The Texan and the Redhead

YMCA Adventures – Days go by

In case you’ve been keeping track, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. No, I haven’t fallen totally off the wagon. I prefer to think of it as hanging on by my fingernails while life serves up a bowlful of changes (good ones!).

Thanks to an amazing business opportunity – I took a major leap last week and left my FT job to go to work for my own company, The All Night Party.  Scary? Definitely. Thrilling, exciting and liberating? Totally. Only five days in and I’m loving my newfound sense of freedom and responsibility. And stress – oh definitely, an increase in stress. Since I’m a stress eater, I can tell right away when I’m eating out of anxiousness or worry.

So back to the YMCA. While I’ve not been able to go three times a week, which was my original goal, I have been able to go once a week. Since it’s only once a week, I’m trying to maximize my time and try something a bit different each time.

First, I tried a different Y. Everyone who has read my previous blog posts, knows that I’ve got an issue with locker rooms, too few hooks to hang your stuff and towels. To anyone who shares these issues – GO TO THE DOWNTOWN Y! Not only do they have a spacious locker room with plenty of hooks, but they have towel service. Nice, warm and toasty towels, ready for you after your workout. I love it! Yes, the building is older and the equipment isn’t as new as other locations – but seriously, the amenities make up for it. And for those concerned with parking – there’s a lot, right behind the building for members. I learned this after the meter birds left an “expired meter” ticket on my car.

Second- I worked out with my BFF, Julie (Wine Me, Dine Me). There’s a whole new level of accountability when you make plans to work out with a friend, whether it’s at 7:15am, or not…no excuses. Warming up on the elliptical while catching up on gossip and work rocks. The other cool thing is that ActiveTrax has a feature called”Workout with Friends”, which means exactly what it sounds like – it’ll plan a workout for both you and your friend – using machines that are either the same, or in the vicinity of one another.

Third – remember I mentioned stress? Turns out, working out is a great stress buster. I still haven’t had that mythical “high” that some people get from a workout – but I do find that cardio releases some of the adrenaline and works out the tenseness in my muscles. So it’s worth it to me to hop on a treadmill for 20 minutes if it means I’ll feel better when I’m done (even if I’m not wild about the activity while I’m doing it).

Moving ahead – I’m hoping to take advantage of my newly flexible schedule to take in a class or two at the Y. I’ve heard the yoga is relaxing, the spinning intense and the boot camp is ass-kicking.

For anyone keeping count, we’re t-minus 18 days til my wedding…

YMCA Adventures Day #2 – Locks, Lockers and Learning

Day 2 – Friday, 9/7

Felt like first day, freshman year of high school – my first to-do when I walked into the Y was to lock up my stuff with my brand new lock. Of course the damn thing wouldn’t open. Following the instructions, checking the #, nothing. Thank goodness for Amy Walla, Y super-trainer and lock-opening guru. She got it open.

First day using an ActiveTrax generated workout. When you get your ActiveTrax workout, you can either print one from the kiosk in the gym, or you can use the webapp on your phone. I had planned on using the webapp, but forgot to get it setup – so I used a printout. No big thing. The printout lists out each machine you need to use – and the machines are numbered so you can’t mess up. It also tells you how many reps to do, and what weight to use. Remember that strength test? That’s what determines the weight you use. Speaking of reps – discovered that when an ActiveTrax workout specs BEST as the # of reps – you can stop at 20. BEST means however many you can do – up to 20.

One of the things ActiveTrax does well is target muscle groups. Each workout that is selected will have a series of exercise, in my case, working opposing muscles in specific areas of your body. Today I had chest and back. Speaking of chest and back, those were the muscles that hurt the most from Wednesday’s workout – so I wasn’t sure this would be a torture session. Surprisingly it wasn’t.

I warmed up on a treadmill for 10 minutes before starting. The treadmill is one of the most state of the art things in the gym, with a TV/iPod doc on the front panel. I caught up on Obama, Prince Harry and the state of the economy courtesy of Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie while I walked.

Once warmed up, Amy coached me through all of my machine exercise. Apparently I forget to breathe when I work out – Amy’s comment during each exercises was, “Breathe, Monika. Breathe in when you’re releasing, exhale when you’re pushing” or something like that  – don’t quote me on that being correct. Remember, I can’t breathe.

Got through the machine portion of the workout – then back to the floor exercise area for more CRUNCHES! Hooray! Not. These weren’t terrible though. Even though I’m not sure my muscles were onboard with what we were doing, I attempted a reverse crunch, an oblique crunch and two others that I can’t recall. I made it through, and Amy even gave me crap about doubting my ability to finish all of the exercise. I did.

Workout over, it’s time to get ready for work. If there’s one area that I’m still not thrilled about, it’s the locker room. In the shower area – I wish there were more hanging hooks or benches to put your stuff on.

Maybe I’m spoiled from having gone to the “health club” style gym in our office building – but it’s pretty spartan at the Y. It’d be nice to have a high shelf or two more hanging hooks to put your things on while you’re getting ready. Also, in the shower – there are no shelves or hooks, so be prepared to do the bobble, grab and lunge to reach any of your products that you have to set on the shelf on the other side of the curtain. Maybe I’m missing a key element to simplifying locker room routine – I’m open to suggestions if someone has one.

Despite the hassle – managed to shower, shave my legs (that was fun…) and get out the door in time to get to work on time.

YMCA Adventures Day #1: Machines, Muscles & ActiveTrax

The Texan and I are getting married in 45 days. Guess who is undertaking a little fitness makeover prior to the big day? Since I’m posting, you know it’s not the Texan. So, it’s 6:45am and I’m headed to the YMCA at Duck Creek for a new member orientation to learn how to be a more fit, fabulous me. Of course, I got a little turned around on the way there. Got a nice morning view of Seven Hills School (found their resale shop, BTW, which is legendary for their amazing deals) and toured around the Coca-Cola parking lot before finding the Y tucked back in the corner.

Walked in – and it’s time for my first workout with Amy Walla, personal trainer/guru of all things YMCA.

Amy started by sitting me down to talk fitness – specifically how much I have and have not done. Since I’m only slightly more fit than a couch potato, I mostly fall into the “beginner” category as far as using weights, knowing how to do exercises, etc. She also went over my fitness goals. I was very honest, told her that I tried WW once, had a lot of luck. Stress, life and things happened, and I gained back the 50lbs I lost. I tried it again – fail. So now, on to working out to try and get myself into better shape. She said that was doable – YAY!

The goal of today’s first work out was to test my strength on various machines, as well as setting up ActiveTrax, the fitness tracking software the Y uses.  ActiveTrax lets you customize the type of workout, the type of exercise and most importantly,  a specific timeframe for your workout. Since I’m working out in the morning, it’s helpful to know that I can set it up for a 45 minute workout, and get done in time to get to work.

I like that ActiveTrax will track all of your workouts – tell you how much weight, how many reps to do – and most importantly, tracks the placement of the seat of the equipment. I hate having to remember where to set up the seat. Speaking of setting up the seat – using the little yellow-marked knobs to set things up was a breeze. The knob makes it easy to spot what part of the equipment needs to be adjusted. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to accidentally drop a stack of weights or mess up the machine by adjusting the fit.

All in all, I think I did okay – not the weakling of the bunch, but not nearly as strong as I should be during the strength test.

At the end of the workout, Amy led me to the floor exercise (not gymnastics, but where you actually lay on the floor) area, and explained we were going to do crunches. Since I ususally do these on the exercise ball – when I do them – I wasn’t sure what she was going to teach me. She showed me how to crunch properly by finding a spot on the ceiling, and crunching my body while keeping an eye on the spot. Voila. I didn’t pull on my neck, and I was able to do a meager handful of crunches during the one minute test.

After I was done – shower time. Not really though. One BIG word of wisdom. Bring a towel – preferably a nice sized one. I didn’t, and the Y doesn’t supply them, so no shower for me. The locker rooms were nice – clean since the Y at Duck Creek is new- but not fancy. Metal lockers, both half-size and full-size are there. Second word of advice – bring a lock. The Y doesn’t supply locks.

There were only a handful of people in the locker room, so getting ready wasn’t tough. The Y doesn’t supply any H&B stuff – so best bet is to pack your travel pouch with your toiletries. Got ready, left and was at work in 20 min. Not even late!