Sweatin’ With Izumi

Izumi Tabata.

That name alone causes my butt to clench and makes me break out in a cold sweat.

Mr. Tabata invented a type of high intensity interval training, otherwise known as HIIT.  (As in, “Don’t hiiitttt me again with that move!”)

“High-intensity interval training is an enhanced form of interval training.  It’s an exercise strategy alternating periods of short intense anaerobic exercise with less-intense recovery periods. HIIT is a form of cardiovascular exercise.  Usual HIIT sessions may vary from 4–20 minutes. These short, intense workouts provide improved athletic capacity and condition, improved glucose metabolism, and improved fat burning.”

Professor Tabata’s “regime,” initially involving Olympic speedskaters, uses 20 seconds of ultra-intense exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated continuously for 4 minutes (8 cycles).

Today at my exercise class we did a full 20 minutes.  It’s been said if you aren’t seeing stars and feeling as if you’re going to croak on the spot, you aren’t working hard enough.

I think I saw my life pass before my eyes, so I guess my session was a success.

Afterward, we had a wonderful 30 minutes of cool down and yoga stretches.  Our instructor, Shannon (AKA the Energizer bunny), told us this was designed to bring our “Chi” down from the high level where we were functioning.

“Chi” is the Chinese term for life force or life energy.

As we began, Shannon said her “Chi” was poking out all over her.

To this I replied:  “With  me, it’s more like Chee-tos.”

Tabata—When garden variety torture won’t do.

 

Working Out Flat Screen Politics

I started going to the gym at our local Wellness Center in June.  Since school was out, and I wouldn’t be reading to the kindergarteners at the Primary School again until October, I needed a project to focus on.

I decided that I would be that project.

After an unusually frigid winter, the Flabman had come calling.

It was high time to get back into yoga again after a three year hiatus of sloth.  Also, I wanted to use some of the nifty fitness equipment arrayed in their cardio training room.  They have three rows of elliptical machines and treadmills, all lined up facing the wall that holds four flat screen teevees.

Each screen is numbered from 1 to 4, left to right.  While you’re working out you can plug into the audio thingy (you can tell I’m technologically challenged) called a “Cardio Theater” mounted on each machine and select which teevee you want to listen to.

Screen # 1 is always sports.  Two is usually a country music video channel.  Three has always been….ack….Fox News.  And four riochets amongst NBC, HGTV or the generic news channel from Time Warner Cable…so far.  This screen seems to be the wild card here.  But Fox News on screen #3  is forever and ever, amen.

At least until a day last week.

I had just gone into the cardio room when I saw a man in his 70s actively engaging in conversation with three or four people who were in the middle of their workouts.  He was asking them if it would be alright if he could get one of the center’s managers to change the channel on screen #2.

As it turned out, screen #1 was still sports, but #2 now had Fox News and #3  had the music channel.  He wanted to use the treadmill that was directly in front of screen three, even though there were others available.  Apparently he didn’t want to have to turn his head even slightly to the left to be able to watch Megyn Kelly, so he wanted the channels switched.

By the time I arrived, he had gotten everyone’s approval for the move, which I’m sure most of them assented to just to get the guy out of their face.  If he had asked me, I would have said “Sure.  I don’t listen to that crap anyway,” but he didn’t, so I didn’t.

The manager came in with the remote and changed the channels.  But now there were two screens of Fox News up there, screen #2 and also #3.

Now, that’s just wrong.

But this is a very Republican town, and Democrats tend to huddle and whisper when we get together and use secret handshakes and passwords like “The owl flies at dawn,” so calling attention to yourself as such isn’t recommended.

A lady a couple of machines over from me finally piped up and asked the manager if she would kindly switch one screen back to the music channel she’d been watching, which she did.

Mr. Fox continued to plod away on his treadmill, eyes staring straight ahead, never taking his gaze from his source of “fair and balanced news.”

Now that’s the height of Right Wing devotion.

Or stupidity.  You pick.