Leminnes

Thanks to everyone who prodded me to go, was a great help.

Anyway, first time was... interesting. I went in and sat down on a bench and just observed the others watching for a bit. Probably looked creepy, but I wanted to see how they did some of their routine. That and I was nervous. But, I wasn't going to let my nerves get the better of me so I went out there and did my first workout: squats. Wasn't too bad, probably the easiest workout of the night. The awkward part was the rests between sets. I was told to rest for a min, so I did, so I'd do 5 reps and just wander around for a minute. Was pretty silly.

Next I did push ups. Had a few guys look at me during this. I... am not sure why, maybe because I was using an empty bar, I dunno. I was doing them right, I'm sure of that. They weren't too bad either, but my arms shook a lot especially pushing up.

Next was Reverse Rows, which I COMPLETELY forgot how to do once I got to them. I had written down in my notebook how to do them but it made no sense. "Place back on the floor with bar an arms length away. Pull up until bar meets the chest." Later, when I got back, I realized that I forgot to write down some crucial information, that my feet needed to be elevated. But I'll do them right from now on.

I asked the front desk guy how to do them, and he thought I was insane and just showed me how to do Reverse Rows his way. It was with some machine with weights that you laid on your stomach and lifted a bar with weights on it up to your chest. Was quite difficult, but it actually felt... different and wrong to me compared to my other workouts, especially the later ones.

I was supposed to do 3 sets of those to failure, failure was about 3 reps (hah).

Next was push-ups. I suck at these, I have no arm strength so I had to do wussy push ups as best as I could. These were 3 reps until failure too. Regular push-ups it was less than 1 until failure. Wussy (girl) pushups, it was 15 or so. They seem far too easy, wish there was a middle ground.

Finally there was Inverse Crunches. I did these wrong the first time, I realized later. The way I did them I am sure are not as effective as they way they're supposed to be done. But I'll get to that later.

Either way, I finished those and went to the locker room to weigh myself. As of today, I weigh 151 lbs (68.5 Kilos). I am underweight, and that's... not good. I've started eating more, but I had money issues the last two weeks so I think that is where the weight loss came from (weighed 170 at least a year ago, if not less.)

Great thing about the gym (didn't think it was at first, but it is now that I think about it) is that it's all the way across the campus, so I get a nice warm-up riding to the gym on my bike and a nice cool down riding back.

When I got back I felt great, but I decided to look up to see what I did wrong. What I realized is that I can do 3 of these exercises in my dorm room. For reverse rows, I elevate my legs on my computer chair and do the rowing motion by grabbing to the bottom of my elevated bed. It's PERFECT actually. Push ups are obvious. So are inverse crunches, but I figured out what I was doing wrong and decided to try them correctly on my floor and GODDAMN they are amazing. So much better than crunches in every way. They're easier but they FEEL more effective. I was very surprised. What I plan on doing is going to the gym for all 5 of the exercises, but if I miss a day I'll do just these 3 in my dorm room. Might not be the full routine, but it's better than nothing.

Anyway, here is my first REAL pic (disregard the last one, was a bit premature, really.)




Thanks for the encouragement, guys. I hope I see some improvement soon.