I deserve to be here

I walked into the weight room at my school's gym today, and almost walked right back out again. I have not been strength training in any serious way since my car accident at the beginning of summer. I love strength training. I have been lifting weights for at least 17 years (since my Y membership when I was 16). I never subscribed to the "don't lift too heavy because you'll bulk up" theory. I know that it takes some serious testerone to be able to "bulk up". I know that I build/gain muscle at a MUCH faster rate than I lose fat (mainly due to eating habits that I have never gotten under control). But I almost walked out of the weight room because it was slightly scary to be there. I felt like I didn't deserve it; I felt like I would be "judged". But I talked to myself - a little head talk - and said "just do it, you DO deserve to be here, you are working and getting healthy and who cares if these 20 something college kids judge you, just go in there, and do what you planned to do today!"

And I did. I sweated, I pumped, I pushed. I felt it in my arms (did chest and triceps today). And I looked at myself in the mirror as I finished my workout with tricep cable extensions and thought "I really do deserve to be here. I am working it, and soon that flabby part under my arm will be gone."

I do deserve to be there - and I am going back tomorrow.

Proper Form

Ah the difference proper form makes! Yet another reason that I love ChaLEAN Extreme is that Chalene Johnson explains the proper form for strength training moves AND SHOWS YOU! She has one of the participants on the DVD show the proper and improper form. I have been lifting weights for easily 15 years and in all that time I have been doing dead lifts wrong. I had always heard that dead lifts were great for the butt and legs and never ever felt them targeting the areas they were supposed to when I was doing them. Until today! Hours later I can feel the movement in my glutes and hamstrings too. Every step up the stairs is a mini session in pain - the good kind - and I feel vindicated that I really worked today.

I worked out this morning - in spite of oversleeping by about 3 hours - but I did not get my run in. I ate clean all day and avoided (no matter how much I wanted them) sweets in sticking to part of the "Gorgeous Glutes" challenge I am in on the Tosca Reno boards.

I also have at least one more reader than I knew of! :) One of my fellow students not only told me he has read a couple of my blogs, but that I looked like I had lost weight. Thanks Pete - that really made my day!