Middle Age Slide.

From l to r: Will, Paul, Bev, Coach Jeremy, Kevin, Bina.

At the age of 16 I was sort of expelled from boarding school.  The only reason I was upset about this was because now I would have to live with the two people who could not expel me – my parents. I began each morning at 6:00 am with a 45 minute run, not because of any inborn affinity for the dawn or marathon training, but because my father—a former fighter pilot and the type of man who awakes at 4:00 am, of his own accord, to go horseback riding, for fun—is the kind of parent who is easily irritated by the sight of a sleeping teenager or young adult.  To him sleeping is for good-for-nothing, lay-abouts.  And while he did not look upon any part of my lifestyle with pride I knew that he could forgive most of my transgressions with my daily display of discipline. My sorry attempt at winning parental approval was how I stumbled in to the habit of daily exercise.

As the years flew by the running was replaced by Jane Fonda’s aerobic workouts, it was the first time I had ever seen women with thighs of steel and I admired them deeply. My own thighs were not all that but I thought that regular exercise would change them. It did not. I moved on from Miss Fonda to Miss Johnson’s step-aerobics, and from that to kick-boxing. I worked up a sweat on the various ‘stationary’ weight machines, balanced on a Bosu ball, and suffered through many core-conditioning classes. Then three years ago I gave up on ever having a ‘hard-body’ and settled in to the calm and delightful practice of yoga. Everything was going quite well until I noticed something very scary was happening to my body.  I call it ‘The Slide’.

The Slide is when your bottom and thighs start to lose what little muscle tone they had in your 20’s and are now rapidly sliding towards your knees. This does not happen to all almost-40-year-olds but it was happening to me with alarming alacrity, and of all the shit I have to tolerate The Slide is by far the most distressing because as I mentioned earlier I was the girl who exercised daily. I was losing hope of ever wearing shorts again.

Then I found Coach Jeremy Fisher and his 2 month strength training class at www.crossfitsouthbrooklyn.com

Coach Fisher’s Facebook page provides a quote, and an insight into his mind:

“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general.” Mark Rippetoe.

Let me give credit where it is due – I did not find Coach Fisher on my own. My husband found him first, and it was the great improvement I saw in my husband’s bottom that led me to believe that strength training might be my only hope. Let me be clear, throughout my long and varied exercise career I have steadfastly avoided weight training. To say I despised the sight of the weight room would be putting it mildly. There were rarely any women in there, and the few that were so strong that just looking at them made me feel inadequate and hopeless. Plus I hadn’t a clue as to what to do with the dumbbells, the barbells, and the kettlebells. But I was desperate and was willing to try anything.

It is now week 4 and I am a believer. I am beginning to feel muscle groups I had no idea existed. The class syllabus demands that we receive instruction on how to squat, bench press, overhead press, dead lift, and clean. We also do conditioning exercises that will eventually lead to a pull-up. It is all about complex moves that force you to use your entire body, so no more bicep curls, tricep extensions, or fucking sit-ups. Lifting weights I have discovered is a skill that is taught with great care by Coach Jeremy and his ilk. They are all about FORM, and as a self-proclaimed yogi I value this tremendously – it means I will get strong slowly, not injure myself, and the benefits will last forever.

A while ago I asked my classmates Bev and Paul what their goals were. Bev’s goal is to be able to lift her canoe (the bloody thing weighs 75 pounds and is 17.5 feet long) out of the water and fling it over her head and on to her shoulders and Paul wants to improve his running – he is a marathon runner and triathlon enthusiast.  My other classmates have goals more closely linked to the sport of weight lifting. Will wants to ‘just lift heavier weight’, Bina wants to be one of those ‘bad-ass women who lift bad-ass weights’, and Kevin wants to be able to do the Crossfit WODs at the Rx weight (and if you don’t know what WOD and Rx weight is you need to get with the program).

Like Coach Jeremy this lot believes that strong people are harder to kill and much more useful than their weaker counterparts.  Last night, in an effort to join their ranks, I squatted 85 pounds with Coach Jeremy and my classmates yelling ‘push, push, hips, hips’ and Bev singing ‘baby you can do, just put your back in to it’ in the background. I strained so hard I thought my ovaries had fallen out of my Happy Cavity.  But I don’t really care  – it’s a small price to pay if I can stem The Slide.

PS: My one-woman comedy show UNLADYLIKE is back onstage April 16 and 30 @ 8pm. Buy tickets at http://www.unladylike.eventbrite.com