Day 32: That Music Though

Today was quite the productive day. I got an absurd amount of work done. Juggling 3 positions, in 3 companies and a daily blog could prove to be a handful, but a side effect of working out seems to be improved focus and additional energy. This makes keeping things in order a lot more manageable than it was a few months ago. I am digging it.

Part of my focus has to do with the music I listen to when I am working.  I love a lot of different music. Jazz, EDM, Electronica, Rock, Some Pop, Folk, Blues, R&B, even Country when I am in the mood..... but It's no secret my favorite music is Hip-Hop. I love it. Good Hip Hop is pure poetry and good beats have the ability to transport you into a different dimension. Example: today I was listening to Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and Nas - Illmatic on repeat. Both, excellent. Never get tired of them. I put on the music, I get my focus on, and I do work. It's great.

Let's talk about what is NOT great. //begin rant// Country or Justin freaking Bieber or some other terrible pop shit in a super intense spin class. I love MOI (Mind of Intensity) Cycle and I love Krank, but I do NOT love the heinous music that comes along with it. I need to be able to zone out and fall into the music in order for me to get the most out of this class. If one minute we are listening to some killer Dubstep, going 100 RPM's, then all of a sudden some woman or man child who sounds like a woman comes on crying about their lost love, I AM NOT INTO IT! The mood is now wrecked, I am irritated that I am being forced into listening to some shitastic music, and my legs or arms stop doing what they are supposed to be doing.

 

This has nothing to do with our instructors. Steven Shaw you are a God among men and may the Lord bless you for having to listen to these terrible songs on repeat leading up to the class and still manage to push us into amazing results. I have to BELIVE that our instructors are not the ones responsible for the music in MOI. I suspect these play lists come from the designers of MOI and they go with a predetermined workout. I get it. Not all of the music is bad. Just 60% of it. All I'm saying is I really wish that whoever is designing these playlists would take into consideration the club demographics in urban areas when choosing the songs. I am sure a lot of MOI's playlists are great for somewhere like Aspen or wherever MOI was developed. Not so much for us over here on the east coast. Would it kill you to add a little hip-hop and more EDM or DubStep? Maybe even a class with all electronic music.... SOMETHING?! 

If I have to hear another country song in a spin class, I may get up and walk out. I just can't with this music. Country has a time and place... mostly drinking beer around a tailgate... NOT when I am trying to sweat my ass off with 30 of my closest friends... who, mind you, are ALL bitching about the same terrible music. Please hear my cry MOI. We need better music! //end rant//

Ugh, I am going to cleanse my earholes. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Day 11: Those Burpees are Fun… Said No One Ever.

Well, today started out great. I was all excited for my workout... I just knew it was going to be awesome, just like yesterday, right? But the dream died as soon as I walked through the door and saw Q standing in the Crossfit pit. Next words out of her mouth were “I got bad news, today you’re doing Crossfit again”. I, for the LIFE of me cannot figure out why this has caught on the way it has. I get going hard, but this is just ridiculous. Regular burpees suck, but Crossfit burpees are just plain hell. Why would anyone want to throw themselves on the floor and jump up and clap repeatedly? Ugh. I HATE Crossfit.

I may hate Crossfit, but there are certainly some aspects of it that I enjoy. Like doing front squats with the barbell. I had a 25 pound bar with a total of 55 pounds. I know that’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but when doing 50 of these bitches during the skills lab, that little bit of weight starts to feel like 500 pounds. I felt like a beast. 

The other thing I enjoyed was how hard Q pushed me. If she wouldn’t have been screaming at me to give her at least three rounds, I wouldn’t have. I would have quit. No doubt about it. But I didn’t and as such, I can feel my arms gaining strength, I notice it with every movement and every shirt I put on. This feeling is addicting... So does that mean I just contradicted my declaration of deep hatred for Crossfit? I think it does.

Apparently I didn't hate my life too bad because I did go right back there tonight for Krank and Moi Class. I think Krank may be creeping up to be my favorite class. The craziest part is that it is HARD. You sweat like a pig and the music kind of sucks, but the high you get when you are Kranking is immense. I somehow transport myself into another dimension and just role with it. It was over and I didn’t even know it. I just kept going until I realized I was the only one moving. If I was to sit back and diagnose why I love this class, I think it is because it reminds me a lot of basic training with Steven instructing. This dude missed his calling as a drill instructor, no joke. At some point during the first leg of the class, someone said they were bored. This was the WRONG thing to say. Next thing you know everyone is out of their saddle doing lunges and squats. I was like damn, yo, this kind of behavior could cause a mutiny, girlfriend need to stay quiet... BUT AGAIN, that is still part of its sick and twisted charm. I still love it. Can’t you tell by the smile on our faces?

On that note, I must be on my way. I have to get my beauty rest for the best day of the week, Pilate’s Rehabilitation Friday! So cheers to pushing boundaries friends, I’ll talk with you tomorrow.

Day 4: How Can I Be Tired and Energized at the Same Time?

I want to pass out, run a marathon, and puke all at the same time. Is this natural? In the last 24 hours I have pushed myself harder and farther than I ever have in my life. This is what my day looked like: 9:30am go buy 5 desks and 2 shelving units for a client from Ikea (I own a small interior design firm), load all these heavy items into my cart and car solo (talk about a core workout). 11:30 head to gym for PT appointment with Q.  2pm head to Wegmans and buy all the food in my nutrition plan, 3pm get home, prep and cook all the food for the next 4 days. 7pm back to gym for Krank and Moi Boost with Steven. 8pm come home and bake kale chips (OMG, yum). 9pm email clients, log all my food and upload my Exerspy data for the day. 10pm start writing about todays adventure. I think it is safe to say obsession is taking over and my lifestyle is changing.

This whole whirlwind of activity started last night. I thought I was just going to MOI Cycle and about an hour before class, Q calls me out on Facebook and says “Kettlebell at 6pm, Suspension training at 6:30, Zumba at 7:15. Be there, or be square”. I managed to negotiate for 30 minutes of cycle instead of Zumba, but that didn’t really do me any favors. I have grown to love cycling, but trying to do it the day after your trainer works your legs is borderline irrational. After I left cycle I headed for Kettlebell with Caesare where we did 2 circuits of different exercises. It was fairly “standard” exercises until the end… "burpees over kettlebell". What. The. Hell. This was the first burpee I had ever done in my life and I SUCKED at it. Thankfully the class was at max capacity so everyone got to see me suck at it. Then you have squats where Caes made me grab a heavier weight. To make matters even better, Q is standing by the boxing ring watching us. During squats I hear her yell “Nicole, get your butt down”. If looks could kill, she would have been dead.

Once kettlebell ended we immediately transitioned into TRX training. TRX is a suspension system where you use your body weight for a full body work out. I had never done it before. If I was asked to describe TRX, I would use the word “satanic” because that class came straight from the pits of hell. Let’s make one thing clear, I have ZERO upper body strength. I couldn’t do a proper pushup to save my life. So when you are 280 pounds and 39% body fat, TRX makes you want to DIE.  There is a way you could make TRX easy on yourself IF the instructor wasn’t paying attention and your own trainer wasn’t lurking in the shadows correcting your form (thanks for that Q).  Thankfully (that is sarcasm in case you didn’t catch that) Steven pays attention like a hawk.

Oh Steven, instructor extraordinaire. I really thought I loved him. He was the first trainer I ever worked with at ETC. During those first two sessions he was patient, funny, charming, all of the things you would THEORETICALLY want in a personal trainer. I don’t even know where that man went, because I swear on everything holy he turned into Satan himself during TRX (pointy tail and all). See, I LOVE to bitch and/or crack jokes when I am doing something hard. I am a regular freaking comedian, but I will tell you one thing,... do NOT joke about not knowing what triceps are in front of trainers. This is how you get forced into Krank classes. How do I know? Because that is what I did. I left TRX last night hating everything and everyone, I was ready to quit. I was so tired and embarrassed I was just over it. Then the strangest thing happened…

I got home and realized I just did something I would have never done 6 months ago or hell, even 6 days ago. I laid in bed, stared at the ceiling and I cried. Much like I am doing right now reliving that moment. Something changed inside of me. I grabbed my phone and I re-read the last couple days of this blog and I decided that I am going to do everything in my power to win this challenge. Not for the money or the glory, but for myself. This means I have to be serious about eating clean. I had the tools in place, I just wasn’t mentally ready to use them. I don’t think I would have gotten there this soon if it wasn’t for that specific set of circumstances involving Q, Caesare and Steven.

So this morning, I hit the ground running (after taking an Epsom salt bath and laying on my inversion table, because otherwise I wouldn’t have made it out of my house). I went and did what I needed to do for work and then focused on nothing but setting myself up for success. I got to the gym and Q worked the hell out of my upper body. It was 2 sets of 6 different exercises, 30 reps each. I never knew how badly arms could hurt. Sometimes I think that none of this is real and I have finally surrendered to a psychotic state, so here is a picture I asked her to take for evidence:

 

I really cannot do a pushup. There was one point I got so angry, I was screaming at myself.  I know I looked crazy. This may be a mental block instilled in basic training that I really need to overcome. I was singled out for my terrible pushup form, daily. If it wasn’t for a pact with my wingman to count all of my shitty pushups during the final PT test, I don’t think I would have passed. Q made a promise that if I only get one thing out of this challenge, it will be a perfect push up. I love that.

After we were done, we went over to the training desk and she wrote out a shopping list of everything I should eat this week and confirmed I really did need to come back for the 7pm Krank and Moi class. So I grabbed a smoothie and some supplements and headed to Wegmans (the holy mecca of grocery stores). Once I got home I was a chopping and cooking fool. I made delicious stuffed bell peppers, premade salads, sorted snacks, all sorts of yummies. I was really impressed with how pretty healthy food is. See, check this out:

 

Colorful right? At 6:45 I headed back to the gym for this Krank class I have been talking about. Krank is basically a cycling class for your arms. This is a shot of the studio from tonight’s class:

I was honestly prepared to hate it, but it turned out quite the opposite. I actually fell in love with it. Steven was the instructor again and he was OUTSTANDING. He is no longer the pointy tailed devil I concocted in my head last night, but he is still a hard ass. He knows how to push people in a group setting in a way I didn’t think possible. He pays attention to every student and he holds us all accountable. He made us announce our heart rates and reps to the class at random points to keep us accountable. If you weren’t at your assigned numbers, he called you out and demanded you speed it up. The energy in there was so powerful. At one point, my muscles locked and I couldn’t open my right hand. It was kind of scary to be honest, but I pushed through and all the pain melted away, and my muscles unlocked. At that point I turned up the tension and rocked the hell out of the rest of that class. When I left, I felt an incredible sense of accomplishment, like I had broken down a barrier and reached the next level. So I will take that pride into tomorrow and live to see another day. Goodnight friends. I will talk to you tomorrow.