My soundtrack to your gym

I have found that listening to my own music helps infinitely with my motivation. And these are the things that help the most:

1. Britney Spears - Stronger

Partly because it reminds me of my housemate, Ronald, but also because it is genuinely motivating. Yes, I am stronger than yesterday, it is nothing but my way and loneliness will never kill me again mofos! I arm cycled for ten minutes straight with this one on repeat.

2. Hadouken - Dance Lesson

In fact, most things by Hadouken. But it's just got just the right level of beat and loud to make you feel the urge to keep time.

3. Jason Mraz - I'm Yours

Ooh... Curve Ball. This one is good for weights, he has a nice, tender, tone that makes you relax and forget the fact your muscles feel like they're about to explode out of your skin.

4. Anything from the 90s

Five, Back Street boys, N Sync and Steps work particularly well. I think it's because the 90s is when music was good and wasn't was mostly not about sex, and never about "whistle blowing". Plus they always sound cheerful, and who doesn't need to be cheerful in the gym.

5. Hans Zimmer - Pirates of the Caribbean

The ultimate. There is no music better than this. Even in daily life when this comes on my mp3 player I feel EPIC. It makes even the smallest of achievements seem incredible, from getting milk out the fridge to cycling 6 km.


Things that do not help:

1. Anything from a musical

Yes, they do possess many of the above qualities, but resisting the urge to sing not only is very distracting, but when you forget it is particularly embarrassing.

2. Joss Stone

Quite frankly, she doesn't help anything; but especially not gym motivation.

3. The Killers - Mr Brightside

I love this song as much as the next 20-24 year old at the end of a night out. But that, unfortunately, is where that song belongs, and has no place in the gym.

Things that the gym has taught me about my body

Disclaimer: Things I already knew about my body that the gym has confirmed include: unable to do the splits, generally lacks in coordination, sweats on levels that no woman should, and cannot physically support self using arms. I am not in denial about these things, I just knew them prior to gym-going.

1. My eyebrows are beyond useless.

The main function of an eyebrow, other than balancing out your forehead aesthetically, is to stop things, such as sweat, rolling into your eyes. Mine don't. To be honest I think they have given up trying. As I have admitted above, I do sweat more than your average female, however you'd think I would have sturdier eyebrows to balance it out. I don't. I don't even pluck them that often. So after about 5 minutes on a treadmill I can feel the cascade coming; like Niagara Falls or a Tsunami. Then it's in my eyes and they sting for the remainder of the gym trip. I need some sort of eye hat.


2. My arms get bored easily.

I can run for hours minutes, cycle for miles kilometres and I can shift 40, 10, 20kg with my thighs (on a good day), but as soon as I try and do anything remotely related to my arms, I just cannot keep going. Two minutes on the arm bike is about my limit, as is about 5 or 6 reps on a 2.5kg weight machine. I use the excuse that it's my shoulder that hurts, but anyone who really pays attention to me knows that weight and exercise make little-to-no difference to it, I don't know what it is. My arms are lazy, I have no control over them.


3. Treadmill after a hot dinner makes me windy.

I'm sorry. In my defence I had my headphones so I didn't hear it, so really; it's like it never happened.


4. Exercise makes me feel awake

Strange isn't it? Going early in the am makes me perky all day, and going at night, even after a long day's work afterwards I feel... happy... and energetic... and accomplished. Definitely witchcraft. They do it so that you keep wanting to go back.


5. My eyes are bigger than my gym shoes.

I am stubborn and I'll tell you its fine. But it's not. I'll lose the ability to walk and I shouldn't do it. I wasn't built for lots of exercise, I was built for enough exercise for now. But from time to time, I will try and over do it. Perhaps that's less of a risk now I'm employed, but it could potentially still happen.

Today my leggings split at the gym

In the crotch.

And I didn't have any spare clothes.

And my tshirt wasn't long enough.

And I didn't have my car.

#CrotchlessInTheWoods

Gender difference in the slow lane

Over my brief career as a keen doggy paddler, I have made some observations about swimming that constantly remind me of motorway driving.

When driving my car (my beautiful, bright green Mazda 2), I actually get treated quite well on the roads, especially compared to when I drive my mum's old Yaris, or even my old Micra (oh, Robbie, I do miss you). But, of course, with every road comes an arsehole, and the longer the road, the more plentiful the arseholery. In my experience, the arseholes and usually men, and more often than that, they drive BMWs or Audis.

I try to be as considerate as possible when I drive, particularly on motorways. I don't drive up people's butts and flash my lights, I move out the way when possible and I never undertake. I always assume the worst, assume the person in front is a new driver, has a baby on board or perhaps is overtired or having a bad day. When you don't know the other person, you should be as considerate as possible because, I don't know about you, but I like to avoid making other peoples' days worse.

Now, I am a confident driver, but when people get up my backside it intimidates me and I worry I'll end up crushed into a pulp. It makes me nervous and I probably concentrate more on what might happen behind me than what is happening in front of me, which obviously isn't safe.

So now I've painted the picture, let's get back to my point.

I get this exact same feeling when I am swimming. I am not good at swimming. Before about 6 months ago, I was terrified of swimming. I hadn't swum since I was about 12 and the idea of taking my glasses off and wandering off somewhere was terrifying. However, I conquered my fear and found I actually really enjoy swimming. I don't think I'll ever been good at it, but I like it and it's good for my shoulder. I always go in the slow lane, because the speeds are relative and I will always be slower than everyone else there. Except one time at Runnymede when I was faster than the other woman in the pool, so I considerately moved to the medium lane. That was a good day.

So why do others not pay the say courtesy? You don't know how long I've been swimming, if I'm injured or tired. I'm in the slow lane because I am swimming slowly and I don't appreciate people swimming up my arse or, worse still, OVERTAKING ME. Seriously, it does nothing for my already battered swimming confidence. There is no speed limit in this lane, if you think you are slow, but can swim faster than those in the slow lane, you need to move into the medium lane. There's no "Slower" lane. If there was, none of this would be a problem.

Today it was actually a woman that did it to me, but every other time it has been a man. Every time.

Now, this isn't a feminist rant. I'm not saying that man, with his phallic-shaped, half-naked body is jumping into and penetrating a metaphorical big wet yonic vagina pool and defeminising me, using his superior swimming technique to demean myself and therefore all womankind (although that would make one heck of an essay). I just think it shows a basic difference between the mentality of lots of men and lots of women. And that is just a general awareness of what is happening around you, and how your actions affect others.

Like I said, today it was a woman intimidating me and swimming up my arse. But as I rested at the shallow end of the pool (if you know Virgin's pool you will be thinking "wow how mysterious is this?!" as both ends of the pool are actually shallow ends. Shall I reveal which end I was at? NO! Ooooh, ambiguity), a man jumped into the lane next to me and splashed me. I wasn't moving, it was clear I was there, and I ended up with chlorine in my eyes.

I don't think the man did it to spite me, or to show how big and tough he was, I just genuinely think he didn't think. It wasn't "Oh jumping with cause a splash that might get in that lady's eyes, which isn't really very fair", it was "Time to swim, get in the pool, JUMP!"

So perhaps really, overtaking in swimming lanes, and possibly on motorways isn't a big macho act of masculinity, but is just simply a lack of consideration that men seem to possess more than women, in my experience.

It's amazing where your mind goes sometimes. Thinking about this distracted me and I actually swam 30 lengths in 30 minutes, which is a new personal best for me. Maybe there's hope for a permanent place in the medium lane yet!

Swimming gets 8/10 today.