The Shape of Desire

Part of yesterday's conversation with the physio was her questioning why I'm doing the (upper-body) exercises that I'm doing.  Why am I lifting weights, doing press-ups, etc.?

In particular, she was concerned that these exercises were a bit, well, male.  She covered, elucidating, saying there was nothing wrong with that per se, but that she was wondering: was I wanting to be a body-builder [cue hunched shoulders and loosely-raised fists]?

Well, there it is.  Why am I doing this?  Why am I pushing muscles in my upper body that were not designed by nature to be massive (due to HMS and, well, a lower testosterone level than the average bloke) to build?

Several answers, not all of which may be either wise, feasible, or even the whole story:

1. In October 2005 I had a six-pack and could lift sofas without much effort.  I also had the kind of lightly but defined muscular physique that made both women and men go "hmmm..." and "ooooh...!" with a little reaching-out gesture. (Yeah, baby...)

a) Being strong felt good physically - my wobbly joints were much more secure.

b) Being strong felt good mentally - being able to rely on myself and feel comfortable (even superior) in my body was rather nice.

c) My personal vanity is, perhaps, a little odd.  The resources needed to conform to many elements of acceptable Western femininity feel like way more trouble than they're worth, to me.  However, I revel in decking myself in a certain way as I move through the world.  I want people to see me, at a glance, as very much my own person, as attractive in an unconventional sense, and blending elements across genders.  I also like to look healthy.  So a little ripped (again)? Yes please! :)

(I felt right at home in Cambridge really quickly.  Wonder why...)


2. I gave up on that level and type of healthy after several things happened:

- motorbike (okay, fine: scooter) accident that made Borked Shoulder the way it is today (February 2006).

- massive (they took photos for a medical journal!) benign tumour;

- recovering from the surgery that removed it (vertical 5" abdominal incision - wasn't allowed to pick up anything heavier than 5kg for, well, a while - September 2007);

- the knee-based accident (and all the other, less easily pointed-at elements) that propelled me into the Year of The Stick (September 2011); and

- subsequent slow recovery from that.

I started feeling old.  I let myself become dispirited by the constant setbacks (I tried building in strength in 2006; scuppered myself lifting furniture; tried getting fit again 2010-11, not as hard as now, but cycling everywhere... then Stick Year... and then again in the summer of 2013...); I rationalised it as "I'm not meant to be fit", I think. And yet clearly this other model of me persisted underneath the whole time, because now I'm thinking: screw old, there are people who take up marathon running in their 70s.  I want to take this body as far as it can in terms of healthy, fit, and strong.


3. I don't want a male physique, I want a strong female physique, and I don't think I'll get that purely from physio exercises - I'll need to challenge myself, not just maintain myself.  I'm also pretty sure it would take more effort, time, and calories than I would consider worth spending getting perturbingly "bulky".


4. Up until now, not one single person (male or female) has told me that I shouldn't do press-ups, etc.

My dad (the very one who's struggled with my gender queerity in recent years) showed me how to do them; and a recent boyfriend showed me the variations on the theme.  We did them in school, and we were expected to do them in the few martial arts lessons I attended.  They're part of my model for "becoming fit and strong".


5. I enjoy doing weights, press-ups, planks, etc. Not only do I think they're fun (look, I'm a bit weird, just give up and go with this), but I enjoy being able to do them well (possibly in a tomboyish, showing-off-physically kind of way).


So here's the thing I'm going to try to find a way to say succinctly to the physio: this is the kind of body I want to aim for.  It's not unfeasible, and it's not toxic, so please help me get to a point where I can make that happen.  Ta!

So, unless anyone's got any better perspectives, that's The Plan.

Dumb

Oh hey kids, here's some advice:

When you're getting bored with your exercise routine and decide to "spice it up" by looking for a new move on your gym app (which you've barely ever used, at least partly because it's full of animated pictures of terrifyingly ripped people doing incomprehensible things with unlikely equipment), don't pick the one you think "Hmm, I bet my physio wouldn't approve of this..." and then "try a few out" and forget that you're full of endorphins so won't feel yourself bugger your Borked Shoulder.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the "Dumbbell Scarecrow":

Yeah, the irony is not lost on me...

Note to self: if an exercise is described as "Medium" difficult... you're not ready for it.

P.S. OW.

Back on the Wagon

In the end, I had five days with no other exercise but walking, and even then not much. I'm disappointed, if truth be told - while I chose wisely not to for the first three days, the other two were littered with excuses and bad planning.

Oh well; changing patterns of thought are unlikely to happen overnight. I shall look on this as a learning opportunity...

In other, more positive news: I got back into things while staying over at my family's at the weekend, and felt the better for it, though my abs kept saying really?! I missed the chance to get a long walk in, though, which was a shame, but visiting my mum's grave with my dad (the first time we've done that, it suddenly occurs to me, since her funeral in '99) took precedence.

Anyway, a week later than anticipated (planned, that is), I went for the "Walk all the way home after work" goal.  Some numbers for the stats heads, according to my Google Tracks app:

Distance: 2.6 miles

Putative Calories Burned: 273

Total Time: 41:40

Average Speed: 3.74 mph

(There's all sorts of stuff about moving time and average moving speed, which seems confusing to me, but hey...)

All of which is rather positive, I think.  Good speed, didn't stop for any significant amount of time except at a pedestrian crossing, during which I kept my legs wiggling, like a very slow, over-dressed jogger.  I didn't hurt too much during the walk itself, and I even stretched out when I got home.

Today my legs are so very far from fussed I'd almost forgotten I'd done it.  Well, I say that.  They weren't during the day, but now they're grumbling, especially in the knees, and I can't help but wonder if 2.6 miles at a fast trot followed by fairly intensive sessions on the stationary bicycles the next day was entirely wise.

Heigh-ho.  You'll be wanting a progress report then?

Diet (as opposed to dieting)

I'm eating well, enjoying food, and stubbornly substituting dried fruit and more water for biscuits and flapjack.  Tonight I sat there, in our currently freezing kitchen, after an extremely satisfying meal of home-made stew with potatoes and fresh bread, and wondered what was wrong.  I started externalising the conversation I was having sotto metis in my head to highlight to myself how ludicrous it was:

"But I want a biscuit."

"You've eaten more than enough, you're just tired."

"Biscuits! I can see them!"

"Sorry - no biscuits for you..." etc.  It seemed to work.

(Although I'd quite like a biscuit right about now.  Maybe I'll go to sleep instead.)

Sleep

I've got to do something about this.  I'm more tired from physical exertion, so my sleep quality's better, I just need to work on the quantity. Dammit.

Physio

Apart from the blip (it was a blip!) that was last week, doing well on this score.  It's getting a tad easy, though, which means that, presumably, I run the risk of getting bored by it and not doing it.  Doing it first thing in the morning keeps it more difficult (laxer muscles to overcome), and I can do that time-wasting reading the news thing that I would usually do slumped on the sofa when I arguably should be getting ready for work...

Mat exercises

Going very well.  20 reps is almost easy now, and my planks (even the repeated ones in later sets) are more reliably 60 seconds (or close) at a time.  So I've started adding in some new ones (wide-arm press-ups!  Yay! Holy damn that's difficult!), and will continue to do so (I foresee flying press-ups - where you swing one arm up at a time after coming back up - scissor kicks, and - in a month or so's time I suppose - gym ball gubbins; that'll keep me occupied...)

Gym

I failed to consider that doing longer sets of the endurance stuff (bikes, rowing machine, etc.) would mean that I spend longer overall at the gym.  That tiny miscalculation (and missed bus) aside, this is going pretty well too.

Up to 16.5 minutes on the bikes (the magical 20 minutes is almost within sight!), with variations of difficulty to - again - keep me from getting bored and doing it wrong.  I'm also listening to music and reading the Kindle app on the phone during the "flat" stretches.  And watching the man who does Epic Lunges down the length of the cardio part of the gym.  Luckily, I am too breathless, generally, to shout "Why so serious?!"

Maximum reps on the free weights is starting to get easy.  I think next week I go up a whole 0.5kg!  Onto the Big Girl Weights, where they have textured chrome bars and black hexagonal ends!  Yay! :D

I'd forgotten how ace rowing machines are.  I'd also forgotten that people are as crap at putting the handles back to the right slot for the next person as they are re-stacking their weights.

Oh hell - I'm turning into a gym bore!

No, no, it's okay - I'm allowed/ supposed to on here.

I saw a lot more people that I know in the gym today.  Tuesday appears to be People Fay Knows Day at that particular grunt emporium.

And no, I still haven't got used to the guttural gasps emitted by men with weights, the higher-pitched, sobbing exhalations of women at the end of their sets.  This, I have decided, is why people wear earphones - not to distract themselves from the boredom of repetitive exercise, not to dedicate themselves to their fitness in aural isolation, but to prevent themselves from getting needlessly aroused by the sounds of the others around them.

There's a poem in that, I'll wager...

And that's it, I reckon.  This weekend I'll need to walk 3.5 miles to be up to the mark; I'll let you know how that goes!

Progress

Not quite sure what to say here. Have avoided this so far, but this is one of the stated reasons for having the blog - a record of effects, so have at it. Behold a mixture of facts and feels.

Timetable

I have one now, and so far I haven't cheated. It's only been a couple of days now, mind. Basically, I have to treat exercise (physio, strength-builders like press-ups, etc., and gym) as an entity like gigs or arts admin meetings or dates or stuff, only the main difference being that I can move them without asking anyone else. And that's move, not cancel. I try to make sure there's at least one rest day per week in the mix (and some of the other days are physio-only).

Let's see how that goes. I've learned from tonight's experience that I can do a day's work, go to the gym for a short but thorough workout, and drive a 100-mile trip round a gig without dying. I wonder what tomorrow will bring!

Physio

This is going well, and I'm building back in some of the weird micro-muscle exercises I can do in my chair at work as well. Doing 15-20 mins of mat-physio in the morning does seem to make me feel more energised. It does, however, need to be timetabled with real discipline, mind...

I'm up to the proper number of reps for everything, and it's neither a burden nor a literal pain at the moment.

Gym

Gymnasia are weird places, no? What the...? Yeah. So re-calibrating my weirdness scale again to fit gyms in is proving interesting.

I've worked out how to make the stationary bikes do stuff that works for me and doesn't make me frustratedly confused. This is good. I'm up to a whopping 13.5 minutes (oooh) on each type of bike (beginning and end of the workout) at around level 8 (whatever the hell that means), and the time doesn't drag.

Much. I did have to start reading on my phone for the final 5 minutes of the second set. I should look out my Kindle - that worked well last time around, in the gym I understood.

This gym is shiny and doesn't have thick, slightly manky mats on which I could stretch and do floor exercises like the old one. It also has an alarming number (one so far, but where are the rest?!) of work colleagues in it. And there's a hot tub on a fire escape. I don't even...

Okay. Right. I'm using 2kg weights for the free weight exercises - up to 20 reps for the "easy" ones, and 15 for the "people with a screwed-up shoulder probably shouldn't... fine..." ones. I'm doing a mix of biceps and triceps and I have to try hard not to smile encouragingly/ snigger at the other people with (much bigger) weights. (Listen, if you look at me out of the corner of your eye while mashing big lumps of metal around and grunting, I have to assume that you want me to pay attention and validate you somehow.)

I'll switch up weight and down reps when 15 and 20 get easy. They have 2.5kg weights. They're barely used...

My arms don't burn like they did at first; the final five reps of any set are a lot less Sisyphean than they were last week.

Rowing machines are fun! :D Especially when you remember that time your partner taught you how to row properly on one of these things. 800+m in 5 mins? Something like that... More next week, and to think I only got on it because someone was using the chest press.

Up to 14kg on the chest press - two sets of 15-ish reps (second set always shorter than the first). Starting to come to the conclusion that either all chest press machines are wonky in the  same way, or I actually have one arm shorter than the other.

Strength exercises

Up to 20 on press-ups, 15 on leg-raises (old injury I'm being careful of), and 60s on front plank (get in!). I do four sets and the reps/ holds definitely vary after the first one.

How does it make you feel?

Chuffed, really. My top pulse rate appears to have reduced on the bikes, the weight reps are solid, I haven't injured myself yet, and it feels like progress.

And how does that make you feeeel?

I definitely feel more confident and more present in my body (as opposed to disconnected/ avoiding sensations from). I'm not exactly free of pain at the moment, but I seem to be less bothered about it - it's just information.

I tend to start to groan when I pull myself up from sitting, then realise that's not that painful. In fact I've only just realised this week how much I move through the world as though in expectation of pain. It would be good to stop that.

Dietary Stuff

Drinking more water is brilliant! And it turns out I was already pretty good at getting five a day. But pushing it more is good. Eating more raw vegs always gives me this weird sensation of a light belly (no, not hungry!) after a few days of putting the effort in.

And I'm therefore eating fewer snacks as there's no room for them.

Right. I'm.crashing. See you soon!