Born Again Gym Rat: Warm and Dry Equals Clean

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Warm and Dry Equals Clean

Every time I stumble across sweaty women in the locker room blow drying their hair before they scamper out to their cars, I'm reminded of the Jeff Foxworthy routine about the differences between men and women. Specifically, cleanliness. I'll paraphrase: "A guy will take his dirty shirt and toss it in the dryer. Because warm and dry equals clean." But I can't do it. I'm so sweaty that puddles can be wrung out of my clothes. I'm not entirely sure what type of work out only leaves your head damp, and the rest of you not stinky. It certainly wasn't kickboxing the machine.

I haven't whacked the machine in over a week, so I'm due. I've finally figured out how to twist my braid into a coil and secure it with just another scrunchy. It's not pretty, but it works well enough to keep my hair out of my face and from getting tangled in my headphone wires. Looping the wires down my back also helps so I don't accidentally snag them with my gloves and rip them out of my ears. Yep, I've already done that. More than once! Of course, wires going down the back of your shirt presents totally different problems, mostly when trying to disrobe.

I also have a new pair of training gloves to test out at the Cage for pull ups. The issue has been not enough palm padding. These new gloves are snug, oddly patterned, but maybe what I'm looking for. So far, I haven't been able to find a suitable replacement for my old leather FlexSport gloves. The Meister gloves I'm currently using are okay, but not not as good as my old gloves. At least they haven't ripped apart yet. The new MRX gloves are so snug I'm worried that they'll split at the seams. Oh well... gloves aren't any good if you don't use them.

At the Nexersys, I probably expended too much energy on the 5 warm up Beginner Rounds. I don't usually see Power numbers this high. One of my blows was 2 points shy of 300. Of course, the machine gets its revenge during Intermediate and Advance rounds when I occasionally blank the machine, or it fails to register a Lead Kick. I'm still looking to replace my headphones as well because I find the earplug aspect of these a bit disconcerting. Disconcerting that the best sound quality occurs when my head is tilted down and I'm staring at my feet. Disconcerting that my heartbeat and swallowing are almost as loud as the backbeat. Disconcerting that occasionally, an earbud will just fall or pop out of my ear.

MRX gloves

My left leg sciatica is going to flare up. I already know this, so after whacking the machine, I unwrap and clamber onto the elliptical for 20 minutes of pedaling, backward and forward. I start sweating profusely again and I can't help but liken it to rain dripping off my eye lashes and nose. The new gloves are very snug but that's because I'm a skosh bigger than size Small (7" circling the palm) since my hands measure 7.125". The mediums would be too loose at 8". I'm actually surprised at how easy it is to pull myself up at the Stretch Cage, but of course, it gets harder with each additional rep. And I'll repeat myself here: I don't drop into a full extension to spare my elbows and forearms. I'm primarily interested in this as a lat (back) movement. Except for the last rep. That one I'll do from a full drop. Just to prove to myself that it's a real pull up.

At the Mats, two boys have two solid barbells on the Mats. I don't know why anyone chooses to stand on soft squishy 2" foam mats to do BB curls. There are three Mats and they're standing right in the middle of all of them, so I pull out an earbud and ask them if they are on all the mats. Except I'm not smiling. The Mats are for doing floor exercises. The only reason to have BBs on them is to anchor your feet if you're attempting old-fashion sit ups. They retreat and do their curls on the strip of floor between all the mats. I don't know why they're not in the middle of the gym where the BB racks are. There's plenty of room there, and mirrors for them to check their form. Good grief.

Afterwards, I do some grocery shopping and finally notice that regular milk purveyors are also trying to cash in on the "more protein" bandwagon. Being hungry probably had something to do with my tossing the FairLife high protein (19 gms) chocolate milk into my cart. I find that in the organic dairy section (which also contains non-dairy items like almond milk, etc.). Being curious made me purchase the high protein (30 gms) chocolate milk Rockin' Refuel (from Shamrock Farms) I find in the regular dairy section at the other end of the store. It has much less sugar and labels itself a "recovery" drink. It has less sugar because it also has sucralose, and a bunch of stuff I don't quite understand. When I get home, I do a taste test. RR is definitely not as sweet, but mildly sweet chocolate milk is actually kind of weird. It also gives me a mild upset stomach. I don't think I'll be buying this again.

There are several packages at the front door when I get home. One of them is the Sony earphones I ordered from Amazon. They look like my old earphones except these are pale pink. I don't really care about the color, just that they hook over my ears and have great sound quality. I'll keep the earplug earbuds as backups. Through trial and error, I've decided that Sony makes the best "low-end"workout earphones. I'm not willing to spend $100+ on headphones, and that popular over-the-head style seems really uncomfortable and impractical. (I don't even like ear muffs!) I'm not planning to take my son to the gym tomorrow so I'll be back on Friday. Probably anther cardio and Smith machine day.

Here's a Jeff Foxworthy routine for your amusement:

HumpDay Workout