Friday: Getting Stuef-ed

We headed to Bond Park this evening for a workout with John. It was nice to get out in the autumn air and really breathe. I’m glad we’re going back to the park for workouts. We did a round-robin of sorts – David did step ups while I worked on the TRX and then we swapped and moved on to another set of exercises. I don’t know why, but I like that format.

Then came what David and I had been dreading – the re-introduction of the dead lift. I hate the dead lift. David hates the dead lift. John loves that we hate the dead lift. Let me explain. In a dead lift, you stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. You squat down, looking forward, grab a bar loaded with weight, and lift it up, keeping it close to your body. When you are finally standing straight up, holding the bar, you pull your shoulders back and then slowly lower back into a squat and guide the bar back to the ground. It’s a slow painful process that is repeated umpteen ga-zillion times. Each time you lift the bar, it feels heavier and the trainer smiles.

The joy of the dead lift is that it’s a gift that keeps giving. Not only is it horrendous in the moment, you feel them days later, particularly first thing in the morning. David feels them in his lower back; I feel them in my hips. And just when the soreness has worn off, they magically reappear in the workout. We groan and John just smiles.