There! I have accomplished sweating in the gym. After over a year of regular exercise, and seven months regular attendance at the gym, I had reached the point where I was reading magazines on the aerobics machines, and looking up with gentle surprise when the time was up. No sore muscles, no sweat. It sort of crept up on me. I realized it when I was setting my goals for the year.
I tried going more frequently and for a longer time (Frequency, Intensity, Time), but still wasn’t getting that masochistic — or, rather, healthy pleasure of slight suffering. Then I walked to work a few times. Same length of time, but I felt as though I were getting a little exercise. Still not much in the way of sweat and no sore muscles, but at least a slight sense of effort. I turned around to look at my path and noticed that it was straight uphill.
So I have added incline, added weight, added reps. I am trying to pay attention and work harder. And I think I am succeeding at last. Today, I had to breathe seriously at the wieght machines, and I was staring at the stair climber time readout waiting for it to be over when my session ended, and felt a sense of accomplishment at not having quit. Maybe I will even have sore muscles tomorrow.
This is still a long way from my fit youth. I could not possibly make it through a ballet class. Everyone else in the gym increases the weight on the machines when they follow me (the New Year’s Resolution People are gone.) I still look like someone’s mom. But there is a lot of satisfaction in a good workout.
That’s rather impressive.
Keep up the good work
and keep it copasetic. Peace.
Sounds like you’re doing great. I spent some time at the gym this morning. I rode the incumbent bike and lifted weights. Day after tomorrow I’ll do the same, but I may add a mile jog on the treadmill to my routine. I try to vary what I do and have been exercising at the Y regularly for almost 2 years and I still look like someones mom AND there are a bunch of seniors that are tougher than me!! But, it’s true, there is a lot of satisfaction in a good workout.
Woooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk out! Yea! I have only been doing stomach exercises. I feel I get plenty of that aerobic nonsense.
I bet you could make it through a ballet class – at least through a grown-up’s ballet class. Barre work and adage give a good workout (but my balance in adage is still not wonderful) Allegro – well ok that’s somewhat more weary-making. Pirouettes – Yuck! I couldn’t spot very well as a kid in ballet and adulthood hasn’t improved that. I am however better at pretending I’m not dizzy now than I was at 11 yrs old. Thankfully we don’t have to do pointe work as adults. As a pre-vocational ballet student I looked forward with eager anticipation to my first pair of pointe shoes (no demi-pointes in those days). It didn’t take long however to realise that pointe shoes were really instruments of torture designed by males to torture females. They were actually invented sometime in the 1820s. Even on pointe at 12 I never looked or felt like a sylph 🙂