The Gym

I’ve had an on again off again relationship with the gym since I was 15. That’s when Josh Lucas saved my life by convincing me to play on the freshman lacrosse team with him. That spring I lost thirty pounds and turned from a pumpkin back into a real boy, like the love child of Cinderella and Pinocchio. Since then I’ve gone through periods of extreme discipline where I worked out twice a day and kept a 1200 calorie diet; and binges where I ate fast food for a week straight, and the only sport I played was Madden. After bellying up to within fifteen pounds of my heaviest ever, I’ve spent the last month on an exercise kick. Since my return to pumping iron, I have rediscovered all the things that I love about the gym, and the things that I hate.

Not nearly as many calories burned as the hours wasted. Source.

THINGS I LOVE

I love how going to the gym makes me feel. Working out always gives me an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. If you go in with a workout plan, you are constantly meeting goals; from improving specific muscle groups, down to individual sets and reps. The more consistently I work out the better it gets, because eventually I meet weight and clothing size goals as well. And I know I’m not the only one who enjoys the after burn of a great workout. I don’t know if it’s because of a psychological link that gets created between muscle fatigue and success, or if it’s just human nature; but I’m always happy when I’m sore. The gym gives you a place where you can “hurt so good” and stay clothed. That thought leads us to the biggest perk of all, endorphins. For those of you who skipped biology, endorphins are the chemicals that get released into your brain to distract you when you’re in pain or eating spicy food; or to reward you for having sex. I’ve never left the gym thinking “Why did I work out? Now I’m stuck with all these damn endorphins for the next few hours….”

The cobra stretch confuses sex and working out almost as badly as endorphins. Source.

I love how going to the gym makes me look. The number one reason why people work out is to lose weight. Whether they’re obese and trying to make a lifestyle change, or just want to drop ten pounds before beach season; the average consumer will spend about $500 on gym memberships this year. Don’t expect me to condemn that expense, I contribute to that statistic. Like it or not, in our society it’s not just what’s on the inside that counts. It’s been my experience that even if you have an amazing personality, if you’ve wrapped that personality in bacon… you’re sleeping alone. When I’m working out consistently, my shirts are looser in the middle and tighter in the arms. In fact, even in the places I’m still stubbornly flabby; I think the fat hangs better. It doesn’t matter if I’ve only dropped five pounds, my self-image gets much sexier, and that makes both my self-esteem and self-confidence sky rocket.

Personality is literally the only thing that people won’t accept when its bacon wrapped. Source.

I love the escape I get when I’m working out. For an hour every day you can let your mind go completely blank, and focus solely on whatever exercises you want to do; unless you’re a complete psychopath and make yourself watch the news while you’re on the treadmill. One of the best parts of my escape is that I get to really listen to music. I usually have something on in the background all day, but I don’t get to lose myself in the music. Obviously because that would be detrimental to whatever tasks I’m trying to accomplish. However, at the gym that distraction can help me run further than I would normally be able to. Without music, all I would have to focus on is the tremendous pain in my legs and abdomen that running inspires.

THINGS I HATE

I hate working on abs. Every abdominal exercise I know puts stress on either you neck, back, or ass. That wouldn’t be such a big problem, except everyone gets so awkward whenever I try to start a massage train on the mats. Also, there’s no attractive way to work on your abs. I mean if you have a twelve pack, or however many abs the sexy people have nowadays, I’m sure you look good planking… but I don’t. They’re the most frustrating muscle group to work on because until you’re in great shape you won’t be able to see any improvement, even if you are making progress.

I hate how fast your body builds up a tolerance to exercise. It only takes about a month for your body to get used to an exercise routine, and when that happens, you start to see diminished results. That’s waaaaay faster than even your tolerance for alcohol can be raised. The pseudoscientific strategy that programs like P90X use to combat this is called “muscle confusion”. It’s less of a big secret, and more of an extremely detailed and varied exercise plan. But P90X is incredibly difficult, which is why I write blog posts on the internet, instead of modeling my abs. The best way I’ve found to keep my muscles good and disoriented, is to mix in swimming and basketball with more traditional workouts like lifting and good old fashioned running.

Damn you Tony Horton. Source.

Finally, I hate all the other people at the gym. They’re the only thing that can drag me back from my aforementioned escape. Most often this is the 1000 year old woman pretending to use the back extension machine, or the frat guys benching all damn day, or the forty freaking kids in the pool wiping out five lap lanes. But I especially hate whoever it is at the gym that makes the equipment decisions. Listen, I get that the 100lb dumbbell looks really cool, but who in the hell uses it? Maybe we take the money for all the weights in the set over 75lbs and reinvest it in the 20lb-45lb range. I want to live in a world where I don’t have to pretend to do squats while I wait on the thirty pound dumbbells; which are ALWAYS FREAKING GONE WHEN IM JUST TRYING TO DO MY LAST SET OF BICEP CURLS AND GO HOME.   

Quick tangent: I never got into Resident Evil, or any of the other big zombie killing games growing up. There are many theories circulating my group of friends as to why, but the most popular one is that I have lady bits… go figure. I finally understood when Dead Rising came out. Part of the allure is the creativity behind firing golf balls into the oncoming horde, but it’s really an escapist fantasy that lets you kill people. It’s not that my generation is made up entirely of sociopaths; it’s that we have no outlet outside of sports for our natural violent tendencies. Zombie games, and probably most first person shooters now that I think about it, are really just a release for our impotent nerd rage. I didn’t get the earlier games because I don’t have a lot of frustrating memories of other people in creepy old houses, but I loved Dead Rising because another place I hate everyone is at the mall. The point of this side bar is that I’d love to see a Dead Rising game that’s set in a gym. I would really like to try to figure out how to kill a zombie/roidfreak with a rowing machine. Please internet, make this happen for me.

Zombieland was on the edge of my tolerance for gross things, but I will play this game literally all night. Source.

Though the things I hate about the gym may be more concrete than the things I love, I really do believe the positives outweigh the negatives. Hopefully I can stick with my current exercise plan, then one day I’ll write a column on the six things I love the most about my abs… see what I did there.

Machak’s S(even)ix Mix:

Cracked Article of the Week is chock full of legendary slams.

Addicting game of the Week if you can figure out the controls, I remember this game being aggressively awesome.

Text From Last Night of the Week guys… we gotta stop with the abbreviations, seriously.

Song of the Week, one of the best tracks off the new album.

Random Fact of the Week makes me really appreciate the lengths women will go to look good.

Surprise Awesomeness of the Week is more proof that Dave Grohl is the living embodiment of awesome.

Since this post is so very late, I’ll throw in a little extra to the mix. I’m going to tell you guys the quick morning workout I designed in high school. If you can do it twice in fifteen minutes, congratulations you are now ready to join the Oakton High School Junior Varsity Wrestling team. But seriously, it really works your abs and I’ve watched much better looking people than me struggle to get through it.

45 sec plank
15 leg lifts
12 Push-ups
25 obliques, each side
12 Sit-ups
15 Push-ups
12 Sit-ups
25 obliques, each side
12 Push-ups
15 leg lifts
45 sec plank

Two minute break and repeat.

Enjoy.

Never Forget

I’m warning you right now, you’re not gonna like this one. I won’t be upset if you click away right now. This is not what you’ve come to expect from me. There are no funny captions for pictures, it’s not uplifting, and there’s no witty commentary. It’s not what you wanted from me after I took last week off, and it’s not what you need to brighten your day. It’s what I needed. More than anything this blog has been a refuge for me the last couple months. It has allowed me to feel that I’ve contributed to the world in some meaningful way, despite the fact that I’m single, unemployed, and living at home. Once again, I’m going to use this space to throw my thoughts into the internet, and hope that simple act proves cathartic.

9/11 blows. Whenever we get close to that specific date I get bummed. It was unequivocally the worst American tragedy in my life time. No single event, aside from my birth, has affected my life so thoroughly. The worst part is that I’m still not over it. At this point, I don’t think I ever will be. In fact, it’s like I’m not allowed to; the slogan for one of the worst days of my life is “Never Forget”.  I HATE that, I don’t know what sentiment I’d prefer the nation had adopted for 9/11, but “Never Forget” seems ridiculous. How could anyone old enough to remember that day ever forget?  People in my parent’s generation talk about how they know where they were when JFK was shot, or Lennon, but is their location all that they remember? Every second of that day, since the moment we were told, is burned into my brain.

It was 11:35 in the morning on September the 11^th 2001, and I was sitting is Mrs. Outland’s 7^th grade math class at Rachel Carson Middle School. If it was any other day at 11:35 I would probably have been pissy just knowing that I was sitting in Mrs. Outland’s room. She was this comically fat black woman that I really hated because she couldn’t remember my name to save her life. In fact, she gave me detention once for ignoring her, even though the reason I wasn’t looking up when she asked me a question was that she kept asking Doug to answer it. For those of you unaware, my name is Joey, or Joe back in 7^th grade. But on September 11^th, at 11:35 it suddenly didn’t matter to me where I was. The principal had just come over the intercom and asked the teachers to turn on the TVs in their rooms. While Mrs. Outland waddled over to the corner with the TV, the disembodied voice told us that earlier this morning there had been terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

A lot of kids had parents that worked in the city with Fairfax County being so close to the District, but I was especially concerned. For the past few months my dad had been working on a government contract, and he was stationed in the Pentagon. At first I wasn’t too scared, the Pentagon is a gigantic structure. But when we saw the first images of the damage, my heart started to pound. A few other kids and I tried to leave the classroom to go to the office and call our parents, (2001 was as simpler time, a time before middle school kids had cell phones) but Outland wouldn’t let us go; she had been instructed by the principal to not let kids leave the room. At this point I started getting angry. I was angry that they wouldn’t let us make a simple damn phone call. As the reporter started to run through the timeline of the events, I got angry that they hidden the news from us for TWO hours. They had no right in my mind to keep this from us. I understand now that they were trying to keep us from going into a panic for as long as possible, but at the time I was just furious. Then I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, if it had happened over two hours ago, why hadn’t I heard from either of my parents?

One of the teachers with a free period came through the classrooms and got all the kids with parents in the city to follow her to the library. From there we took turns trying all the numbers we knew to get in touch with our parents. It was very slow going, one of the scarier effects the attacks had on the country was the way our communication system got overloaded. I sat for what felt like days trying to keep my composure and rationalize how my dad must have survived. In reality it could not have been more than half an hour before the school finally got a message from my mom telling me that my dad was ok. The wave of relief that crashed over me was so powerful that I hugged the librarian and smiled until my face hurt. I walked down to the cafeteria and ate the best tasting french fries of my life. A short while later, my neighbor Mrs. Hirsch showed up at school to bring her daughter Allie home, and my mom had asked her to take me with her. The whole trip home I was euphoric, convinced of the presence of God, and reveling in my personal miracle.

When we pulled in front of my house I saw my dad in the front doorway, and I ran up to him so fast I don’t think that I remembered to thank Mrs. Hirsch for the ride. The moment I reached my dad, I succumbed to the most powerful emotions I have ever felt. I hugged him, buried my face in his chest, and bawled for ten minutes. Physically holding the man I thought I had lost forever brought back the fear that I had felt ten times over, and that gut wrenching fear alternated with a sense of relief just as strong. Just typing out the sequence of events has my hands shaking and my throat clenched. For awhile he just hugged me back and let me cry, but he finally got me to calm down by saying “I’m ok pal”. We went into the house and just sat on the couch watching the news for five solid hours. When the footage of the burning wall of the Pentagon popped up, my dad pointed to the area less than ten windows from the hole and said, “That’s my office”.

In the following days the news would tell all sorts of miracle stories about people who decided to go in late, or went a different way to work, or happened to be in the bathroom instead of being where they were supposed to be, inside the fireball. I didn’t have to watch the news though, my Dad had his own story. He was about to head to a conference room for a meeting but decided to check his stocks before going down. When he pulled up the website, he saw the news about the World Trade Center. Instead of going to his meeting he clicked around to get more details; that’s when he heard, and felt, the plane hit. Everyone who went to the meeting was killed; the conference room was damn near the center of the blast.

The news played the footage of the plane crashing into the second tower on what seemed like an infinite loop. With each repetition, I got angrier and more confused. I will never understand how the men who attacked us justified their actions in their minds, but back then there was an extra level to the confusion. I didn’t understand why. What were they trying to prove? What did they think they would gain? How did they think we would react?

Of course, the one positive that came from 9/11 was our reaction as a nation. We were galvanized by the tragedy, united in a way that I had never seen up until that point. Physical, financial, and emotional support flowed from the country to New York City, and our wounded capital. Pride, reverence, and love flowed to the field in Pennsylvania where one group of hostages managed to take back control, offering their lives to save thousands more. American flags hung from every home, and our government worked efficiently and effectively to help those in need, and to start searching for those responsible for the damage that was done.

I guess when people say “Never Forget” that’s what they’re talking about, the great “American Spirit” that was reborn that day. But what I can’t forget is everything we lost. The thousands of people, and the thousands more affected by their loss. Our sense of safety, and everything that went with it. I’m not talking about the extra two hours it takes to get on a plane now, I’m talking about all the soldiers we’ve lost fighting two different wars in the hopes of killing an idea. Not to mention the destruction of our economy thanks in part to our massive defense budget. Also, even though it may not matter on a grand scale, I lost my innocence that day. From then on I could no longer believe that we were invincible, that America had some sort of aura that kept us all safe. Finally, I had learned first-hand that sometimes evil wins. And honestly, that’s something I’d really love to forget.

My thoughts and prayers are with those affected, always. Source.

Machak’s Six Mix:                                                                                    

I’m going non-traditional on this too. All six things are in this one link, the Huffington Post put together a list of “Comedic First Responders”. These are the first editions Letterman, The Daily Show, Conan, The Onion, SNL, and South Park put out after 9/11. They’re all inspiring and funny, so pick the one you love the best and enjoy.