Shortly after I signed up for Ironman Canada, I started doing strength training once a week with a personal trainer. My goals are pretty straightforward: I want to get stronger, slim down, and be able to do some pull-ups without flailing and looking like a sad little weakling. I have managed to get stronger over the past few months and the pull-ups are getting less tragic-looking. As for the weight, well…
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Last week I spent five (ugh) days in Las Vegas for work. There’s a conference that rolls around every late fall that dumps me in Sin City just long enough for me to not want to return until the stale stench of cigarettes, perfume and gamblin’ stank finally dissipates from my clothes and suitcase. (Unfortunately, I’m heading back to Vegas in December for the Rock ‘n Roll Marathon and AGAIN in January for another conference. Kill me.) I didn’t even bother packing workout gear because I knew I was going to be obscenely busy all week and wouldn’t be able to squeeze in a run (and I figured the casino hotel would charge so much for gym access that I could conceivably purchase my own 24 Hour Fitness franchise). I had been working out fairly steadily the weeks leading to the conference, so I figured my health would be pretty good going into the event. Naturally, I was wrong.
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I started doing Pilates (I know, I know) once a week and strength training once a week (throw in dry land and I’ve got 3 days of muscle flexin’ each week) for a pretty important reason (which I’ll get to in my next post, so stay tuned), and both my Pilates instructor and my strength trainer, Eli, keep barking the same order at me: “Remember to breathe. No, engage your core. No, your core.” Apparently, once you get serious about strength training and trying to be healthy, you have to learn how to breathe in a manner different than you have been accustomed to for the past 26 years. Who knew?
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This week I got my second massage in the past couple months. I signed up for a monthly massage package and realized that I had gotten charged for March but hadn’t booked an appointment to get tenderized for an hour. I called and scheduled a late morning massage and figured I’d head into work after it was complete. Big mistake.
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Or, as Sir Mix-a-lot would say, “My chir-o-prac-tor don’t want none unless he cracks bones, hon!” And to Nathan, my Magnolia Seattle chiropractor, I’m probably the Mack Daddy or Swass of patients. (I’ll devote a later post, tentatively titled “An Ode to My Chiropractor,” to my good sport of a chiro.) You see, I visit a chiropractor and a physical therapist for various maladies, and both of them have pretty harsh things to say about my neck and back. In their words, working on my back is like “pressing down on concrete.” While a healthy back, muscles and joints should have a bit of spongy give to them, my back is as hard as Sharon Stone’s face in Catwoman (I apologize for the terrible movie reference). Both the chiro and the PT recommended I get massage therapy at least once a month to help loosen my tight muscles.
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