Workout, Your Husband Will Love Your Butt – (My Fitness Journey – Vertex Fitness Diary 2)

I’m going to share a secret with you that you probably already knew—muscle fatigue is not actually fun. About half of those workout posts on Pinterest are LYING. Probably everything you’ve ever seen in a Lululemon ad is also lying. But you know what else? It’s not actually that bad, either.

Dwayne, my trainer at Vertex Fitness, once told me something that made the whole thing a lot easier. He told me to think about working out like it’s brushing my teeth. It’s not something you have to get excited to do or pretend to love, and you shouldn’t even think about it until it’s time to do it again. Then, when it’s time, just go and do it. And you know what? He’s right. I don’t dread workout sessions, not by a long shot. That doesn’t mean I hyperventilate with excitement for them, either. I just show up, I do it, and I feel good that I did. (Bite me, Pinterest.)

There is actually something I got excited about last week. My trainer gave me a peek at my charts, and I actually am making steady progress. The neat little pencil marks revealed that week over week, I do just a few more reps, and my weights have gotten just a bit heavier. That means I’m stronger! I was so jazzed to actually see it on paper like that that I high-fived.

Complaining: My Favorite Part of the Week

Now, that doesn’t mean I’m the poster girl for expensive yoga pants either. I get about 67% of my weekly complaining done during my workout session. This is maybe my favorite part. Dwayne lets me sigh, swear, and flip off my least favorite machine. He says he’s seen worse, which makes me want to up my game.

My new least favorite phrase in the entire world is “okay, two more.” See, Dwayne practices a style of strength training that involves pushing a muscle to fatigue, and then doing reps while fatigued in order to achieve maximum effort and workout effectiveness. It also achieves maximum bitching from me. Just as soon as I am pretty sure that I will die if I push up a weight one more time, Dwayne tells me that I can do two more. I am positive that I absolutely cannot do two more, and that he is persecuting me to fulfill his own sadistic purposes. And then I do two more.

That’s been the best part about this journey. I found out that I can do much more than I ever thought I could. The other day, my husband said that I was starting to get some definition in my back and legs. Whoot! Not only that, but I opened a pickle jar the other day without passing out. And not only that, but on the day of the Women’s March on Washington, after walking for about eight hours, I was the only one in my group of girls who did not feel sore the next day. That’s what this is really all about. This isn’t about losing, it’s about gaining. More husband compliments, more pickles, and more miles marched to fight the patriarchy. That’s what I call worth it.

“Workout, Your Husband Will Love Your Butt”, was written for Vertex Fitness Personal Training Studio by Nicole Hallberg