i had just a little more to say.

For No Quit Fit last week I was given the blog topic: Is there a double standard in fitness?  There is a limit to the length I can submit and I had a little more to say.  Here's the full story.

I lifted the first dumbbell of my adult life in September of 2011.  8 pounders.  Above my head.  Many reps and many struggles to push that weight all around up and down and in and out.    This was my first bootcamp class.  Wretched bootcamp class.   After the first day of class, which coincided with my first day of exercise in oh, about 15 years give or take, on the drive home I reflected on how it went.  My drive is only 5 blocks so all I got to was how all the women looked and how they made me feel.  I hadn't known anyone in the class personally, though a few faces were familiar.  Some of them were lifting 15 or 20 pounders and were zipping so quickly up and down in the burpee portion of the night.  I was getting dizzy just watching their speed and agility.  They were laughing and joking about tacos while doing a million toe push ups.  I was so sweaty and exhausted after 3 knee push ups, all I could muster in the comedy department was puking in my mouth a little after numero 4.   Funny, not funny.  

bootycampers: go commando! 5k mud run!

tough women!

getting soft.

There were softer-bodied women and harder-bodied women and everyone was lifting and jumping and sweating.   Some women were completing 2 burpees to my one sad slow burpee.   Toward the end of the first month, while I was knocking out a burpee, the trainer said to me "be athletic".  Huh?  You talking to me?  This is as fast as I can go, sloth like.  We just did push ups and lifted, and then ran stairs and lunges from hell.  These are the extent of my burpees.  Quit looking at me.   

But he didn't let up.  "It's not your speed I'm talking about, your two feet are not springing back together.  You're quickly moving one foot then the other.  It's not athletic, and you are athletic."  

You know how someone says something to you and it just sticks?  Like, when I fell in love with Alan the rest of the way.  I know the instant it happened and exactly what he said to make me limp like noodles in love with him.    It was our second week of knowing each other and Alan, Rayshele (bestie), and I were at Bandana Square eating lunch on a work break.  Bandana Square is a strip mall in St. Paul.  We were leaving the building and walked past a store called Bandana Cleaners.  Alan said, "They're really limiting themselves."  And the rolling laughter that came bellowing out of my face was so loud and hearty and jovial!   Rayshele shot me a disapproving look of "it's not that funny, you are trying too hard".  But I wasn't TRYING to do anything, I was laughing at the best humor I'd encountered in my life.  That was it.   I was already half way in love with the man.  We had been inseparable since the day after we met.   In that moment, I fell completely in love with Alan.  It's etched in my memory.  Same as Dustin's words to me that day in bootycamp: "be athletic".  

He knew I could do better.  He knew I was an athlete but needed to be spurred.  He saw it in me.  He read my potential and pushed me to achieve it.  I was doing kick-ass burpees by the second month.  No more two-foot-separations. I complete athletic burpees now, because I'm an athlete.  Thank you Dustin for rekindling this for me!

Dustin, trainer extraordinaire.

On that first night of bootcamp, on about block 4 on the drive home it hit me.  I was a softer-bodied woman.  I hadn't totally come to terms with this fact until that moment.  I was a softer-bodied woman and I felt comfortable in my skin at bootcamp.  Had that happened before?  I repeat, had that fucking happened before?  In my life?   I wracked my brain.  Um, no.  I felt zero judgements.  I had zero personal thoughts to bring myself down.  Nirvana?  I think so.  I was in awe of myself for going, staying, finishing.    

Ronnie and I were about the same size perhaps, at my heaviest.

I see snap cards are peeking out!  I was on my way.

 

Drinks and Appies were my usual.  Time to break away from the usual.

With all this physical shit being hoisted upon me by the trainer, boom boom boom christ it was one thing after another,  I didn't even have enough energy to care a lick about my nips blaring for the spotlight.   What is that all about anyway?  Good god, settle.   I don't think mine are unusually large or anything but it's like they always have to stand at attention.   At ease girls, at ease.   

When I pushed the weight up high and my shirt came up to reveal a roll peaking out to say yo, was I embarrassed?  YES.   But not because I thought any of the other boot campers cared to count the dimples pushing through my yoga pants.   Rather, I was feeling my own embarrassment in my choices that had led to roly poly oly.    Softie-softelson.  Coming to terms with it all.  It was a powerful day that's for sure. 

But that night at bootcamp, I was comfortable.  Comfortable being vulnerable because I was moving!  I was being active!  I was lifting weights for fuck's sakes.  I felt welcomed.   And I got the distinct feeling that these women and this trainer were about to give me a platform for change, and some really excellent and motivating fit bodies to emulate.  Along with a shit-load of mountain climbers and walking lunges.  

I was hooked.  Well, until three days later when I couldn't sit down on the toilet without grab bars.  My quads were burning!  Not to mention every other muscle and fiber in my body.   The second week of class, my husband literally had to push me out the door to go back to class.  I was so sore I wanted to quit.  I hadn't been sore in my life.   Soreness didn't happen in high school athletics.   I told Alan my body was screaming at me to knock it off, but he knew better.  He said my body was screaming at me to bring it on.  He was right.  After a month, I never looked back and hardly missed a class over one and half years before I had to take a break from lifting during the last leg of my marathon training in the spring of 2013.  

My biggest cheerleader and confidante!

Marathon-fit.  Best shape of my life!

Now, the double standard question, is there one in my world of fitness?  I think it's in the mind of the beholder.    And my mind doesn't see one.  Men joined our class in my tenure.   I didn't feel self conscious around them.  I had to hold in my farts just the same around the women as I did around the men.  I didn't feel I had to act a certain way when they were around, I was able to be myself whether there were men present or not.  

Except for the farts.  There was a "no fluffing" rule at bootcamp.  I was shocked to hear the rule at first.  How does one not let it rip when doing crunches and bicycles?  Those moves beg for release.   Of course they were smart to institute that before I arrived.  Did my reputation precede me?   It's not easy to stifle, but for the love of my fellow bootcampers and Dustin, I maintain the no fluffing policy.  Is it easy?  No.  But rules are rules.  

Benji is a brave brave doggie!

 

Other than that, being a man or a woman didn't matter in class.   The bathroom was nasty gross and unclean with a constantly overflowing huge black garbage bag laying tipped over on the floor.   Though some of the women complained about it needing to be cleaned, those complaints fell on deaf ears.  So the women weren't treated to a nice bathroom that's for sure. 

I was asked to work just as hard on building my muscles as the men.  I loved the attitude from the trainer: whether it's your first day or your fiftieth or you are a man or a woman, you paid me to work your ass off, so that's what I'm going to do.  

Becoming a hard body!

In my happy place.

dip de dip.

Someday I'll get dedicated and go for abs!

I like being outside now!

If I was a person that put walls up, I might be able to think more and find the double standards that exist in my fitness world, but I tend to put in chinks instead.