clevermanka (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clevermanka) wrote2014-01-15 10:56 am
clevermanka) wrote2014-01-15 10:56 am
Entry tags:
Yeah, I'm an exercise snob. So?
How do I get my hair to look like Tilda Swinton's character in Only Lovers Left Alive? Seriously. I mean, seriously. I love it. I want it. Only, you know, the opposite color.
A truer gifset was never posted.
Breaking Muscle (still my favorite fitness blog!) has a post on building the skills to do a handstand, and it's not all about strength.
Speaking of strength,mckitterick and I went to the Ambler Rec Center yesterday since Robinson's hours suck during the semester interim. When classes aren't in session, Robinson is only open until 5pm. Even though when classes aren't in session, it's only available to faculty and staff. And staff usually work until 5pm. What the fuck, Robinson. Anyway. Ambler was letting faculty and staff use the facility for free this week and I was kind of excited to try it out because it's huge and new(ish) and shiny and all and BOY HOWDY DID IT SUCK.
The place is packed, and I mean packed with elliptical machines. That should've been my first clue to just get the fuck out, but we were already there, and it was way too late to hit Robinson. Just...elliptical machines everywhere, and lots of Nautilus machines, of course. There were only two, count them, two standing racks for barbell work, and they had stupid bars attached to them at the bottom, making an L-shape, that are (I'm sure) there to help you if you get stuck in the bottom of a squat, but what they actually wind up doing is keeping shorter people from being able to do a proper at-or-below-parallel squat. So I had to back out into the middle of the area to do my weighted squats. And there was no good place to do dead-lifts at all and so I did those in the middle of the traffic area, too, and they were really fucking annoying to do because Ambler's weight plates are hexagonal and so don't roll so pulling the bar up to my shins to set up for a dead-lift was impossible and I had to walk up to the bar instead and then squat down and that sounds like a little thing but it really, really isn't. And now let me tell you about the horrible floor, which was not the black padding you normally see in weight rooms. No, no, it was this slick linoleum stuff that was barely softer than concrete and I'll let you guess how awesome that was on my knees for doing weighted overhead squats (hint: It Wasn't). The final insult was that the locker rooms are downstairs, so not only did I have to deal with all the other crap just to get through my workout, but once I was done I had to go downstairs and then back up them again because my coat and hat, etc., were all in the downstairs locker room. This was especially upsetting because I think I mentioned yesterday that STAIRS ARE HARD, Y'ALL.
Since I am taking a vacation day on Friday, we are so going back to Robinson and getting our workout in before 5:00 that day. Then next week things are back to normal hours. THANK. GOD. If I never set foot in Ambler Rec Center again, that will be just fine. It was everything I hate in a gym. In fact, now that I think about it, it's not a gym. It's a "fitness center" and I guess I should have figured that out earlier.
On the bright side, I'm certainly not tempted to shell out the cash for a membership to Ambler (which is, I'm sure, the reason they offer that free week of usage to faculty/staff). I can still use Robinson, wonderfully crappy, bare-bones, no-frills Robinson, for free most of the year.
A truer gifset was never posted.
Breaking Muscle (still my favorite fitness blog!) has a post on building the skills to do a handstand, and it's not all about strength.
Speaking of strength,
mckitterick and I went to the Ambler Rec Center yesterday since Robinson's hours suck during the semester interim. When classes aren't in session, Robinson is only open until 5pm. Even though when classes aren't in session, it's only available to faculty and staff. And staff usually work until 5pm. What the fuck, Robinson. Anyway. Ambler was letting faculty and staff use the facility for free this week and I was kind of excited to try it out because it's huge and new(ish) and shiny and all and BOY HOWDY DID IT SUCK. The place is packed, and I mean packed with elliptical machines. That should've been my first clue to just get the fuck out, but we were already there, and it was way too late to hit Robinson. Just...elliptical machines everywhere, and lots of Nautilus machines, of course. There were only two, count them, two standing racks for barbell work, and they had stupid bars attached to them at the bottom, making an L-shape, that are (I'm sure) there to help you if you get stuck in the bottom of a squat, but what they actually wind up doing is keeping shorter people from being able to do a proper at-or-below-parallel squat. So I had to back out into the middle of the area to do my weighted squats. And there was no good place to do dead-lifts at all and so I did those in the middle of the traffic area, too, and they were really fucking annoying to do because Ambler's weight plates are hexagonal and so don't roll so pulling the bar up to my shins to set up for a dead-lift was impossible and I had to walk up to the bar instead and then squat down and that sounds like a little thing but it really, really isn't. And now let me tell you about the horrible floor, which was not the black padding you normally see in weight rooms. No, no, it was this slick linoleum stuff that was barely softer than concrete and I'll let you guess how awesome that was on my knees for doing weighted overhead squats (hint: It Wasn't). The final insult was that the locker rooms are downstairs, so not only did I have to deal with all the other crap just to get through my workout, but once I was done I had to go downstairs and then back up them again because my coat and hat, etc., were all in the downstairs locker room. This was especially upsetting because I think I mentioned yesterday that STAIRS ARE HARD, Y'ALL.
Since I am taking a vacation day on Friday, we are so going back to Robinson and getting our workout in before 5:00 that day. Then next week things are back to normal hours. THANK. GOD. If I never set foot in Ambler Rec Center again, that will be just fine. It was everything I hate in a gym. In fact, now that I think about it, it's not a gym. It's a "fitness center" and I guess I should have figured that out earlier.
On the bright side, I'm certainly not tempted to shell out the cash for a membership to Ambler (which is, I'm sure, the reason they offer that free week of usage to faculty/staff). I can still use Robinson, wonderfully crappy, bare-bones, no-frills Robinson, for free most of the year.