Training for 2 Part 2
THE CHAINS OF COMMITMENT
Lisa and I embarked on a grand experiment a month ago. OK, it’s not Maoism or anything, but codependent training has definitely required at least a forced relocation of psychology: If anything has instructed in how private an excerciser I’ve become in the last few years, this is it. Sure, I’ve met friends at the gym before, and not infrequently, but that’s more like a movie date – the kind of thing where each party departs into her own headspace for the duration, then come back together only after the activity is complete. Making a commitment to attending two Liquid Strength classes each week, plus one hour of hardass training with Jason Pulido, has meant something different for Lisa and me: We’ve hitched our wagon to the same star, giving ourselves identical goals and schedules, and for better or worse, relying on each other to make things happen.
LISA’S VERSION
Why is there no Liquid Strength class Thursday-Sunday? Why, why, why? In a testament to the power of Elizabeth Story’s LS cult, as Maya so aptly dubbed it, I took a red-eye back from my business trip and skipped a very fancy dinner in order to make it to class Wednesday. This was dedication, coupled with a bit of envy that Maya had done Liquid Strength by herself while I was gone. Not that I’m feeling competitive or anything, but I will admit that I was pretty psyched when Story exclaimed that I looked narrower during class.
Narrow may sound like a bizarre way to describe what happens to your body, but that’s really what it is-not weight loss per se, but an overall tightening that makes your body fit together better. Now, speaking of competitive, my “friend” Maya took a sadistic turn in our second training session with Jason Pulido. We started with “buddy circuits” where one person lifted weights while the other jumped on and off a step-on and off, off and on, your legs burn, your butt kills, you wish Jason would turn away for just a second so you could take a teensy little break. Now, there were a set number of reps for the weight part, so you knew it would end at some point, but, the weight-lifter was free to take her time, paying attention to proper form. This is all well and good, except when you’re the buddy, jumping on and off a step endlessly, praying that your friend will speed it up already. It may have been my imagination, but I swear that Maya seemed to be taking her sweet time with the lateral pull-downs. Hmm.
Despite my annoyance at buddy-dependent exercise, I do have to say that Jason got our number after one session. He’s successfully mixed things up so much over the weeks that we have no idea what to expect. There’s been a medicine ball, kick-boxing, squats and sit-ups, and then, my personal favorite – the towel torture.
No, Jason was not whipping us with a wet towel, though that might have been preferable to the actual act- a sort of two person tug-o-war using a towel rather than a rope. I pulled, Maya resisted; Maya pulled, I resisted, and so on. I resisted a lot. This was payback time. So, a month and a bit into twin-training, I seriously feel a difference in my body. I’m stronger, challenging myself more in the training sessions, and the pull of Liquid Strength is keeping me honest with the workouts.
I’ve continued to run on the no-Jason, no-Liquid Strength days, but, really, running isn’t doing it for me anymore. In terms of exertion, the classes and training sessions are far more effective. And I’ve come to appreciate my twin’s role in all of this:
1. Her presence in the training sessions makes me work harder and makes a different kind of workout possible.
2. The fact that I have to meet her means that I actually go to Liquid Strength. If I do not show up, I fear the voicemail message that will be waiting for me.
3. I have one more excuse to see one my best friends every single day. Aww.
MAYA’S VERSION
The moment I realize how much I’ve been leaning on Lisa’s can-do is when she leaves for vacation. For two weeks, bar one brief business trip that entailed her missing one Liquid Strength class, she’s been the one to make the morning call to the cell phone I leave next to my pillow when I go to sleep – “OK, you ready?” Mmmmmph. Uh-huh.. When I fret that I’m not seeing changes in my body the way I see changes in hers , she’s the one who looks me up and down with a cold eye and says I’m daft. The truth is, I’m not seeing changes as dramatic – and part of the reason for that is because I have indeed set competition aside for the moment and let myself be driven by her energy. She goes running on off days. I, for the most part, slack off. She’s at the point where she feels strange when she doesn’t workout in a day; I’m still at the point where I feel proud of myself for punching the workout time card even when I don’t “have to.”
So, after Lisa takes off for a week and I’m left to my own devices, things go downhill fast. Monday morning Liquid Strength falls to a triple-punch – no Lisa phone call, the pounding rain outside my window nearly drowning out the alarm, and lastly, the fact that I know in advance that Elizabeth Story is sending a sub instructor to class. I try get myself to a kickboxing class that evening, find my plans scuttled by a last-minute work commitment, and resolve to get into the morning routine on Tuesday. Instead, I stay up way too late on a deadline, sleep through all three alarms, and resolve (again) to get to Crunch’s Core 5000 class later. Then that doesn’t happen, due to a personal emergency I’ll leave out of this article.
The next morning – another Liquid Strength morning – it’s raining again, and even though I know the best thing I could do for myself is to aim bodybar rifles and demi-squat for dear life and push open imaginary steel doors for an hour, but I’m depressed and my brain is still cloudy from the Ambien I took to get to sleep. I consider calling Jason to see if he’ll train me alone, but reckon that doing so would violate the spirit of the grand experiment.
Lisa gets back Thursday; Friday we have another session in the afternoon. I avoid the gym like poison until then. What I do attempt, after the rain has stopped, is a Lisa-style run. Lisa swears up and down that nothing else clears her head like a long, fast jog up and down the East River Park. And it’s true, I vaguely recall that, as a senior in high school running would sometimes work to sweep out of the mental underbrush after my sister died, but for me it was less the limpid miles in the Florida morning than the sprints I’d do up and down one short hill, and the cool down lying in the dewy grass and listening with every molecule to The Pixies. Where Is My Mind? Running is an extreme solution for me. But what I need more than anything now is some clarity, as I feel my life swallowing me up with enormous, vicious jaws. I dig around in an unpacked box from last month’s move and find my tellingly spiffy cross-trainers. Man are they ugly. I strap them on anyway, and depart for my first run in years. And this is what I’m thinking about: Presidential hair.
Earlier in the day, hot on the heels of the John Edwards veep announcement, I’d received a press release countering John Kerry’s claim that the Democratic presidential ticket boasted, indubitably, “the best hair.” According to semi-serious poll of American men, a slight majority thought Bush had the best hair. Putting one step in front of the other, I began to wonder what that meant, “best hair.” How had they phrased the poll question? Had they asked pollees whether they even knew who John Kerry was, or what he looked like?
And seriously, “best” – what does that even mean? Most befitting a commander-in-chief? Hair most American men would like to have for themselves? Most attractive, given the individual’s face shape and hair texture? The whole thing was a mess, I supected, never mind the press release’s unwinking mention of a plus-or-minus 3% margin of error. And what kind of effect had hair had on presidential elections? What did George McGovern’s hair look like? I can’t remember… This is what happens to me when I run. I wind up spending brain energy like it’s cash burning a hole in my pocket. “Clarity,” such as it is, comes in the form of a towel.
Lisa’s back, a good in itself, and also very good is the fact that I’m back in the gym as a result, working out with her under Jason’s watchful eye. He’s caught on to the fact that I thrive on competition, and hence has set up the workout as a kind of deathmatch between Lisa and me, with most of the struggle revolving around ownership of a towel. To start out, we play tug-of-war, though certain holds are definitely barred – Jason wants to keep to a, yes, demi-squat as we pull, resist, pull, resist. More pull, resist exercise occurs on the lateral raises. In between, we do weight reps and crunches and lunges, the usual trainer stuff.
As we leave the gym, I remark to Lisa that we should come to the gym ourselves and try to replicate the Jason experience. She agrees. To this day, this has never happened. I find myself overwhelmed with excitement the next week, because Elizabeth Story is back in town. I’m part of the cult now. The Monday class, despite my having skipped the week prior, feels, well “easy” isn’t quite the word, but maybe “natural” is right.
I realize that what I like so much about this workout is that after years of fighting my body, Liquid Strength somehow tunes me into it – so much so, in fact, that as she pushes us through the last, muscle-killing five minutes, I find myself crying. I walk out, unclear about what’s going on, and when I return to the studio to pick up my stuff once everyone else has left, Story tells me that the crying is a good thing. It means I’m “getting it.” Um, OK.
Come Wednesday, it’s my turn to drag Lisa to class. I need Liquid Strength. I don’t even get a competitive burn off noticing how Lisa, operating on almost zero sleep, is having trouble balancing on a tough routine. I shoot her a sympathetic glance. But just when I think that the impossible has happened, and that Liquid Strength has mollified me, turned me into a gentle soul, our next session with Jason commences and the plan for the day is to kickbox. I can’t help myself, and knock the bag (and my muscles) into oblivion. I was tired today. I don’t even know where the energy is coming from. Jason, observing my form from a careful distance, keeps reminding me to pivot my heel on the roundhouse kicks. He’s right. It makes me kick even harder. The next day, I feel like I’m dead. I’d started to think that the hurt and the burn from these workouts was a thing of the past, but the fact is, I’d stopped pushing myself.
Competition is what I use to push myself – and it doesn’t even come from competing against anyone else. I’m up against myself. One month into this thing, and this is what I’ve found out: No matter who comes to the gym with us, ultimately, we all work out alone.