Exercising in Futility

I try to exercise. Most days I succeed. I wrench myself from a warm, cozy bed, feed the cat, and head downstairs to the dungeon to work out.

My personal torture devices.

I have several genres from which to choose. Cardio (formerly known as aerobic); walking, dancing, yoga, Pilates. The titles are always action-inspired: Fat Belly Blast, Big Weight Loss, Get Moving.

Once I've picked my poison, I load it up and off I go. Having done all of these workouts multiple times, I find my body going into muscle-memory mode. Then I start to notice things.

First, I look at the other people in the video who are in the background. Somewhere in the "how to be a back-up body in a workout video," it says, "first of all, SMILE!"

They always smile. Sometimes it looks like they are just gritting their teeth. One memorable example is in a Denise Austin workout, where Ms. Austin walks over to one of her cohorts, talks about flabby arms, and moving her finger across the underside of the woman's arm, says, "See that? We all get this!" It looks like the woman really wants to punch her. But she just "smiles," and for all time will be captured on tape, accused of having old lady arms. (Of course, she doesn't, but the seed has been planted.)

Sometimes they put guys in the video, and they look mighty uncomfortable. I also like to watch for the one person who misses a cue, then has to scramble to catch up. Sometimes I wonder if the choreographer tells them to screw up, just to make the folks at home feel better when they make a mistake. Kind of like, "Look here, even professionals like us make mistakes, it's okay that you're a klutz!"

There are times when the instructor does more reps on one side than the other. I find myself counting or ticking off the number of seconds a pose is held on each side. I'm always worried about being lopsided.

One of my favorite instructors isChris Freytag. But even she has her foibles. In a kick-boxing segment, she said, "pull your arm forward like you're dusting a shelf." A few moments later, she instructed, for the same movement, that "this one goes to the side of their face." Perhaps she was trying to appeal to both the housewife and the take-no-crap modern woman.

Then there is the naming conflict that takes place in two separate yoga videos. There is one pose where you lie on your back and grab the big toe on each foot.. Bullwinkle will demonstrate:

 This move was described in one place as the "Dead Bug Pose," and in the other as "Happy Baby." 

Of course, either name adequately describes the move. But I find the disparate names hilarious. Maybe it's because I've spent another half hour of my life pushing and pulling myself into different poses, and I'm just delirious.