Workout #2

I tried the oh-so-scary elliptical machine today, after reading article after article singing its praises. And I’ll be honest…after 15 minutes or so on the elliptical, I have to say that I vastly prefer the treadmill.

All that pushing and pulling on the hand grips on the elliptical just wasn’t my thing. I found it exhausting and really not worth the trouble. Walking and jogging on the treadmill, however, was fun. (Ish.) I feel like I know what I’m doing on the treadmill. The treadmill is more inviting, more accommodating. It says, “Angela, pick me! All you have to do is walk! You can do that–you know how to walk! And if you want, you can even jog for a bit! But you don’t have to!”

The elliptical, on the other hand, is all, “Okay, you have to put your feet here and your hands here. Now, do you want to do fat burn or cardio?”

Me: “Um….”

Elliptical: “Or you could do interval training! Or cross-training! Or backwards cross training! Or…”

Me: *panics and hits the “manual” button*

Maybe I should stop exercising and start worrying about the fact that I talk to workout machines.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I didn’t love it, and that I’ll probably just do the treadmill or jog outside for future workouts.

Here’s the breakdown of my trip to the gym:

• 15 minutes on the big scary elliptical
• 15 minutes on the stationary bike (which hurt my tailbone, but was otherwise fun)
• 2 sets of 10 reps on two leg curl machines
• 3 sets of 10 bicep curls
• 3 sets of 10 tricep extensions
• 2 sets of 10 reverse dumbell flies (these are a lot tougher than they look)
• 10 modified push-ups
• 30 crunches

I feel like I haven’t had a lot of direction in my weight lifting–I’ve just been sort of doing exercises I’ve heard of other places. After I got back from the gym today, I discovered Changing Shape, which is a GREAT Web site. They have a lot of different weight workouts geared toward people like me with pretty much no weight training experience. I’m going to test those out beginning Monday, and I’ll post the results here.

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