Kama Sutra sends writer to gymnasium

The Kama Sutra leaves little room for fat people.  Looking at the blue and pink figures contorted on my computer screen, the thought enters my mind that I am not going to be able to do half of the things promoted in different publications. I am going to need to get into a lot better shape to try some of these more elaborate and interesting poses.

So, it encouraged me to go back to the gym for the first time in about two months.  I ran on a treadmill for about 30 minutes, and then I did the first day of my typical weight workout, which manly consists of upper body exercises. This experience has left everything about me sore. Now, I didn’t expect to look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club after one week in the gym. I just thought that I wouldn’t be so sore that it even hurt just lying in my bed.

Finding a workout was strangely easy when looking at the beginner’s steps. The Men’s Health Hard-Body plan, the Abs Diet workout plan and L.L. Cool J all have good plans. First phases are similar. The only difference is the time that they allocate to the first phase.  L.L. CoolJ suggests five weeks, Abs Diet wants six weeks, and Hard-Body Plan wants 12.

I started with the three day a week workout outlined in the Men’s Health Hard-Body Plan. I didn’t make this choice because the cover art features a ripped man with a shaved chest or because they claim to have the leading research for top people in the field (all books claim this), but because this was the most expensive of the three books that I had in my bought. Expensive means quality, right?

When I started to run on the treadmill, I started to hear a strange cracking noise. I panicked, thinking that something was wrong with my iPod. I examined it by turning it off and discovered that the noise actually was coming from me. It was my right ankle that was making a strange noise. I hurt it really bad when I played football in high school, but on the treadmill it sounds like I’m running on bubble wrap.  Pop, pop, pop. Not good.

Hitting the weights didn’t go any better. I couldn’t help but laughing at the strange faces I was making in the mirror. The main laughter came from the number of people around me who had cut their sleeves off of their T-Shirts. Going sleeveless doesn’t make anyone look stronger and I can’t imagine that it gives improved mobility. The only thing that it seems to do is exposed armpit hair to people just trying to catch their breath.

Compared to how all of the first weeks of workout in the gym have gone for me in the past, it went good. The hardest thing came from working out alone. Sometimes the thought that I had worked out plenty and should call it a day entered my mind. This was the hardest thing to get past.

The only reassurance that I kept on giving myself was this: if I could find a way to get through this week, then it would all get easier. I think of how the weeks have gone by so fast since I got into college and try to relate that to workout. I tell myself that if I could just keep up with this the first week, then it would quickly turn into six weeks.

The only thing I have to figure out is how to turn this into something that I can keep on doing and not get frustrated by results coming slower than I want them to. Then and only then I might be able to all of the things the little blue figure on the Karma Sutra can do.

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