Sunday, April 24, 2011

When Worlds Collide

In which I pretend to love the pool.
During my spring break, on the morning I was scheduled to leave Bellingham on a 5 a.m. flight, I went to the gym at 3:30 a.m. I’m not even sure I was entirely conscious, but I was enlivened by an indisputable pre-dawn vigor that made me suit up and go. Despite some minor evidence to the contrary, I don’t actually have a raging and incurable case of OCD; I realize that missing a few workouts isn’t going to reverse months of hard work. I went to the gym before my flight because I’m in a zone where exercising just feels good. Interrupted rarely by the DIAs, I find myself craving time at the gym, where endorphin production is a surer thing than outside, trapped under endless grayness and weeks without sunshine.

Even though I’m setting forth on a summer full of triathlons, I don’t define myself athletically as a triathlete; I like swimming but really only outside; I enjoy biking, but only if the sun’s shining, and  I love running on the rare days my Achilles’ tendons don’t feel like they’re being  sliced by knives. Instead, I’m pursuing a less definable aim, and I'm not sure what the target even looks like or exactly how I'll know when I get there. I want to become as fit as I can--as strong and fast as is possible right now.

There are competitions that measure the results of this behavior: women's fitness events that suck up entire weekends, and require dance routines and a lot of body oil. If I’m going to strip down to fancy panties and a bra and gloss myself up all slippery-like, I prefer to do it in the privacy of my own bedroom, where there’s a chance of a backrub and a nap afterward. Besides, my goal isn't to be better than other people, it's to be better than my previous self.

My routine consists of a healthy dose of caffeine and Lady Gaga followed by a cardio warm-up and a  circuit of weight-lifting, resistance training, and plyometrics. On an upper body day, one of those circuits is bench-press, then run up and down the stairs 5 times, then do 50 crunches; I repeat this 3 times and then move on to the next body part; I vary the ab exercises with each circuit and alternate between running stairs and step-ups on a bench. Sometimes, for entertainment value, I step on a medicine ball or load just half of the barbell when bench-pressing and then try to lift it. This kind of stuff keeps me humble. 

I’ve heard women express fears of becoming “bulked up” by using weight-training to gain strength; I think they imagine those ‘roided-up man-faced, bearded she-males from the Arnold Schwarzenegger era of 1980’s body-building. But fears of bulging, veiny arms bursting from delicate sleeveless summer dresses are needless—if you see a woman with baseball biceps, there’s a 99% chance she’s worked really, really hard to attain that muscularity and/or she’s had some pharmaceutical help. Women just don’t naturally have the testosterone required for massive muscle growth. Even Jennifer Thompson, current women's bench-press record holder, is petite and toned--she is 5'5", weighs 132 pounds, and benches 325 pounds. I think you'll agree that she doesn't look anything but fit and healthy.

Most of what I know about weight and strength training I’ve learned at the gym from other lifters:  former high school wrestlers, personal trainers willing to work with me for a session or two, the occasional flirt who will show me a technique. And, of course, (big shocker here) books. My current favorite is The Women's Health Big Book of Exercises, which has dozens of moves and good pictures, as well as sidebars with scientifically documented facts about training with weights, and I also recommend Women's Strength Training Anatomy by Frederic Delavier, which has exercises illustrated with amazing drawings, and for an all-in-one exercise and nutrition program that is easy to follow, has a minimal time requirement, and really works, Bill Phillips’ Body for Life.  

Worlds collided during spring break, when I left Gold’s, was bumped from my flight at BLI, and spent 2 ½ hours on an airporter to Seattle reading Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder, a memoir by Samuel Fussell about his body-building experiences in the late 80s. Fussell, an Oxford grad, turns to body-building after enduring harassment—at 6’4” and 170 pounds, his scrawniness is a magnet for bullies. Over 2 years, he gained 80 pounds and competed for several Californian titles, and then chronicled the whole adventure. Bodybuilding has changed a lot since the 80s, but Fussell's story is informative and entertaining nevertheless; and inspiring  for its focus on what a determined individual can physically accomplish. I'm not going to move to Venice Beach, like he did, or start drinking raw eggs for breakfast, but I do have support, time, energy, and motivation. "It's an ambition to create something out of yourself that isn't there to start with," Fussell writes, and that's my explanation, too: what can I be? And what will I learn on the way?