Thursday, February 5, 2009

I MISS BUTCH


I miss Butch. I'm lost. Seriously. One day and I'm hooked. Never mind the fact that in this economy I'm afraid to spend even a dollar that I don't have to because I don't know where the next dime is coming from. Never mind that the cost of a personal trainer is like a car payment. Never mind that for the past 48 hours, I've found it hard to rise from or lower into a seated position. Never mind that the bastard threw my age in my face. Before Monday, I never knew what I was missing. But now……………well……………..there's no going back.

No, I'm not going to hire Butch as my personal trainer unless I win the lottery. But I would REALLY like to. And since I don't buy tickets, winning the lottery is not likely. Butch made it interesting. I'll just long for the day when money is no object. Butch pushed me. Butch ridiculed me. OK, maybe I don't miss that part so much. Butch knew what he was doing. And therein lies the problem.

This is a new gym for me. I may not have gotten great results at my old gym but I knew where everything was and how it worked. The torture exercise equipment at this gym is unfamiliar to me. Who knew there could be so many different ways to work a muscle?

I returned to the gym yesterday sans Butch at my side. It was pull day. That means biceps and …..uh……..chest, I think. I guess I should have taken notes. Armed with my ipod jamming away, I walked to the section where Butch had shown me the "pull" machines where. The only one I recognized had two men working there and they didn't move away during my entire workout. I was finally able to decipher the code to work a few of the machines. I set my weight at 30lbs. I have no idea if that is too much or too little but I used to do much more. But I'm starting over now and I didn't want to over-do. I worked my way through four machines and decided since Butch was nowhere to be seen that should be enough for one day. I walked upstairs to my old friend the elliptical. Now don't forget that Butch told me to do no more than 30 minutes cardio and that I should stay in the "fat-burning" zone which means my heart rate should be no higher than 120. At first, I thought this sounded great. I don't have to exercise as long as I was doing before and I don't have to work as hard. This proved to be more difficult that you might think.

I'm not sure but I think my heart rate was higher than 120 when I got on the machine. I had to climb two flights of stairs just to get there. I was never able to get my heart rate below 129. According to Butch, if you work too hard during cardio, you start to burn muscle instead of burning fat. I thought I was going to like working out with less intensity. Instead, I found it very challenging. I flipped through several songs on my ipod trying to find the right tempo. I finally settled on these:


  • Michael pre-27 nose jobs and hanging baby off the balcony Jackson's The Way You Make Me Feel. (This is such a great song. You can't help but move. The tempo was a little too quick so I had to visualize myself doing slow, controlled plies. This practice worked to some extent.)
  • John Cougar Mellancamp's Cherry Bomb. (I got to daydream about the good old days when a sport was a sport and holding hands meant something…………baby.)
  • Sara Evans' Otis Redding. (If you've never heard this song, you're missing it. It stirs my soul and evokes emotion in me that make me long for a simpler time)
  • Marty Stuart and Johnny Cash singing Doin My Time. (Not only was the tempo a little slower but doin' my time was a nice fit, don't you think? Prison, Gym……..Potato, Potatto)
  • Crystal Lewis' God's Been Good to Me (The story of my Life)

Thirty minutes of cardio completed and I was out the door. I noticed today at work as the day wore on that it became harder and harder to lift my arms. Butch would be so proud.






20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love me some MJ! and some U! left you something at the house of dwarfs ;)

Twenty Four At Heart said...

that looks like a huuuuuuuuge gym! I'd take Butch over The Torturer anyday. The Torturer, however, is going to be out of town next week so I'm already REJOICING!

Anonymous said...

I have a treadmill and a BowFlex in my basement, and I know how to use them both.

Guess I'll just have to MAKE myself. *sigh*

I wanna be you when I grow up...

Wsprsweetly Of Cottages said...

Can being able to get up out of the bathtub be considered exercise? If so, then I'm ok. I do it every single day!

Reader Wil said...

You are a brave girl! To face such torture machines! I hope it's worth your while!
You asked about my didgeridoo, well I 'll show you next ABC Wednesday when it's the turn of the letter D. It's an interesting instrument, I can tell you. Only the person in the video, explaining how it was made, speaks haltingly and stilted English, but she has done that for 60+ years now, so that cannot be improved. Sorry!

Michael Horvath said...

I love the words on the pic. If we do this we can increase the awareness of not only what we can accomplish, but a reinforcer of what we already do.

Anonymous said...

Wow...Look at you go! I'm not sure we can keep on being friends. You are making me look really really bad, lazy, and yes, jiggly (is that even a word?).

Anonymous said...

Love the pics... both of them, and WOW, nice gym!

Di
The Blue Ridge Gal

Pearl said...

This post was perfect for me today! Friday after work will be my fourth day in a row of hot yoga and I'm just dying to run around and make people feel my biceps. :-) Been going faithfully for over two years now and my only regret is that I didn't start this sooner.
Hang in there, baby! And tell those dorks hogging the machines to move along!
Pearl

The Chicago Blogger said...

Ok, Butch's take on heart rates, intensity and muscle burning (??) is freaking me out.

I emailed my trainer with some questions just so you get a 2nd opinion. I'll post them here when he responds back.

As for music. Great choices! MJ has a few songs from "Off The Wall" that are on my iPod that I like to listen to. I can't remember the titles, though. lol

Have you heard of Duffy? She's got a song that's been out for awhile called "Mercy". Her sound is a shout out to the girl groups of the 50's & 60's. I think you'll dig the tune. Check it out when you can. :) It's a good workout tune.

Smart Mouth Broad said...

Snow-Thanks. I'll get on that in a couple days. I have the next few posts planned. Look at me being all organized!

24-Enjoy the Torturer's absence. The new gym is huge. It has racquetball courts, a full basketball court and a full size pool. Crazy. Of course, I will never use any that stuff.

Jan-You go girl! No really, I mean it. Now! LOL

Mona-I would vote most definitely YES.

RW-I hope it's worth it too. Now that I'm reading Diana's comments, I'm getting worried. I look forward to the didgeridoo post.

MPH-Making it to the gym at all today will be a great accomplishment for me. *sigh*

Fancy-Don't be too impressed and believe me I've got a lot more jiggling than you do.

BRG-Thanks but I can't take credit for either. The first was "borrowed" from the gym's website and is not actually my gym but one of their other locations. The gym I'm going to looks pretty much like this tho. It's huge. And as you already know the other picture came from Da Man.

Pearl-I can't wait to check out the yoga classes at the new gym. It's a little hard for me to be quiet and still but it's so good for you and a much better workout than people realize.

Diana-Thanks for the music recommendations. But now I'm dying to hear what your trainer has to say. The thing is that for three years I have been working at a high intensity and not getting anywhere. Maybe I need to explore your plan a little closer. 33 lbs! WOW! That's awesome. Go YOU!

Debbie said...

A little Butch can go a long way! See, he's still with you in spirit.

Pseudo said...

They should have, like, a Butch giveaway contest at your gym...

Have a great weekend SMB!

Anonymous said...

So did Butch run off and quit after your session? LOL And uhm....you sure got some funky music on that there ipod of yours. You make me proud.

Anonymous said...

So did Butch run away screaming and quit after your session? LOL And uhm....you sure got some funky music on that there ipod of yours. You make me proud.

The Chicago Blogger said...

Me again!

So I was a little off on the high intensity thing. Here's what he said. There's a lot and he uses "..." A LOT. lol

Here goes:

Remember..he is a club trainer...so he feels like he has to answer everything..or he honestly feels he is correct.

The higher your heartrate is..you do burn more calories..BUT..you shouldn't be able to do a much higher level for very long. I mean if you can go at 165-175 for 40 minutes(and im not talking running)...then thats just not normal. the fat burning zone is supposed to be 70-75% of your max......cardio zone is 80-85%. It should very extremely difficult to keep the cardio pace for a long period of time............make sense? if she is going about 145-155....she will be fine...im assuming she is healthy.

As for burning of the muscle. If your friend has weight to lose....then it will not get into muscle storage. If a person has low body fat.....then when they over do it...or do cardio for too long of a period...then you get into muscle storage. Look at marathon runners(kinda a bad analogy)..but they have no muscle...usually. For 1...yes they dont train to get big...but also they cant keep muscle on. If your friend has weight to lose....then what he says makes no sense.

Its like he has heard things and is putting them together...but for the wrong reasons.

AND THEN HE SAID:

How did he get that figure. All she has to do is this....wear a heart rate monitor...in the morning after waking up...before she has any caffeine...to sit for about 5 minutes and see the lowest number she gets. Thats her resting heart rate...once she has that...here is the formula:

220 - Age(48) - resting heart rate X .70(you can change to .75 if this first number is too easy) + resting heart rate again.

220-48- rhr x.70 + rhr= (her fat burning zone number).

so if this guy didn't know those numbers...he is just guessing.

And that's the end. Again, my two cents. I read your posts and got a little concerned about the info, so I asked my trainer and now you have a 2nd opinion. :) If you have any other questions, leave me a comment on my blog and I'll get back to you. :)

The Chicago Blogger said...

Oh, when the trainer asked me (in the post above) "how did he get that figure?" I had told him that Butch told you not to get your heart rate over 120 when doing cardio. Just to clarify. :)

Smart Mouth Broad said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Smart Mouth Broad said...

Debbie-You're right. Any more and I'd probably shoot him again.

Pseudo-Great idea. A Butch raffle. I'll suggest it.

MLS-You felt so strongly, you made the same comment twice. *wink* I hate it when that happens. Butch was only my trainer for the free day. He's not in my budget so I won't be working with him anymore.
I do have rather ecclectic taste in music.

Diana-I wrote out this whole long response and then lost it due to error between the keyboard and the chair (hence the above deleted comment)

I'm afraid that maybe I didn't represent Butch well. He is young and most likely new. But for the most part, I don't think that he was too far off. I refuse to write out this whole thing again here. I will comment on your blog.

The Chicago Blogger said...

Hi! Got your post on my blog, thanks!

I've heard some horror stories (and just read about one in my latest issue of Women's Health - yikes!) about club trainers and I just wanted to make sure you were getting more than just one opinion. :)

I just got back to my workouts after a whole week off (I had the flu) and I actually missed it! :)

Talk soon!