OK, so that's not totally true, but right now my body is aching in places I didn't even know I had muscles, and Ronn is the only person I can pinpoint for the pain. (Smile.) My biceps are killing me, my abs are screaming out in agony, and my upper legs are sore as can be. And all for what? So I can look good? Hell, maybe I'd rather be fat. I'm kidding, of course. I knew this wasn't going to be easy, and I knew that there was some pain involved. It's just too bad that the pain can't be contained to the pain I feel when I'm at the gym. Why do I gotta carry it home with me?
OK, that's enough of the whining. I know it's all temporary anyway. Ronn says that I'll look back on this in a week or two when the soreness stops coming and laugh. Well, maybe so, but I'm not laughing now. Nor was I last night when I got home from my third and most intense workout yet. Last night was all about legs, which are usually the easiest for me to work out, but also the one area of my body that makes me feel the most worn out after I've worked them.Anyway, I got to the gym a little late last night (damn that L.A. traffic), so Ronn took me right upstairs to stretch me out. He went even deeper with the stretches than he had before, which was not very pleasant at all. Funny, I don't remember stretching before gym class in school to be that painful. Ouch!
Then Ronn put me to work on one of those big balls that have become so popular in gyms now. He had me do some "sit-ups" or crunches or something to that effect while on the ball, then he had me lay down and put the ball between my feet and hoist it into the air and twist it back and forth with my legs. As I soon found out, this looked a lot easier when Ronn was demonstrating it.
Anyway, Ronn then stood over me facing the other direction while I was lying down and had me lift my feet to his hands. He gave my feet a swift push and told me to resist letting them fall to the floor. This is a pretty intense ab workout, in case you haven't tried it yet. It's notone of my favorites. Usually it's not a problem for me to put my legs up in the air (mmm-kay?), but last night, I was only able to get my feet back up to his hands maybe three out of the 10 times he wanted me to do it. Still, I fought to get them back up. "That's good," Ronn said. "I like that you don't give up. Every time you fail, you get a lot out of it, so just keep trying to get your legs back up in the air."After that, Ronn tried to get me to balance myself on this half-ball thing that you're supposed to stand on. Fat chance for me. I have terrible coordination and balancing skills, and though I was able to stand and support myself, I couldn't complete a single one of the squat exercises that Ronn wanted me to do. Every time I tried to squat down, I would lose my balance and fall off the damned thing. Ronn says we're going to make this one of our goals. Gee, I'm thrilled.
Downstairs, Ronn put me to work on several more machines, including one where I had to support a barbell on my shoulders and do leg squats that killed my ass and upper legs. Ouch, sweetie, ouch! As we did more and more exercises on different machines, I began to realize that my legs maybe weren't as developed as I'd thought they were, but Ronn did comment a few times that I had strong legs, so I guess maybe I do. They just don't look as good as they used to when I was younger. Oh well.
All in all, it was a pretty good workout, though a very taxing one. Ronn ended it with another sit-up ab routine, and again, I failed to complete just one rep. "That's another goal," he said. "In two weeks, you're going to be able to do five of those."
"Whatever you say, master," I replied. God knows I would certainly prefer not to feel like such a wuss, but my abs are sore from two nights of working out already, and every other muscle in my body is now aching as well, especially my biceps, which are killing me. So my body just seems to be saying, "Sorry, but no can do."Still, I feel good from the workout. I feel like I'm accomplishing something. It's also affecting me emotionally as well. I'm not sure what triggered it, but as soon as I pulled into my parking space at my apartment complex last night, I just started crying. Not like tears-streaming-down-my-face-in-fits-of-sobs crying, but an odd combination of crying and laughing that just washed over me and that I couldn't stop. It was like that moment when Robert de Niro breaks down in Analyze This. There were no tears, but it was this intense release of emotion that suddenly came pouring out of me. It only lasted about 30 seconds, but afterwards, I felt refreshed, like I'd just relieved myself of a lot of pent-up stress or something. I'm not sure if that's normal or not, but it was so weird and so natural all at the same time that I found it to be rather refreshing.
And, of course, today I'm even more sore, and this time I'm feeling it everywhere. I'm not sure what Ronn has planned for me tonight, but I sure hope he doesn't want to work on my biceps again! OUCH!
(Pics by Kevin Cazares)
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