the workout routine.

Many many people (or about 7) have been asking me to update this damn site already. Some people have said things like "Fades, please update the blog...I have nothing to do at work now." My response to you people is to do your work and stop reading this rant. But, for all of thos who are unemployed or still in college, or just refuse to get back to doing your boring jobs, here is a chance to read all about the first ever "ari feder workout routine."

The U of Penn has a gym that is free for undergrads and costs money for people in grad school, such as myself. Last year, I used this as the excuse in my head for never going to the gym. I would tell myself things like "why should I shell out 200 bucks, if the undergrad kids dont have to!" Meanwhile, I would shell out 200 bucks and perhaps much more on dvds, cds, beer, scotch, and other assorted illegal items. But since this "too expensive to go to the gym" excuse was only going on in my head, there was no one to point out the obvious logical flaws.

Anyway, as this year rolled around, and my belly began to expand to record proportions, I decided that even I must admit that I can afford the 200 bucks. So I went to the gym, paid the fee AND... did not step in to the gym for about a month after I had paid. Then I began to realize that no matter what I do, this gym was gonna be charging me the 200 bucks. I could go only 1 time or I could go 1 billion times and it would be the same 200 bucks. So I decided in my head that I better start getting my money's worth and hitting the gym. At first I would just go inside the actual building and walk around for 5 minutes or so. I did this for a few weeks, but only to justify that I had paid the large fee. But the problem with this was that it wasn't helping my belly shrink in size and I wasn't regaining the "six-pack" I once possessed in 8th grade. Actually, if you think about it, in like 6th-8th grade, it seems that all the male children are either really fat, or skinny with six-packs or skeleton-like bodies. There are no avg. kids who have "pot bellies", b/c I guess that comes later when you get married or when you are single and have terrible eating habits. Anyway, I'm not suggesting that some pervert go to a 6th grade class and ask all the boys to take off their shirts, but I am pretty curious about this.

I have to admit that I always looked down upon the people who worked out all the time. In yeshiva in Israel, we had a work out room, and it seems like some people would spend every night in there. I would think to myself that those people are wasting time and they should be learning or something. But now, those people are probably all physically fit, so who is laughing now? Maybe no one is. I never liked that expression, b/c why does someone always have to be laughing?

In terms of selecting the workout routine that is actually perfect for my odd body, this was quite a difficult task. I obviously wanted to flatten out my beer belly, so the first machine I looked towards was the torture chamber thing that you hang upside down on and do sit-ups. Each time you do the sit up your stomach feels like it is about to be torn open. OK- the machine is probably not upside down, but it is on a 90 degree angle or 45 degree angle or some type of angle. By the way, I never knew how to measure angles, and I hated it when they told us to bring those protracters in to class. Did anyone know how to use those things? I just used them to draw big circles, and then I made the circles into people with really big heads. Not much help with angles though.

My next task was to shrink my large expanding buttocks but I do not know of any machine in the gym that is geared to shrink a butt. So instead I try and lift the weights. There are alot of macho men who are lifting these huge weights, so it is a bit embarrasing when I stand next to them and go with the 12.5 weights. Sometimes there are also women next to me who are lifting much heavier weights, and they laugh at me and call me a little weinie. But this is all good for my "anavah" so its ok.

Finally, I like to always finish my workout routines with a run on the treadmill. There is not much to say about this other than I always feel like I am about to collapse at the end of the run. Also one time I got tangled in my own I-pod nano-nano wire while running very fast and almost killed myself while alot of people stared at me like I had just escaped from a mental institution.
But if I really have just escaped from a mental institition would I come straight to a gym to run on a tread-mill? I think not.

The last thing I need to mention about this gym workout routine is that in the mens locker room everyone is naked for a prolonged period of time. I understand that some dudes like to shower there but it seems like they also prolong the nakedness time more than neccessary. Like there is no reason to just stand around naked and take a drink from the water fountain as far as I am concerned. Anyway, I gotta go hit that gym..