Page 21 of Resistance Training
I put my water bottle down and sit on the floor in front of the bench, spreading my arms out wide so my headlights arepointing directly at him. He almost does a really good job of not glancing at them. “So you just haven’t read themyet.”
“You need to stay focused, Vivian. Mind to muscle. Think about your glutes.”
“I think you should read my emails before my next session with you.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re my client and I need to stay focused too.”
“On my glutes?”
“In a minute, yes. I want your feet about two more inches apart. Flat on the ground.” He reaches around to feel my back. “Bottom of your scapulas against the edge. Do you know what your scapulas are?”
I lift myself up an inch. “Do you remember what manners are, sir?”
“Weight in the heels, drive your hips up and squeeze your glutes.”
I do that, locking my eyes with his as I thrust and lower, angrily but perfectly every time.
“Good,” he says. He holds his hand out to help me up off the floor after my tenth rep.
I take his hand, still locking eyes with him, trying to control my breaths. My heart is beating as hard as it does after a run but not as fast, and I like it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Can you put on some music in here?”
“Sure. All you had to do was ask.” He crosses over to a panel on the back wall.
“You still listen to Pearl Jam?”
His body tenses up a bit. As if he can’t believe I remember what kind of music he used to listen to when we were best friends.
I do my gruff Eddie Vedder imitation, muffling my voice into my fist like it’s a microphone. “Even tempohhhh. Thoughts on muscles, drive through the heels! Ohhhhh, her form is perfect, though. But he frowns at her anywayyyyyy.”
His face almost breaks into a smile. And then it doesn’t. “Sometimes. Pick up those twelve-pound weights for the deadlifts…please.”
Well, now. I believe that’s what we call progress. “I shall. Thank you.”
“I’m putting on an upbeat pop music playlist with one hundred thirty to one hundred fifty beats per minute. I’m sure you’ll find a number of your favorite terrible songs on there.”
“Ooooh, them’s fightin’ words.”
I wait for him to lovingly make fun of my taste in music. Which is something he used to do, even as he let me listen to whatever I wanted to listen to when he was driving. I didn’t even like Top 40 music as much as I liked Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks back then; I just liked to annoy him. But he doesn’t make fun of me. He just tells me to hinge from my hips and keep my arms straight.
Finally we’re onto the core workouts, and I’m thinking about faking an illness like I used to for gym class occasionally. I do not think he’d be as sympathetic as Mrs. Brodzki was when I told her my ovaries felt vulnerable and were asking for some TLC. So my ovaries and I take one for the team.
“You know what,” he says, “I don’t normally recommend sit-ups as part of this type of workout, but let’s get you in touch with your core before we do the other exercises.”
“Awww, that’s fine. I’ve stayed in touch with my core. I’m very good at keeping in touch with people and cores.”
He gets a mat from the side of the room and places it on the floor in front of me. Then he gestures for me to get down on the mat. “Down you get.”
“Ya don’t usually make your clients do sit-ups, huh?”
“Not if the goal is an hourglass shape. But it sounds like you’ve mostly been doing cardio for a while, so I want to make sure you feel connected to your abs.”
