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Working out is hard. It’s even harder when you haven’t hit the gym in a while, and you sort of eye your clean, folded gym clothes and realize they haven’t been through the wash in about six months. I’ve been there, and it sucks. Not the not going to the gym part — the going back to the gym part. It’s tough as hell, and generally, it makes you feel like a beached whale bouncing up and down on various workout equipment until you start to gain some of that lost muscle back. For me, it took me realizing that the drinking and generally “not moving” had replaced much of my muscle with a combination of fat and beer for me to tug those gym shoes on.
I re-committed to the gym. It sucked, and then it sucked less, and I felt like I was making progress. But, as someone who is used to team workouts, I always felt like I was missing something. You can never kick your own ass as hard as a coach can, or a personal trainer, and as someone who had always been in shape due to the necessity of sports, that’s what I missed. I tried home workouts (shout out to you, Bob Harper), and I found regimens I liked, but it wasn’t quite enough. I started quietly eyeing my gym’s class list. Surprisingly, I’d never subscribed much to group workouts, probably because being part of a sports team is basically a constant group workout. So to voluntarily go to one was really hard.
There are few things more nerve-wracking than going to a group workout class by yourself for the first time. My palms were sweaty, and I awkwardly stood there as I waited for the instructor to announce whether we needed to grab a weight or load up a squat bar or just come onto the floor. Put simply, I didn’t know what to expect.
This was a HIIT class, which stands for High-Intensity Interval Training. I won’t pretend that I know shit about the benefits or anything like that, but the basic idea is that you move your heart rate up to “I might pass out” level and you keep it super high for the whole workout. The workouts are shorter, with more active time and less recovery time where your heart rate slows down again. The first time I went, I almost threw up on the gym floor. Literally, I was on my hands and knees, struggling to return to my feet after another burpee, and my jello legs were refusing to hold me. It was very hard, very intense, and I fucking loved it.
HIIT workouts aren’t boring, and they’re not long. The classes I take alternate between cardio, plyo, and strength, and they’re all equally challenging in very different ways. I’m just not a yoga person. It’s too slow, and too boring, and brings back the same feelings of frustration I felt in my brief period as a ballerina at age six. HIIT is way harder, but that’s what I like about it. If I’m going to drag my ass all the way to the gym, through traffic, despite all the other things I could be doing, then I want to get my ass beat. If I’m not gasping for air on my knees in a pool of my own sweat by the end, then I don’t feel I got my money’s worth.
And guess what? After one of these workouts, you feel awesome. You laid out all you had on the gym floor. You didn’t show up and half-ass it, you full-assed it, and now I’m addicted to that feeling. Sure, you can’t walk comfortably for a week afterward, but crawling up the stairs is a small price to pay for toned thighs, right? .
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Rory Gilmore
Rory Gilmore on the outside. Emily Gilmore on the inside. Email me funny shit at rory_gilmore20@yahoo.com.
@rory_gilmore20
It’s beneficial to do HIIT with even just weights. Take maybe a minute break between sets and hop to the next lift. I’m usually in and out in 30-45 minutes, or before the basketball shorts/tank top wearing 47 year old divorcee sitting on his phone for half an hour starts his 2nd set.
I take a jump rope with me and do HIIT while lifting. 3 rounds of 45 seconds on/15 off in between each set is perfect.
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Tried impressing a girl by going 110% for the entirety of a 40 minute circuit- I’ll never know if it was working because 30 minutes in I started puking, and let me tell ya, ladies do not dig the sight of a broken man cleaning up his own sick… #PGP
Find a yoga class at your gym you go to directly after the workout. Helps me get rid of some of that post-workout lactic acid.
I enjoy rowing 500 meters as fast as possible then doing 20 50lb kettlebell swings followed by 20 wall balls. AMRAP in 25 mins. It’s a good time.
This sounds absolutely awful. I’ll probably try it this weekend.
I’m a big fan of HIIT workouts. I actually prefer to run on a treadmill for this reason, so I know exactly how fast I’m going and how far I’ve gone. I’ll set the treadmill to 4.2 mph for .7 miles and then at 11 mph for the rest .18 miles for each lap and I’ll do this for 30 minutes. I also put on an episode of Jeopardy during the run and before you know it, its been a half hour and it’s over.
FYI treadmills aren’t all that accurate with speed/distance readings. It’s no closer an approximation than running with a GPS watch or app.
Yes, but treadmills also let me run inside and watch TV, which makes the time pass so much faster. So I’m just going to live in this bubble if it means I can maintain my aggressively average physique for the weekends.
Your palms were sweaty? Were your knees weak and arms heavy? Did you have vomit on your sweater already?
There’s this 15 min leg workout i do to get in shape for ski season
5 sets, 30s each exercise, 10 sec rest between exercises, 30 sec rest between sets
Lunges
Hamstring RDL
Jump Squats
Machine Quad extensions
Calves
Tbh you can mix and match different exercises. If it gets too easy, bump up the weight, or add another exercise or set. You’ll want to pass out by the end, but it’s great for a quick workout
People, stop using plyometrics as a conditioning tool unless you want to grind your articulate cartiledge into dust. Those are supposed to be sparingly programmed as ways to develop power with low-rep sets and lots of recovery time. My $.02 for the day.