While I am abroad, I am also still a college athlete, and therefore expected to still be lifting and getting stronger. So I've joined a gym with two other SLU football players (and a bunch of other kids who are in our program), and we lift every Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. The gym is about a 30 minute walk from my home stay, but their is always a lot to look at so I don't mind too much, granted it is a lot further than at school or even at home.
The quality of the gym is fairly high, they have all of the necessities in terms of weights as well as a big multipurpose room where we can do abs and stretch. The weights of course are all in metric, so I don't know exactly what I'm doing for weight, but 'heavy' and 'light' are international measurements.
We definitely stand out when we lift, we are certainly all a lot bigger than almost everyone else in there, and with that we're usually lifting quite a bit more. The other day when I was getting ready to squat, I picked up the bar, stepped back and looked into the mirror and saw about five or six Asian faces staring back at me... it's really pretty weird.
One of the first days I was there I wanted to use some dumbbells that someone had put down, of course I couldn't actually ask him if I could use them because I can't speak hardly any Chinese, so I just kind of gestured toward them. He was very confused about what I wanted so a kid from the program who happened to be there at the same time and speaks really good Chinese interpreted for us. Afterward they were talking and apparently the Chinese guy thought I must of been some Russian weight lifter.
Anyways, a trip to the gym is always pretty eventful.
-AL
PS. I know I wrote about being able to teach at a migrant school, and I'm going to, but so many of us signed up that they split us into two groups, and my group doesn't start till April. So when April comes I'll be sure to write about that but till then it's just 'gym' stories.
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Russian weight lifter? Cool! Maybe you can get scripted for movie while you are there! Oh, and don't forget the Jake pose when you are just standing around.
ReplyDeleteSo what is the "averge" size/weight of the guys in the gym? Are you going behind them and adding weights?
love ya..... "ant" la
lol "ant" Lee Ann, (I'll never live that down). I don't think there is anybody who weighs over 200 pounds, probably a lot of them are in the 150-160 range. It's funny because they all seem to wear the same thing too, wind pants with tight black cut off shirts.
ReplyDeletehahah he was prolly staring at u squating cause u were screaming at the top of ur lungs
ReplyDeleteIt's a good thing you're getting used to lots of walking...think of all the gas you'll save by walking to work this summer. Glad you've gotten a gym schedule down -- I know how working out helps you to stay focused. Maybe when all the weights are being used you could just start lifting some of the guys at the gym...
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