As many of you already know, since I'm horrible at keeping anything on the “down-low,” I have started working a personal trainer at the gym within the last couple of weeks. His name is Taylor and he is a nice young man currently attending UVSC. I meet with him twice a week for half an hour and let me tell you what, he doesn't pull any punches. He works me so hard I'm sore for days and days afterwards! This guy is an animal! Today, for example, I'm finding it a bit difficult to go up and down stairs and to sit without wincing in a bit of muscle pain. Taylor scoffs at such petty inconvieniances. Its a good kind of pain! It builds character. And despite my usual inclination away from physical activity of any kind, I actually have to agree.I decided to sign up with a trainer for a number of reasons: 1) I clearly had NO idea what I was doing at the gym, with the result that I would usually just avoid going, 2) I needed something to keep me going even when my inherent laziness began to loll its ugly head, and therefore 3) knowing that I had invested some money into it would help me to go regularly, and also 4) knowing there was a beefy guy at the gym who could break me in half without a second thought who would be very displeased with me should I fail to show up would also be a great motivation!
I'm not saying its for everybody, but, for me, working with a trainer has been great. I'm the kind of person who needs somebody there making me push to my limits, to do just one more. I've only been at it for a couple of weeks, but I feel like I've already seen some nice results. For those concerned, I have not become a musclehead whose life-ambition to rip shirts when I flex. Those are the guys I'm scared to death of whenever I'm forced to go into the free weight section on my own. Actually, I'm not sure if I'm scared directly of them or of that feeling of compromised masculinity I get when I'm sweating like a madman trying to lift my ten pound weights while they are practically juggling fifties. Like I need any more reminders of my blatant femininity. Anyway, I'm not trying to compete with the big boys. I simply want to build bit of muscle to help burn off the body fat. And I've already seen a big improvement in that department! If I keep this up, I could really look good by the time I move in August. So thats whats important, thats what I try to keep my mind focused on. I have a target body fat percent I'd like to reach by the end of summer. Yes, I actually have goals! Its a major improvement from my previous “go to the gym and do stuff and see what happens” mentality.
Generally I go to the gym in the afternoons, right after work. I try not to eat too soon before I go, because running or working out on a full stomach often makes me feel a bit sick. So when I had an appointment with Taylor on Saturday at 9:30am and I woke up at 9:10, it didn't even occur to me that I should eat something before I went. I know this was stupid. If I had taken two seconds to think about the situation, I would have realized it was stupid and had something, anything. But you have to understand that I wasn't thinking and that I was in the habit of going to the gym without eating something right before.
We worked on legs (which is why they are still so sore) and Taylor, true to form, had me working like a madman. Leg presses, lunges, squats, again and again with hardly any break. It was intense, but I was enjoying the effort in my own way, and the burn in my muscles and the grunts of exertion that escaped my lips made me feel very powerful and manly. This was an illusion soon to be torn to shreds, however.
As we walked to another machine, I began to feel a growing discomfort in my stomach. I suddenly felt very strongly that I was going to throw up. To make matters worse, my vision began to get blurry and I felt pretty dizzy. I told Taylor to hold up a second, and that I was feeling a little weird, and then sat down on an exercise machine to catch my breath. I seriously don't remember anything after that.
There were dreams, I'm sure of that. Lots of random and meaningless images. Taylor says I flopped against the machine I was sitting on, and only his timely intervention had kept me from sliding to the floor. I vaguely remember coming to and hearing Taylor tell me that I had passed out before the darkness returned again. This time I felt like I was asleep for an entire night, a long dark fitful sleep full of dreams. The gym seemed a remote memory, and there was nothing but the blackness.
According to witnesses, I was only out for five to ten seconds before I snapped back into consciousness quite abruptly. There was something hard and flat pressed up against my back. It was the floor. Taylor and a small crowd of others looked down at me. My first thought was “Why am I at the gym?” which was followed a sudden realization of what had happened. I was then horribly embarrassed, and so the first thing I said was, “I'm OK! I'm fine!” as if passing out was a normal, cool thing to do. The third thing I thought, before Taylor made me start focus on breathing regularly, was that I just had to write a blog about this.
I felt quite calm and relaxed, puzzled at the surreal nature of the entire experience, while Taylor, for all his suave fitness know-how, proceeded to freak out in quite a natural way. I've decided I'd rather be the guy who passed out than the guy who has to deal with the guy who passed out. He wouldn't let me move much or say much until he was completely satisfied I wasn't going to go out again, then sat me up gently and had me drink small mouthfuls of water. He had somebody run to their little nutrition shop and buy a pack of cookies for me to munch on to get my blood sugar back up. He then properly chided me for not eating anything before I came in. He was right, of course; it was very stupid of me. On the whole, though, he came across as genuinely concerned for my well-being more than just being worried about how this might affect his job. I appreciated but was a bit embarrassed by his attention and care. Eventually, we had that awkward post-pass-out moment of “So.... um, I guess I'll see you next week then.... take care....” Don't you just hate those? You know what I'm talking about!
Anyway, I've received very little sympathy from anybody about this. That's OK, it was really my fault. But hey, I learned my lesson! I won't do it again! I guess when we are young, we all really do kind of feel like we are invincible and will live forever. Since it had never happened to me before, I had never considered the possibility that I could pass out. The whole experience left me considering my own mortality and physical vulnerability, so its been quite bitterly profound in its own way. Its not a big deal, really, but it did remind me that my body isn't just going to take care of itself all the time. We need to put a little extra effort into caring and protecting ourselves so that we can live long, productive, and happy lives. And thats a good moral to the story; even Taylor would have to agree.
Comments