Bow-flailing

Hal and I have been Bowflex-ing (somewhat) regularly for the past couple months. I usually work out my arms and have recently started doing leg exercises. For me, the deterrent to working out my legs is that some of the exercises require putting attachments onto the Bowflex, which are generally too bulky and heavy to easily maneuver. That’s why I get Hal to set them up for me. This also means that the fiancée is around to witness my performing the leg exercises. Not such a fan of this, as I’ve previously noted.

There’s one exercise in particular that makes me feel especially self conscious: the lying leg curl.

This is not me as she looks like
she knows what she's doing

First off, it works your hamstrings and butt, neither of which is very toned on me so I end up only being able to curl 10lbs for each leg. Second, getting into position makes me look like the most uncoordinated person. I have yet to find a graceful way to hike my leg over the bench, lay face down on my stomach and tuck my feet under the curl attachment in one smooth motion. Once on the bench, I generally flop and slide down to be on my stomach and then attempt to blindly stick my ankles where they’re supposed to be. The other night, I got into position but kept having to decrease the weight so I had to do the plop and slide 3 times; all the while Hal was running on the elliptical next to me. I was a bit exhausted just from getting on and off the machine so I’m sure at one point I looked like a beached seal struggling on the sand.

Hal doesn’t quite understand why I’m so self conscious. We live together, he says, and we’ve seen the good and the not as good. That may be true. However, with my butt in the air, my little weak legs struggling to lift this nominal weight, and the sounds of me panting, it makes for a wholly embarrassing image that I’d rather not expose Hal to that often.

I think I’ll stick to squats.