Don’t Like - Being Humbled By 5lb Weights
I haven’t been to the gym in a while. In January, I was doing an overhead press with a 20lb weight and lost my form. I felt my shoulder do a small psych-out move that would probably constitute some form of a mini dislocation. It feels fine now but looking back, the reason it happened in the first place is because, despite having spent a lot of time in the gym, I don’t really know how to work out. I’d get on the machines and do the lifts I saw other people do, but it’s not like I had some game plan. I was just there to get my heart rate up and maybe build some muscle. So perhaps it’s unsurprising that I hurt myself. Now though, I do home workouts with my girlfriend. She subscribes to a low-impact, strength-training-focused online fitness program called EVLO. Every workout is about thirty-ish minutes and focuses on specific muscle groups. The classes exist somewhere between physical therapy and a personal trainer session. Their goal isn’t to lift heavy, but rather to make sure you’re lifting the right way in a continuous motion until you’re almost at the point of muscle failure. It’s surprising how little weight you need to get a lot out of certain basic exercises. The worst for me is the lying shoulder abduction with a 5lb weight. To do them, I lie on my side, extend my arm out straight across my body, grip my 5lb weight, and then lift and lower my arm. Then I keep lifting until I’m no longer able. This always happens sooner than I expect even though it’s only 5lbs, which will feel like an attack on my masculinity. But alas, I have to separate out the fact that I’m not Arnold in Pumping Iron, I’m a 32-year-old copywriter who spends of his day sitting on his computer at a desk. Ultimately, it’s ok though, at least I’m not getting hurt.