Repeat the Sounding Joy

Drag You Down: My Disagreements with Gravity Thursday, March 20, 2008

Gravity is great. I like gravity. It’s got important effects on most elements of every day life. Still, there are moments…

At the gym, The Resident Italian has got me on suspended curl ups. So you’ve got your chin up bar, and you hook your knees over the bar, in so doing suspending yourself upside down.

The idea is to do curl ups in this position so that you’re using more of your body weight in each curl than if you were doing the standard on the floor.

At first, I could not do them for the life of me. I would end up upside down easily enough because I was a child who climbed trees and played on jungle gyms and so have some experience in the hanging upside down by the knees. But then I would try to curl up as instructed, and really only managed to wiggle back and forth a bit. It was sad. I couldn’t do it, not strong enough.

The Resident Italian took it off the roster for a while, saying we could get back to it later when little Gracie gets a little stronger. I hate it when he gets patronizing like that, so that thing he’s saying I am unable to do becomes a goal in my mind. Gotta get in those suspended curl ups. Understanding that he knows that’s what will go through my head, I can see why he does it.

When we came back to them, I could do a couple. We built up from there, and when I could do my 2 sets last time I was there I was forewarned that next time, that would be this morning, he was gonna introduce the textbook. See, when he does these evil, painful curl ups, he bear hugs a textbook or two. Extra weight, you know?

So I got all hanging-upside-down-like, got handed the textbook (just one, I’m small). He slid a bean bag under the doorway where the chin up bar is, and explained, I’m right here spotting you, if you start to slip, I’ll catch you. The bean bag is there just in case, because I’ve hit the floor before.

If you start to fall, bail on the textbook. It’s more important to have your arms free than it is to keep it safe.

Being my size, a textbook takes up a majority of the space on my torso. It’s kinda hard to curl up, against gravity, when you’ve got a heavy block of info on physical chemistry weighing you down more and getting in the way of the curl. I struggled quite a bit through a couple of curls, and began to lose my position on the bar. I stopped, readjusted, and took a deep breath to get ready to try for some more.

Which is when gravity, the big meanie it is, decided that it was time to come back to the earth. Instinct kicked in, and I tossed the textbook, freeing my arms and hitting the Resident Italian. He wasn’t expecting to be hit with a projectile, and in his surprise was a second late in catching me.

I felt the strong impact of him trying to catch me around my middle, but kept falling until I hit the bean bag that he’d very intelligently put there as a safety net.

Now, because gravity is cruel, I have finger mark bruises on my sides and a sore neck. Fearless laughed like mad when he saw the marks and then heard the story. Any other girl, Grace, and I would have been less inclined to believe that.

I think I’m going to avoid suspended curl ups for a little while.

Song of the Day: Drag You Down – Finger Eleven