Reading: John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman

Listening: Pearl Jam, Ten

Viewing: CNN

Moving: Half a weight circuit and ten minutes on an elliptical trainer.

Learning: how to use an elliptical trainer

14 January 2000: Working Out

Thursday I did nothing. No weights because I had shredded my arm muscles the day before and no aerobic because I wanted to rest my throat as well. Today I decided to do weights. I want to concentrate on aerobic exercise, but my muscles have all atrophied as well.

So I went into the weight room and looked around, knowing I should start with the largest muscle groups but not seeing any thighs-and-butt machines leap out at me and none beginning an obvious circuit. So what the hell, I'm ignorant. I worked counterclockwise around the room. I have an appointment with a fitness counselor or whatever they're called on Monday and he can tell me then how to use which equipment, but for now I just wanted to start out. I don't know the names of the equipment or the muscles I worked, but I do know a few I want to emphasize:

• Sitting with your legs straight and a bar behind your ankles, you move the weight stack by flexing your legs. This, I hope, will help my gimpy knees.
• Sitting, you push backward with your shoulderblades until you're nearly supine. This works the muscles of the back.
• Sitting with your arms over a bar, you push forward, bending your torso over your thighs. This works the abs.

There were two bikes, a good one and a bad one, for people to stoke up on during their weight circuit (I guess) and one elliptical trainer. There are two in the aerobic gallery (lots of machines and five televisions) that are always busy,and someone was on this one. He got off while I was trying to do weights with my triceps. Ha ha ha, I was glad to abandon that helpless endeavor and yomped onto the Star Trac Elliptical Trainer. I keep putting a d between the n and e of Trainer because I'm such a good typist.

Four years ago at Hateful Inc. I used the LifeStep almost every day and a short weight circuit, plus abs in the morning at home and again at noon at "work." It was then that I reached my fittest state. Since then, I have used (not as much) a LifeStep at the DU gym and attempted to use a StairMaster elsewhere. I just can't get the hang of StairMasters and StairMills. StairMasters are bizarre because both pedals can be down (or up) at the same time. LifeSteps work like the accelerator and the clutch of a car and I haven't been able to adjust to whatever different pattern the StairMaster needs. A StairMill actually has steps so it's much more like climbing stairs, but--at least at my current level of aerobic capacity--it's too much, I can't do it.

The elliptical is something else. Its pedals move in the pattern your feet make running but isn't a weight-bearing exercise that hurts your knees like actually running or a treadmill. Once I get the hang of it, and I feel like I can, I can pump my arms as well. And I can do it in glasses (unlike step), if that's what the ophthalmologist tells me Monday.

So that's the room for me. Aerobic work thrice a week, building up to 30 minutes a session (I did 10 today), with a short weight circuit, and weights twice a week, with 10 minutes aerobic. I know myself, that I shall skip occasionally to go to the library, and that's okay. Resolved: I am going to lose this flab, build up my strength, get bendy, and increase my endurance.

RDC bought a Reality fish in Seattle this summer that I wouldn't let him put on Cassidy. He just got all excited at Slashdot because there's a Linux fish. "That one I'll put on the car!" I nodded acquiescence, then asked where the Reality fish is. He got all sad. He left it on his monitor at DU. "But it's not as if I won't be in Seattle ever again to buy a new one." As if he needs Seattle.