Born Again Gym Rat: Thwarted by Glitches

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Thwarted by Glitches

I wear my new gym clothes today. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I only discover this as I run through my routine. Maybe because there is a LOT of twisting movement in kickboxing between Sweeps, Knee-Ups, Jab, Cross, Hooks and Elbows, I spend time between each round pulling my waistband up, and my bra band down. At one point, my iPod detaches from my waistband and is dangling by my hip by the earphone wires. Luckily, because those wires are too long, I have them coiled and tucked inside the front of my waistband. I've given up on the sports bras with the hook and eye back closures. They're too uncomfortable to lay down on the Mat. The same goes for the adjustable strap hardware. Am I too picky? My mother used to get exasperated with me as a child because I didn't like the way little girl clothes were so uncomfortable with itchy mesh and scratchy seams. Some things never change. Oh, give me boy clothes any day!

All the Precor ellipticals are occupied so I look to the LifeFitness cross-trainers. My favorite one seems to be down as the screen refuses to light. It worked yesterday. I get on a different one and pedal for 10 minutes, then wrap my hands and do 3 warm up rounds at Beginner Level for the Follow Me Avatar program on the Nexersys. For the first round, I manage to stop the machine every other blow. Literally. Every other punch or kick is too hard and/or too fast. I have to pull my punches to keep the machine happy. I'm not happy. I'm not cold, but not sweaty. That's not a warm up.

I punch in 10 rounds at Intermediate Level. That's much better. There are a few times that I stop the machine, but I don't actually blank the screen today. In analyzing the data afterwards, I realize that the program is so flaky that it's signalling "phantom blows", which I, of course, endeavor to strike. That's the only explanation for the greater than 100% Strike tally for 7 out of the 10 rounds. That messes with my Accuracy rating, but I'm not that concerned.

What bothers me is that on both Nexersys machines, the Advance Follow Me program switches to SouthPaw mode, which means it assumes you're Left-handed. So everything is backwards. A Jab is tossed by your Right hand, not the Left. The Power kicks are reversed. Your stance is Right foot forward instead of Left forward. I can't do it. So I cancel the last round. Twice. Because I had to try it on both machines. Next week I'll have to decide whether I want to add Sparring to the mix since I can't keep adding Intermediate rounds. Well, I could go all the way up to 15 actually.

After I unwrap my hands and pull all the tape and moleskin off, I see that the Step Mills are empty. That's my cue to do 15 minutes of leisurely stair-climbing. I look around and notice Shaggy doing sit ups on the ab board with sunglasses on. Maced again? Kidding. Or not. Although I did see Mouse yesterday. She seems to track me with a baleful stare as I walk by. I'm hoping she's just getting inspired. The Mayor and M are holding court in front of Cybex City, chatting obliviously with 2 or 3 other middle-aged men. I see a few other regulars in the sparsely populated gym. Blondie has cut off that awful dye-job and now has normal colored hair. Latin Baseball and friends are doing Leg Curls.

Tomorrow is Cardio and Core, and Push Ups, Pull Ups and whatever else I feel like doing. I just realized that my son has next Wednesday off. No movies though. Maybe another play date? I'm glad I'm comfortable with the abbreviated workouts.

Thursday Workout