On my way to the break room at work yesterday I passed through another section of our department. I saw unexpected movement out of the corner of my eye and noticed the top of someone’s head protruding from their cubicle doorway, rising and falling. This was so unusual for the workplace I admit I stopped can gawked. In hindsight that might have been a bad idea.
It turns out that particular group gets together several times during the day to do some group exercises. This particular person had been on the phone during their most recent round of push-ups, and so she was catching up on her own later. She dared me to join them. I demurred.
Last night at home we had a bit of an incident when my wife tried to remind one of our boys to do his daily exercises for his Physical Fitness merit badge program. He doesn’t like being reminded. It’s not that he doesn’t like exercise; it’s just that there’s always other things more interesting to do. So, thinking back on my encounter at work, I decided to set an example and informed my family at breakfast this morning that I would be joining in with that group at work.
What this group didn’t tell me was that they don’t just do pushups. Today is Plank Day. This is a plank:
You assume this position and then hold it–no sagging at the midsection! (Oh, and this picture is most definitely me!)
This group is up to two minutes as their starting duration, and they raise it by thirty seconds each subsequent rotation, though they do make accommodations for newbies (ie. me). After the first minute I was thinking this wasn’t so bad. By a minute and a half my back and abs were quivering and burning, and I was tempted to take the “newbie out”. I pressed on, and made it to two minutes with everyone else, but that was from sheer stubbornness. I’m pretty sure I’ll be toast during the noon session. And three minutes at 3:00 pm? Not a chance.
But I’m going to try to stick with this and see how it goes. It’s time I shook things up a little in my slacker routine.
(Oh, my apologies to anyone who came here this thinking I’d be discussing the “Bathroom Wars”. Sorry. I tend to think in song or movie lines, and I’m old enough to remember “Smokin’ In the Boys’ Room” from long ago.)