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Last spring I was reading a friend’s blog and noticed that she’d issued a challenge to her readers: 30 Days of Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred. I was intrigued. I was also – dare I say it – inspired. And for reasons I have yet to fully understand, I immediately thought, “Okay. I’m in.” AND I SIGNED UP FOR IT.
CLEARLY SOME FITNESS-MINDED ALIENS SEIZED CONTROL OF MY MIND.
So I drove to the Target and bought the DVD and decided that the very next day would be Day One.
OH MY MERCIFUL HEAVENS.
But in a delightfully unexpected turn of events, I found out that my friend Melanie had also committed to the challenge. I cannot overstate the importance of this discovery because HELLO, ACCOUNTABILITY, NICE TO SEE YOU. We also realized that we were both planning to set aside some time to “shred” in the afternoons, but we were sort of blase’ about it because the workout only lasts 20 minutes, and how hard could that be, right? I mean, I can do all sorts of things for 20 minutes: I can lift the fried chicken off of my plate and put it into my mouth, I can repeatedly mash the buttons on the TV remote, and I can also send and receive countless text messages while continually sipping an ice cold diet Coke.
You may be picking up on why the aliens seized control of my mind and convinced me to sign up for the challenge in the first place.
So on that fateful spring afternoon, when there was not another living soul in my house, I turned on the DVD and got ready to feel the burn. I even wore my brand new lavender leotard and hot pink leg warmers.
Oh, I kid because there was a time when I really did own a lavender leotard and hot pink leg warmers.
I will spare you all the details of my initial foray into shredding, but suffice to say that within the first five minutes of the workout I was thinking Not Nice Things about Jillian and her perky fitness compadres. It didn’t help that Anita – who was quickly becoming my new BFF since she was in charge of showing us the “modified” moves, aka The Moves For Those Of You Whose Primary Form Of Exercise Has Been Pointing Your Toes While Typing – had abs so defined that I thought at first they must surely be the creation of some subtle airbrushing, only to realize that OH, those abs are totally real, and MY WORD, they are spectacular.
However, I moved past my bitterness, soldiered through the workout (does it tell you something that I was actually relieved when it was time for the ab segments because that meant I got to LIE ON THE FLOOR?), and y’all, when those twenty minutes were over, my leg muscles were so exhausted that my very first thought was I’ll never walk normally again.
Sure enough, I spent the next forty-five minutes trying to figure out how I was going to walk without looking like some straight-from-the-boondocks contestant on America’s Next Top Model who is trying to impress Tyra with what she thinks is a fierce runway walk. The only way I could manage to keep my knees from locking up was to lift my the tops of my legs to a forty-five degree angle with my waist, then sort of kick out my leg until my foot hit the floor, and later, when Melanie and I were laughing until we cried about The Day Jillian Nearly Killed Us, I described my new walk as something along the lines of what you’d expect from a demented clydesdale.
In other words: it was very sexy and now.
And since I had absolutely no hope of being mobile for day two of The Shred since WHOA, NELLIE, LEGS WERE A-SMARTIN’, I figured that maybe I could track down some sort of beige marker and spend my twenty minutes watching Jillian tell me to WORK HARDER and PUNCH IT OUT while I drew ab muscles on my stomach in an attempt to replicate Anita’s rockin’ six-pack.
Certainly I was climbing to new heights of fitness!
Or at least I would have been.
If only I had been able to, you know, stand up.
So.
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Fitness? Funny? I think not. It’s always been a traumatic experience for me. How about, I’m old enough to remember being instructed to “feel that burn” by Jane Fonda?
Well, it was embarrassing at the time but, do you know how hard it is to do jumping jacks as a breastfeeding mother? Yeah, ’nuff said.
I have been going to zumba which is hilarious in and of itself. But then I took 2 friends with me and they were hilarious. There was tripping and giggling the whole class!
Two words- spin.ning.
Couldn’t sit down without wincing for two weeks thereafter.
Consequently haven’t taken another exercise class in nearly a decade.
True story.
At the time I didn’t laugh, I wanted to vomit but looking back I think it’s funny… I was running on the treadmil and the girl next to me kept farting. These horrible, stinky, never-ending farts. So I left and went upstairs to lift some weights. 5 minutes later the same girl is doing lunges around the entire 2nd floor and farting with every single dip. It was so gross.
One of my favorites:
I was spending six weeks in Ukraine on a missions trip with other college peers. One of the other girls on the team was, well, let’s say, “a little socially awkward.”
I have no idea what spurred the whole ordeal on, but there we were on our apartment floor talking about physical fitness and exercise. Both “R” and I enjoyed being physically active and were having a nice discussion about different types of fitness activities we preferred.
We decided right there in that moment we’d have a spontaneous workout session. First step in working out – warm up and gentle stretching.
Contrary to old-school belief, “bouncing” while stretching does not produce positive benefits. In fact, it could produce a great deal of pain and injury.
With great gusto, and forceful “bouncing,” “R began her stretches and exclaiming that this is what she does periodically, and this was how she did it. I was instantly alarmed and tried to coach her into some more injury-preventing techniques.
“‘R’! You could really hurt yourself if you bounce so hard like that! OH! And your leg!!! You really should turn it a bit or you could hurt your knee!”
Her reply, “Yeah, I popped my knee out once doing this. It hurt a lot.” And then she proceeded!
A few seconds later some of the other girls on the team walked in to the living room. “‘R’, I think you could hurt yourself like that!” (picture Steve Erkle from ABC’s “Family Matters”… snort-ful laugh, “huhhh huhhh” noises, and then, “yeah, I popped my knee out doing this once. But we have to stretch.”
The exclaims of caution and the franticness in each of our voices mixed with her snorts, her awkwardness, sharing so matter-of-factly of her past injuries incurred, and then proceeding to execute the very same movements… Oh my goodness, it was just too much! To this day we still giggle about that “workout” scene in our Ukrainian apartment. It. Was. Hilarious.
Oh, there’s SO many stories I could tell on myself: Falling flat on my face in 5th grade while running relays; hitting the volleyball directly on the head of the principal sitting in the bleachers when I was in 7th grade; or breaking my wrist in 8th grade while riding my bicycle as I wore my L.A.Gear tennis shoes–with the oh-so-stylish 2 sets of shoelaces that wrapped around the bike pedal. Needless to say, I was never known to be picked first for team sports. P.S. “The Shred” very nearly killed me, too. I may or may not have gotten pregnant just so I didn’t feel guilty about not doing it.
In elementary school gym class, my best friend and I were both so pathetic we would go through incredible machinations to be on different teams but the same number for “Steal the Bacon” so that through best friend telepathy and completely unsubtle sign language, we could determine whose turn it was to steal the bacon first and score the point, and the next time, the other one would take her turn. By senior year, we had talked the gym teacher into letting us walk around the track and talk for the 45 minutes rather than risking injury to ourselves or others by trying once again to master field hockey. Best fitness routine ever.
Doing sweatin’ to the oldies with my husband in the next room!
My friend and I went to work out together. There was a slight misunderstanding and I come out of the locker room to find said friend SLEEPING on the gym’s couch.
Not too long ago, I couldn’t make it to the gym for a Zumba class, but I did have the music from most of the class on a CD, so I decided to Zumba at home, on my own. It was going well, until my 2 year old (now 3) decided running under my legs repeatedly would be a fun addition to the workout- an addition that eventually led me to trip, fall and on my way smash my son. Not my best moment!
When I was in college, we would do those work out dvds. It got so popular there were way too many girls in one room dancing to random videos. It was too much fun!
There’s a teacher (umm…Amazon) at my school who teaches classes after school. After prodigious (am I using that word right?) amounts of encouragement, I went to one.
It was lunges day.
When I was done, I could not climb into my car. or climb the stairs to my house.
At school the next day, I sat on a stool all day. When the kids asked what was wrong, I told them that the other teacher tried to kill me. = )
A few months ago I tried a new strength training video and, I kid you not, I was dying within the first ten seconds. Apparently my triceps need work.
Embarassing? Ok, so I went to the “cool” gym while attending college in NYC. One morning I was at my usual kickboxing class, and I start to feel funny–my limbs were super heavy and I just couldn’t move. I made my way out of the class and went to grab a drink of water from the fountain. Next thing I know, some hot guy with an incredible accent is waking me up and asking me if I’m ok–um, yeah embarrassing!
I found out that day that the gym is the worst place to pass out. I had to wait for the firemen and paramedics to show up and check me out and make sure there wasn’t something seriously wrong with me.
Not just one or two show up either, about ten do. So, I sat on the weight bench while the stoutest, chubby-faced fireman asked me a bunch of questions, leaned in close and asked when my last period was, and determined that i would be fine. Before he left he asked a favor of me. I said ok–thinking he was going to give me one last lecture about eating enough before working out. He looked me square in the eye and in his brooklyn accent said, “just don’t go tellin’ all youah friends that you got a great new way to meet a dozen hot guys at once, ok?”
I remember my mom running an aerobics class when I was very young. I attended in a leotard and leg warmers. Please keepp in mind that this was the first time they were popular. The thought of them haunts me to this day…..
I apologize in advance…. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykz8DhqnWzI
Sheesh, I’m sitting here trying to think of a ‘funny’ exercise/fitness story, ’cause the thought of possibly winning that $150 card? Very motivating!Trouble is, the only thing funny about exercise is how I look doing it. I’m, shall we say, ‘well endowed’. My jiggly days are over. I’m beyond jiggling. It’s more like a swinging. This is getting worse with every word I type. I seriously should just delete and move on….but $150 Visa? I’m biting the bullet and hitting the submit button….
Being on the swim team sometime in middle school, falling in serious loove with my coach, doing horribly in a big-time meet, getting the most awkward pity-hug from said coach. I still feel a little anxious when I attempt to swim laps.
Funny you ask- it’s not really burned into my memory yet as it just happened, but I’ve been training for a half marathon. I was running in the dark last night, fell off the curb, twisted my ankle, took all the skin off my calf and hip, and tore my new running shorts.
The truth is, when I packed my house for our recent military move to Germany I found:
The Shred
Mari Windsor Pilates
Biggest Loser Costco Value Bundle Workout
The Firm
Denise Austin Boot Camp
and four others I have apparently blanked out.
None of these – I repeat NONE of them, were without their plastic factory-sealed shrink wrap. Several are older than my aging cat.
My commitment to supporting the fitness industry apparently knows no bounds.
Ever stepped on a treadmill in front of a roomful of people? When you didn’t realize it had just been turned up to high? I did! Let me just say first your feet go flying, then your knees get skid marks on them. You hold on for dear life and watch everybody laugh at you! To this day people come up to me shaking their head and laughing about that
One time when I was in high school, I was at Christian Aerobics at the Family Life Center at chruch when someone stumbled and fell off the step and broke her arm, and while the bone was literally sticking OUT, she laid on the floor screaming profanity. At church!! It really wasn’t funny at the time, but ok, 15 years later, I’m cracking up.
Consider this a free public safety announcement:
Do not step on a treadmill you believe you turned off without first doing a quick inspection to confirm that you did indeed hit the off button.
I now know why treadmills have handles.
I havent’ worked out since high school PE class 20 years ago, but my favorite PE memory is of one of the very overweight football coaches leading us through these stretching exercises he called grass pickers. We had to bend over and try to touch the ground at different angles – out in front, directly below, and a little behind you and then straighten back up.
Oh fitness. I’m the girl who said half-marathon? “I SO got this” and had blisters on the soles of my feet by mile 3. I laughed (questionable), I cried… I’ll never do it again.
The first time I did the shred I ended up on the chair watching the last 15 minutes because it was all I could do. My husband still thinks it is funny. :)
I was once on a first date and trying to impress the guy with my fierce rollerblading skills. (I didn’t have the heart to tell him that rollerblading scared the bejeebers out of me when he suggested it.) I was trying to turn at a fairly high rate of speed to join him on a bench for a break but my blades kept going straight right into a pond. He tried to catch me before I splashed into the water but he missed by a mere fraction of an inch. Needless to say, I never saw him again!
Not about me, but my then-12-year-old son. He went to the gym with an older young man who had never heard the “start slow” advice. He handed my son a pair of 15-pound dumbbells and had him do about 300 bicep curls. The next morning, Elijah’s arms were locked to his chest, hands under his chin. He literally could not straighten his arms! He still remembers it.
Fitness is not my thing. A few years ago my friend dragged me to the local YMCA for a visit to the treadmill. We visited allright! While engaged in our conversation, I FLEW right of the back of the treadmill and landed on my backside. Nice. :)
I just finished an 8-week training program to run my first 5k. My existing tennis shoes were close to a decade old, so I had to buy a new pair before the training started. The first week, I arrived a bit late because of some parking issues. They were making announcements, and just before I entered the bleachers in front of 500 women, I heard the training coordinator say, “And whatever you do, don’t buy new shoes yet.” At that moment, 500 pairs of eyes turned to my glowing white, brand-spankin’-new kicks. I’m surprised they weren’t all blinded!!
The whole Jane Fonda/leg warmers fitness era that I lived through in the eighties makes me laugh now.
Ah, fitness. I used to know what this was before I had my daughter almost 2 years ago! I also had a dreadful treadmill experience that involved flying through the front of the “dreadmill”, not off the back. I still don’t know how I managed to do that, but I left that gym and never went back!
My fitness funny is the first time I tried to go work out at a gym, and me standing on the eliptical for 10 minutes trying to figure out how to work the crazy thing. Then I found out that you just get the crazy thing and touch the handles and it starts automatically!! HA!
falling off the exercise ball while working with a trainer in a crowded room.
In high school I wanted to be in extra good shape before my senior prom, but we didn’t belong to a gym or anything. So I grabbed one of my mom’s VHS workout tapes and started doing that a few days a week.
The title of the tape?
“Women at Large: Dance Exercise Exclusively Designed For and Instructed by Large and Extra Large Women.”
Richard Simmons “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” – if you know what I’m talking about, no explanation is needed. Ha!
Back in high school my best friend and I always got the sudden urge to start an exercise routine in the spring. We would do exercise videos in her family room in the afternoon. I just remember her mom walking in on numerous occasions to find us collapsed on the floor thinking we would never move again. Needless to say, we never managed to keep it up for long.
Taking hip-hop dance as an exercise class. ‘Nough said.
Sweating to the Oldies w/ Richard Simmmons and Deal a Meal. ‘nuf said.
Picture this: A very full aerobic class.
I finally did kick the girl in front of me.
Doing a Richard Simmons Sweating to the Oldies video. When I was in college I was coerced by the infomercial and actually purchased the Richard Simmons package. It was quite a mistake; however, the hillarity of the videos may just have made up for it.
The funniest experience that I have had was when I attended Zumba at the Y with a good friend. It was hilarious, the whole thing!!!
I laughed at myself, I laughed at others, I laughed at my latin leader who insisted on including a lot of “Ayeeeee’s” to our workout. Needless to say, I worked my abs double time due to my laughter. Surprisingly, I wasn’t scolded by my teacher, but I have never returned!
Back when I was in high school, my church offered a step aerobics class. Some of my friends and I decided to start going. Well, though it was a little tricky at first to get all the steps down and be coordinated, I started feeling pretty good. So one day when I walked into class, I kind of leaped up onto the step as a way of showing my excitement for the class. And then I fell on my face. Nice.
There is a video that we attempted to do as a ladies group at church. It was 80s ish and we about died when the exercise…was a mad breathing technique. For 30 minutes!!!!
The first thing that came to mind probably falls in the “TMI” category, but it IS kinda funny.
A few years ago, my teenage SIL and I decided to try an exercise-ball workout video. There we were, on my living room floor, trying to balance & do an ab workout using the ball…and my SIL passed gas. We both laughed and giggled, and then continued with the workout…and then I passed gas. So much giggling ensued that we both ended up helpless on the floor. We got our ab workout after all, and we never used the exercise balls again.
So I jumped on the Zumba bandwagon and was showing my boyfriend my sassy new moves at home and threw my back out. Literally, could barely sit, stand or walk for WEEKS! I have a magnet on my fridge that says “Excercise? Why punish my body for something my mouth did?” Amen.
I’m pretty sure if you could go back in time and watch me hula hoop on the wii for the first time, that would be pretty amusing! Ha! It is still pretty amusing if you were to see me try it today.
I was once voted “Most likely to sit on the couch and watch an exercise video”. True story.
at one point in college I thought I would try to become a runner. I was home for the summer and went for a jog around my mom’s neighborhood. I turned the corner and wiped out on some sand at the foot of someone’s driveway (no mom doesn’t live at the beach, it was leftover sand from the winter when they salt and sand the roads for ice). Unfortunately the woman who lived there saw me wipe out and came over to see if I was okay. I was fine. MORTIFIED, but fine.
Aerobics to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger”, complete with leapord leotard. :) Our family secret: my hubby works out to The Shred as well! He may or may not cuss Jillian when he does level 3.
Freshman year in college (when I was extremely skinny but thought I was pudgy), my friends and I took a free abs class from some maniac fitness major. Needless to say, 40 minutes later, none of us could walk back to the dorm.
Spinning at the Y = oh my goodness…
Hubby took me to the gym to acquaint me with all of the scary machines, explaining patiently how to do each one and what muscle groups each one worked. A few days later, I made my premiere solo appearance, trying to look as if I did this all the time. Sat down at some kind of arm machine, up and immediately thought, this does not seem right. This is weird, not natural at all. So I got up, turned around as if I had planned the whole thing, and proceeded.
LEG WARMERS…need I say more. Oh sweet mercy I wore those for aerobics way back in the day. Now I want to burn all memory of them. ha!
Last week I got one of the muscle builder guys who was working his obliques with standing side crunches with a crazy amount of weight to do ‘the little teapot’ pose by telling him he was doing his free hand wrong and then put his arm up as a spout. He did about 3 good reps as a teapot before I started singing to him “I’m a little teapot short and stout”. It was the best day at the gym EVER.
I think the more appropriate question would be “what fitness-related memory makes you cry”. Then I could count numerous ones. :)
I worked at a Health and Fitness Center for 4 years during college, and I learned to laugh at myself. A lot. There was the time I ate a dozen donuts during my shift and then went to work out when shift ended and had to lie down in the middle of the weight room because I was so sick. And the time when I (who ran treadmill all the time) couldn’t get the treadmill to work when I was training a new client, only find it was unplugged 20 minutes later.
Then there was the time I ended up on crutches with a hyperextended knee from a volleyball injury. We had a very hilly college campus, and I used it to my advantage… lots of guys were more than happy to help. :)
Oh my-how about falling -face first into the wet sand while looking at the lifeguard -HA
I felt the burn after doing The Shred, too. There was nothing funny about not being able to sit down to go potty without screaming in pain.
My mother has severe celiac disease, which pretty much keeps her to a healthy diet. So, whenever my sister and I wanted to slim down in college, we would pretend we had her disease for a couple of weeks!
I used to do Jazzercise. It was SO fun and not for old people like I thought. It’s basically like dance meets aerobics. Anyway, I don’t have much of a groove so each time a new song/set got introduced I would try my dardest to keep up but couldn’t. Most classes, I ended up laughing at myself the entire time. It was a double work out. I usually caught on about the time the instructor changed her set. I did blog about Jazzercise once on my blog long ago – http://www.teachandtickle.com/2007/09/getting-plenty-of-excercise.html
I also have the 30 Day Shred DVD which has turned into the 130 Day Shred. I managed to last maybe three days and now just pick it up, look at it and then go do something else.
I have a video that’s something like “In 15 Minutes, Dance Your Way to the Best Body You’ve Ever Dreamed Of” or something inspirational like that. Let’s just say that “me” and “dance” should never be in the same sentence because I look like a COMPLETE DORK! How does the little instructor chickie make it look so easy?
I had 2 sports bras that were zipper front bras. They were bad about coming unzipped, if I didn’t pay attention. One day on the treadmill, it came all the way unzipped and popped open while I was running. I was mortified….but now it’s funny.
Several years ago a friend and I decided to take a Pilates class at our Wellness Center. We’d been going for several weeks when my friend’s mom decided to join us. We were close to the end of the class and we were on our mats stretching… We were in a calm/peaceful environment (imagine the lights turned down low and some Michael Buble playing softly in the background). All of a sudden someone CUT THE CHEESE. AND IT WAS LOUD. AND IT WAS MY FRIEND’S MOM. AND SHE KEPT ON STRETCHING LIKE NOTHING HAD HAPPENED. My friend and I started laughing so hard I think the ladies on the other side of the room thought it was one of us. I’ll never forget it!
Whenever I go into a workout class something funny happens! There are a lot of uncoordinated people out in this world, and for whatever reason they end up right in front of me, making me want to pee my pants the entire class time b/c I’m trying not to laugh out loud.
broke my foot on the stair machine. Bad break – casted for 6 months. My first daughter learned to walk during this time. Ever chased a toddler on crutches?
showing up for an aerobics class at our church, to find there was one man in the class among several women…. the women on the front row were apologizing to the man for the view he had from the back!
Okay, picture a young girl riding her bike. Thinks she might stop by the DQ and get a cone so brings her purse. Purse catches in spokes of wheel, flipping bike and girl over. Girl’s head gets caught in handlebars and girl walks home scraped up with a bike around her neck. I don’t think I’ve ridden a bike since.
When I was a high school cheerleader, another girl accidentally pushed me back and I ended up on the floor with both legs in the air. I was never more thankful for my Christian school which required us to wear bike shorts under our skirts!
I fell off the treadmill trying to check out a guy at the gym…good news, he’s now my husband and father to my gorgeous daughter…bad news, I still have the scar where treadmill burned my ankle!
Um, probably when I ran a half marathon with my then boyfriend (now husband) and got the worst case of “runner’s trots” ever known to man. I spent the rest of the day in the hotel room bathroom. It was awful! Looking back, though, it was funny. :)
Totally evil on my part, but the time that I sort of jokingly asked my pilates instructor if there were any moves my friend could do to prevent farting while she did yoga and pilates (because she farted a LOT, and, umm…not always out of the same spot. Got it? Good. Turns out she had an actual problem.) and she took me really seriously and gave me some great advice that I was able to share. But not before the entire class had a good laugh over it.
The first time I tried to do a cartwheel as a cheerleader in front of a crowd at a basketball game my arms collapsed and I fell on my head. True story.
My Mom and I would walk on the walking track while waiting for my boys baseketball game to start. One day I just had to quit because the older lady kept lapping us, as in the older lady with a walker kept lapping us. I just couldn’t take it anymore….
I was doing step aerobics on the Wii. And I fell off the step. (You saw that coming, right?) And my family laughed at me. And I don’t do step aerobics anymore.
Oh my word, you are funny.
So…did you do all thirty days? ;-)
I am crazy about not wearing shoes in the house – ugh, the thought of the dirt from outside all over the house – where we lay on the floor to play games, walk shoe-less, etc – makes me nearly go mad! In high school, my son took up running. On extremely cold or rainy days, he would run on the treadmill in the basement. He always complained how he hurt after running on the treadmill, something I could not understand as I rather like it – the ultimate multi-tasking machine – the Golden Girls and exercise! After years of running on the treadmill indoors, I finally saw why he hated it — he was running in his socks! My 4.0 student was NOT going to put shoes on in the house…. knucklehead!
I have problems with one of my knees dislocating. Painful, and I fall down every time it happens. Well, I decide after a few years break to re-enter the exercising world. First day, I get on the treadmill and about 15 minutes in, my knee goes out. I basically look like the Bill Cosby episode where he can’t keep up with the treadmill and gets carried by the belt off the back. Funny looking back on it—but embarrasing at the time.
My memory would probably be doing yoga for the first (and last time). Let’s just say, twisting your body (and mainly one’s stomach) lends itself to too many opportunities for embarrassing “incidents”. :-)
My Hubs and I played Wii bowling for a few hours one night. The next day when I went to walk at a local park- I was telling my walking friend that I must have slept wrong on my arm- then it occurred to me as I was swinging it around to loosen it up. It was the Wii bowling. Sure enough. as we made our way around the parking lot, there was another mom swinging her arm and complaining too. “Wii bowling?” I asked. “No- Wii tennis!”. And that was not even “real” exercise.
Like a moron, I bought 30-day Shred AFTER I read your tale. It was as horific as you described. She’s a beast, and I didn’t finish the 30-days, but I did loost a couple pounds.
Maybe I need to try it again? Am I that brave? That stupid? A glutton for punishment?
I had just bought exercise bands and was “working out” with them for the first time, probably feeling really “fit”… when I did an unwise move which led to the band snapping over my knee and smacking me across the face! When I regained my composure and looked at it it had a lipstick kiss on it from my smarting mouth…which begs the question why I would have had lipstick on while working out at home, anyway?
funny exercise stories? don’t have any because until about 3 weeks ago I didn’t work out! I’m on a good routine of walking on a treadmill right now and that $150 sure would come in handy to get me some more workout clothes so I wouldn’t have to do laundry every other day!
When doing Jillian’s workout, I learned that all that jumping required someone my age to wear a maxi pad!
Sadly, my exercise routine consists mostly of running downstairs for a snack during the commercial breaks of “Biggest Loser.” But I did have a horseback riding escapade about nine years ago that resulted in a fancy new swagger.
I had a horrendous experience at the gym, I literally almost got killed by the treadmill. I thought I was going to be “cool” and “ride” the treadmill to the end so I would just hop off the back and run to the bathroom quick. Yeah, don’t EVER do that people – I tripped and almost road-rashed my face. I maintain the gym is dangerous and NOONE should go there!
My husband and I were doing P90x and we were about half way through the plyometrics and we were doing an exercise that involved rolling from stomach to back. I thought I was going to die and it was all I could do to roll, not even doing the crunch that went with it. And then I remembered WE WERE NOT BUT HALF WAY DONE! Then I heard my husband, “OH! Help me Jesus!” That was it, we both just died laughing for the next 10 minutes.
You can get some laughs from watching someone play wii fit. Hula hooping especially.
Back in college I belong to a gym and tried to do aerobics with my friends on several occasions. I am very uncoordinated and could not continue the classes because I could not keep up with the dance steps. This doesn’t translate to a very funny story but I can assure you that all of my friends were laughing!
I dreaded the President’s Physical Fitness tests each year because 1. I hated running back and forth and knocking down erasers and 2. when it came time for the pull-up bar (or for the girls: the chin hang) I’d hop up on the bar and clench my fists for all they were worth and hang there shaking and shaking until I could hang no more. Inevitably the other kids would laugh at my shaking (not from nerves but from exertion) and I’d feel humiliated. Thank you, Mr. President.
Taking an aerobics class with your co-workers in the conference room, and not just the women–it was hilarious!!
The first time I tried yoga, I fell flat on my face, literally!
My first day training for a marathon, I fell about 3 miles from my house. My legs and arms were all cut up and bloody. I was crying. But soon discovered if I wanted to get home fastest, I’d have to run again. So run I did. Bloody and crying :) Not the best first day of training, but I DID run that marathon!!
After baby #1, I thought I would give pilates a try so that I could get back into shape. I had the impression it was sort of a low impact stetching/yogay type thing….then I couldn’t walk for two days…oh well, I met my yearly excercise attempt:)
Probably when having to take two bathroom breaks in the middle of the 20 minute Shred…ahhhhh! How embarassing is that. Can I say thank you 3 children for now bladder control? Did I pause the DVD while I went? Heck no! The Shred is rough!
2 months after having my second baby I decided i needed to get back in shape. I had gained a TON of weight this time and it was taking longer to get back into my old clothes – so i went for a walk/run. it was mainly walking until i got up the nerve to run to the end of the street. As i’m running I am panting and sweating so hard – it was less than 100 yards and all of a sudden I swallowed a HUGE bug. I mean HUGE. So i started to cough with the hope that i could get it out – since it was lodged in my throat. OUt of the corner of my eye I see a bunch of kids waiting for the school bus just starting at me. Instead of getting the bug out i managed to swallow it which made me gag even more. Eventually i decided to keep going since the day couldnt get any worse and ran by the kids and just said “BUG” and kept going without looking at them. the end of the street couldnt come fast enough. it was months before i attempted to run again.
I have a friend who teaches a kickboxing/boot-camp type class(she is ex military) so I thought I would give it a try. I am a 30 year old, out of shape, momma. How hard could it be, right? Well, I went to the first class determined to finish the entire thing and finish I did. I hung in for the entire 1hr and 15min session while a group of high school girls collapsed in the corner with their water bottles. I was feeling all superior and pretty proud of myself…until the next morning. I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO SORE IN MY LIFE!!! I spent the next several days smelling like menthol from all of the Bengay I was having to rub on my legs in order to even be able to move. I soaked in Epson Salts in the bathtub and could not use the restrooms at work without using the handicap stall so I could pull myself up off of the toilet. Needless to say, my ego was a little deflated and I haven’t attended one of her classes since!!
Everytime I go to a work-out class I am the one who does everything wrong! When they are to the left I am to the right. When they are up I am down…etc. I always think I will get better!
The funniest thing was walking in on my husband as he was sweating and groaning while “Shredding” after previously saying, “It can’t be THAT hard…”