Weights

When I started this blog, I was on a rest week: semi-rest from running (only 6 miles total I think) and a rest from lifting. I seriously needed the rest from lifting. If you have ever lifted heavy (as I am SUPER EXCITED a bunch of you are trying out!) it leaves you really tired (and hungry). Not so much sore as “when can I go to bed…and can I eat a pizza and a chicken first?” kind of tired (and hungry).  The rest week had become pretty much non-negotiable – my muscles were useless, my wrists were achy and my ankles felt like they were going to crack down the middle. Still, I was extremely nervous about rest week. Would I come back weak? Would I have to start at the beginning? I always do better with a schedule, with a steady rhythm. It is easier for me to stay busy all the time than some of the time, otherwise I get lazy. So I was worried rest week would throw off my rhythm and I would stop lifting all together. Bizarre, I know, but inner thoughts and fears are usually totally bizarre and illogical.


I am excited to report that I got back into The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess  this week and completed Stage 2, Week 2. And I assure you that I am Hungry. And Tired. But I am also stronger! That’s right blogfans, I took a week off and came back stronger than before. I went up in almost every weight across the board! Yahoooo Rest Week! Who can deadlift 85 pounds from a step-box? This girl!

Celebrating aside, I saw something in the gym today that made me sad (and a little angry). My gym has a regular weight room and a “man” weight room. You know the one I am talking about, right? With the men and the big men weights? Okay, so (for me at least) it takes a fair amount of nerve to head up to the man room the first time…but that’s where the good weight are, so up you go.  So today, I am up in the man room doing Bulgarian Split Squats while balancing a 35 pound bar on my shoulders when this very much overweight woman and her friend come in and take up the spots next to me. This made me happy the way new runners make me happy. I want to shout “Go you!!! You rock!!” Except that this woman proceeded to give me dirty looks while she did bicep curls with a 5 pound weight. Now, dirty looks aside, I would not have judged the woman at all (oh the lack of yoga in this post) if she had been struggling with that weight, but she was tossing it around like a feather. And boy did that make me sad/angry/annoyed. If you are brave enough to walk up into the man’s room (in a flowered moo-moo like shirt no less) and actually lift weights, why not pick a weight you have to try to lift? All of that bravery and this woman will see zero results. And maybe I would have overstepped my bounds and looked like a complete jerk and offered her advice if, at the very moment I am thinking all these thoughts, she didn’t meet my eye in the mirror and say to her friend “here, use this weight – there’s no need to show off with heavy ones.”

Excuse me?

And then I started to question myself.  Am I showing off?  Who am I to judge another's workout?  Then a ray of light as I was leaving the gym - some big lifter dude walked out with me and said “You know, you do some serious workouts in there…some people waste their time with little weights, but not you. You get right to it.”

Again I say, Yahoooo!!!!!