Day Six. All alone!

There may be no lonelier place on the planet than a gym at 4:30 p.m. on the Sunday of a Memorial Day weekend. I can attest to that. And I have photographic proof. In a somewhat weird “Where’s Waldo” kind of way, it’s hard to make out even me, lost amongst all that empty equipment! [...]

Five @ The Factory.

Day Five. Five exercises. Elliptical Trainer: 15 minutes at the beginning (ends in 5); 10 minutes at the end (multiple of 5): Total, 25 minutes Leg Lifts with a Ball, slowly:  10/10/10 (multiples of 5) Hip/Back Stretch with Leg Drop: Just 2, but for 50 seconds per side. Cat/Cow Stretch alternating with Upward Dog: 10 [...]

Day Four. Where optimism starts.

Day Four. The big day. The first time in weeks that I would actually hold a dumbbell. Ooh, the anticipation… Truthfully, I was a little bit excited. Yes, I’m a geek. I headed to The Factory, reviewing my plan in my head:  No more than 50 minutes weight-training. Baby-weights. Teeny-tiny baby weights… Only chest and shoulders. [...]

Little tiny baby steps.

It was a very tentative me who approached the gym for Day One of “Training On My Own” (subtitle: with a back injury). So tentative in fact, that I decided that 15 minutes on the step mill would be my entire workout. Yeah, my entire workout. At Level 4. And still, I was worried… But [...]

Getting the hell out of the way…

No one has ever accused me of having a small ego. Because I don’t. I have always had what I see, unapologetically, as a very healthy self-image, and it has always stood me in good stead. It is the source of my self-confidence and the reason for my lack of shyness, and it probably goes [...]

Live, from The Factory, a Muscle Girl progress report…

Okay, it’s not really live – that just sounds so much more dramatic. It is a progress report, though. Of sorts… It’s been quite a while since I announced that “Muscle Girl” was back in action, and yet I haven’t posted once since that earth-shattering proclamation! Kind of makes you think I’ve been slacking, doesn’t [...]

Broad Shoulders.

(Note: Last autumn, long before I took a sabbatical from blogging in general, several events collided into a mini-explosion that left me uncertain whether or not the Muscle Girl site was going to remain in my life. Shortly thereafter, I quit blogging altogether, even at paythepiper.wordpress.com. Recently, I re-entered the blogging world at my main [...]

It was fun. Until it wasn’t.

Tonight, I joined Jae and Matthew in their training session with Mike at Snap Fitness. It was fun. Mike had them training chest, arms and core, but I’d just trained chest on Monday (Jae, where were you?), so he had me train legs and back. It was fun. Afterward, we chatted for a bit. It [...]

Going Heavy at the Factory.

I had a great workout tonight. It was a great way to start the week, and even though my girl Jae bailed on me, I had a lot of fun. It wasn’t busy, but there were enough regulars in the gym to make the room convivial, and having people who could spot was a definite [...]

Homeless. But Certainly Not Gymless…

So. Back in Texas. Back at home. But certainly, not back to normal… whatever normal is these days, anyway… I have to admit to feeling just a little weird in the gym since I’ve returned. Or actually, the GYMS, plural, since I have been spending some time at both The Factory and Snap Fitness – [...]