gym adventures

You Know You’re a Fitness Nerd If… [My top 20 list!]

May 14, 2012
newshoes

…if “dressing up” means wearing your silver Nikes. Anyone who’s ever done weighted hip thrusts while having a serious conversation or watched two guys arm wrestle over the last jar of Pure Protein knows: Fitness is funny. The things we say, the things we do, and heaven help us, the things we WEAR. Every once in a while I take a step back and look at what I’m actually doing and it makes me giggle. So this weekend while I was laying on the floor doing my mandatory sets of butt clenches (excuse me, glute contractions) in the middle of the [...]

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Workout Leaving You Light-Headed? It’s perfectly normal. And you could die.

March 21, 2012

www.marriedtothesea.com Gym Buddy Allison and I share many similarities: young children, a deep love of garage sales and thrift stores, and the same dark hair/light skin that always makes people ask us if we are sisters. Or just confuse one of us for the other. (Hint: she’s the taller one with whiter teeth and shiny hair – basically what would happen if the Old Spice Guy knocked up the Pantene lady.) Recently we discovered we also share something else, albeit a mite more disconcerting than our preoccupation with our body fat percentage: We faint. That’s right, a condition normally associated [...]

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How To Prevent A Weight-Lifting Injury (And how to recover your pride when you do)

March 6, 2012

Um. Ow. Be afraid, be very afraid: There is a silent killer lurking in your gym. Oh you may think your daily sweat fests are protecting you from injury and disease but in reality those free weights are a ticking time bomb with your number on it. And not just because the last person to use them pooped and didn’t wash their hands before picking up that dumbbell. (Although that does happen too. That’s another downside of having the bathrooms right on the track at my Y. When you’re running by you can totally see if there is no pause [...]

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Gym Etiquette: Attack of the Space Invaders!

March 5, 2012

Stretching out my middle splits can be a little, well, intimate. It’s not that I intend to flash my crotch at the gym but accidents happen – running shorts or see-through tights are repeat offenders – and so to prevent any accidental uncomfortable moments I generally face the Gym Buddies (I don’t have anything they haven’t seen) or if they’re not available, a wall. (Side note: Gym Buddy Allison’s solution to this problem is to tuck her bright orange towel into the front of her pants like a twee little loin cloth. I love her for this.) So there I [...]

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Tourist Season at the Gym: What’s Your Pet Peeve?

January 4, 2012

It’s tourist season at the gym! And let me be the first to say that I love a lot of things about the first of the year New Resolution-ers. So much energy! So much enthusiasm! So much more laughter about the bizarre rules the Gym Buddies and I use to play basketball! (Laughing with us or at us? Considering we made Gym Buddy Allison do a personalized cheer that spelled out each of our names with her body when she lost, let’s go with both.) Truly I’m happy that more people are at the gym and working out. But. But [...]

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A Man Died At My Gym Today

November 28, 2011

A man died at my gym today. In the space between one breath and the next, his heart flailed. Then failed. Slumped to the floor, his next breath came not from within him but from without. An unnatural gift from a stranger. A gift that was not quite enough. He died shirtless, vulnerable and alone. Alone save for the strangers pumping his chest and the strangers – me – watching from the balcony above and the strangers staring from the entrance. A Greek chorus to witness a tragedy. This is not the first time I have seen someone die. Not [...]

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The Grossest Thing That Has Ever Happened to Me at the Gym [Badly Illustrated]

October 18, 2011

No Gym Buddies, no classes, no Experiments (we do NROLFW on M, W, F) – this morning at the gym I was left to my own devices. This happens to me so rarely that when it does I get a little giddy. What would I do if I could workout any way I wanted to? First I did Tabatas, which I hate but do because they’re so darn good for me (lie: it was because I thought Gym Buddy Allison might yet show up and I didn’t want to look like I was slacking). Then I ran a few miles [...]

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Should You Workout With Those You Work With? 5 Tips for Exercising With Coworkers

October 17, 2011

This would be an example of what not to wear. Naked is not good but Hannibal Lecter couture is way worse.  Judging from advice columnists and The Apprentice, working with your coworkers is tricky enough (Who knew clipping your toenails in your cube is the modern-day equivalent of lancing your Black Plague boils over the community well?) but add a little skin, sweat and spandex to the formula and working out with them is a whole new social minefield.  I’ll be honest, the last time I worked out with an official coworker (i.e. someone who is over 4 feet tall [...]

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The “Impossible Push-Up” – A Personal Challenge From Tony Horton [Plus: Lots & lots of gym shenanigans!]

October 10, 2011

As you may recall, I got to interview Tony Horton, founder of P90X and P90X 2 (due out in December). (How many times can I name-drop this before it just starts looking pathetic? I don’t care. I talked to Tony! And he said I could call him “Tony”! Or “Friend”! Whatever that means! Squeee!) Near the end of our interview he said, “Well you sound like you’re pretty strong.” Even though I’m well aware of the limitations of the telephone, I still gushed, “Thank yooouuuu!” To which he replied, “Do you want a real challenge?” He said the magic word! He [...]

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The No-Laps Pool Workout [Plus more workout tips, parenting articles and photoshoot outtakes!]

June 9, 2011

Some of you saw this pic when I Facebook/Tweeted it and were wondering what the Gym Buddies and I were doing at the bottom of the pool (and some of you also wondered how I have lived this long and not learned how to be underwater without plugging my nose – in my defense, in all the other pics I’m NOT plugging my nose but they turned out blurry so you’ll just have to take my word for it.) and now I can finally tell you about our Shape Magazine swimsuit photo shoot! (Never thought I’d be typing those words! [...]

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