Thursday, August 03, 2006

Maya just kicked my ass.

I used to be fit once...I used to be in the army, but I got out of the army in '93. Since then my workouts have consisted of using the stairs instead of the elevator.

For about the last 4 years I've been thinking about doing something. My doctor telling me I need to lose some weight kinda popped that into my head. Mostly I thought about it, but did nothing. 5'11" 210 lbs. I'm only about 30 lbs. over-weight and everyone tells me I look fine.

The clincher hit me last October....literally. Oct. of 2005 I was riding my scooter to the store when a guy ran a stop sign and hit me. Thankfully I only ended up with a broken wrist, it could have been so much worse in a busy intersection (coincidentally they installed a stoplight there recently).

Anywho, after my physical therapy for my wrist, I discovered my shoulder was having problems. It was determined that the casts I had worn had tweaked the muscles around it. So I had a new battery of exercises to help my shoulder, including push-ups.

The dreaded push-ups.

Back in the army I did push-ups practically every day. In a 2 minute period I would knock out about 70 - 80 something push-ups, no problem.

So here I was getting ready to do push-up to help my shoulder. Sadly I could barely knock out 10. Even worse the therapist suggested I change to "girl" push-up, instead of on your toes, on your knees. (Nothing against girls or women that's just what we always called them in the army.) (As a side note I'm also a little unsteady doing them with my wrist as it does not bend enough anymore, I use "handles" now)

So after my shoulder got better the therapist told me to continue working the shoulder and game me some surgical tubing to use as "weights." Well that lasted all of about a day.

Flash forward to yesterday. I'm wandering around my local video game store, what do I find in the used bin? Yourself Fitness. I had seen it before, thought about buying it before. Something about this time said buy it. For those that are not familar with it, it is a workout program that you can play out of you Xbox (or PS2 or PC). It can design a workout & meal program tailored for you. A lot better than video workouts on DVD or VHS, because this you can adjust the workout on the fly. You can also track your progress. If you want more info here's a link; http://yourselffitness.com

So today I popped it in. Originally I was going to wait til Monday to start, but decided no to put it off out of fear that the game might become the next dusty piece of exercise equipment I own.

The evaluation part winded me, I'm a bit worse than I thought.

I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't select the techno music and the lack of rock or metal music, but that's splitting hairs. ;) Plus I can get the techno music as a reward for keeping my workout "appointments." So I went with 80's (funny I don't remember any of this music from the 80's) Some of the exercises I have the complete "can't dance syndrome." I did my best to do the V step, mostly I just kept moving. The rest I picked up after a bit. There was a bit of a glitch, I saw a break coming, but it skipped right to the next exercise.

At some point Maya said water break, oops. Pause, run up stairs, swipe my roommate's water from the fridge (I'll get her another, she won't miss it) run back down & continue.

In the end I was sweating, breathing hard, a slight dizziness, but feeling good surprisingly. Something about this I think I can stick with. Though I need to clear a larger area to work out in. ;)

Wish me luck.