dreaded booty, the "ba-dunk-a-dunk-WHUMP" as I sometimes call it.  Sometimes the object of jokes in our family, or a really easy way to spot us in crowds… I was always embarrassed by mine as a teenager and was almost horrified to find out years after high school that it had had its own little "fan club" within my group of male friends: "Those pleated skirts you wore DROVE US CRAZY!!!!"   It wasn’t that it was an ugly butt, its just that it was large and apple like and well, I was/am relatively small.  So, when you’re high school me, about 5′1", 110lbs clothed its a fairly obvious booty!   I remember "trying everything" to make it just a little bit smaller, even going so far as veganism and 10 day modified fasts (with cardio!) none of these things worked - they only made it sadly sag a little… which was WORSE!   About 6 months ago, I started to think about the lower body workouts I had done in the past and reflected that the kettlebell squats, deadlifts etc. had been helping - but not as much as I wanted them to… I have an extreme booty, so I need EXTREME results!  HAHA.  Seriously though, through the forums I came to one where someone was mentioning similar problems and within that thread Mindi911 recommended Supervixen by Negrita Jayde - which I went and purchased through Amazon, no pun intended.  Over the past couple of months I have been doing a fairly intense lower body workout at least twice a week and well.. FINALLY after over 15 years I am seeing significant results.   As we are sitting here right now I am confident enough to go to the beach and NOT swim wearing a pair of shorts over my bathingsuit.   This will be a first for many years - woowoo!   Anyway my relationship to the booty has improved because now, after lifting with it I see it less as an immovable obstacle and more of a power source.  Through my reading and studying of the personal training materials I’ve discovered that the glutes are one of the largest and strongest muscles in the body - I can really believe that now!  Who knows, in the next few months I might be actually PROUD of my booty…  crazy stuff!!! :)

The "that doesn’t look very feminine" nay-sayers have shown their heads.  Whatever.  I like how I look, so they can piss off.

So, last night, for the first time in over a year, my boyfriend decided to go to the workout room and lift some weights.   Previously he had only been doing cardio - and I found out why - about a year ago a trainer (during his free "trial session") told him that he just needed to do gobs and gobs of cardio to lose weight (he’s fairly large, especially around the middle) and not to worry about lifting anything.   GAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!  I didn’t find out about this until last night!  The good news is, he had been talking to a friend at work who was about his size 6 months ago, then began a program of lifting and moderately higher intensity cardio (elliptical machine), reasonable eating etc. and is now a nice healthy weight and feeling better.   After talking with this friend several times about his workout/success, he came to me last night and said, can you show me how those elliptical things work, and I’m going to lift a little too.  Granted, he did NOT like the elliptical machine, but kept at it for a fair 5 minutes, vowing to up the time gradually.  He then used mediumheavy weight on several upper body machines for 2 sets of 12 reps each — he experienced a little "ow, I haven’t done that in a really long time" but came away with a sense of accomplishment.  This morning when he work up, he still have that sense of accomplishment AND a little more energy - most importantly I think he feels like this is something he can do that will make a difference in his health and appearance.  Boy howdy can he complain though…. some of it is at least funny - during shoulder presses he says stuff like "AAAAAA!! Thats it!!! I’m saving up for lipsuction!!!" to which I reply, NO you may NOT borrow my shop-vac!

Really making some nice progress - by the time swimming season rolls around I may just have to actually *go outside*  maybe dust off the ol’ skimboard and use it as a fun excuse to do some sprints at the beach… who knows - its possible without being embarrassed about myself now…  and thats a great feeling.  I’ve even *gasp* picked out a bathing suit for such an occasion!!!  Woohoo!   Also doing some research into how some friends in my life with personality disorders have caused me a little damage - just a research has helped out a whole not - realizing - HEY!! I’m not the crazy one here, I just need to set up and stick to my personal boundaries.  Thats not so bad - and its been working :)

I really need to get around to posting a progress picture…. seriously…