I Have No Gym, and I Must Move
What does a gym girl do when she’s left with four small pieces of equipment and a porch?
It’s hot on the porch, but I’m gearing up to do the work anyway. I have a 30-pound vest, two 15-pound kettlebells, a jump rope coiled up on a pollen-covered couch, and the concrete steps leading down into the yard at my disposal. This is the gym now.
Before moving to North Carolina, I had a real one. It had a squat rack, a full set of dumbbells going up to 100 pounds, machines, mirrors, and, perhaps most appeasing, air conditioning. I went most days since it was a measure of my discipline. Despite being without robust equipment, I still work out as often as my burnout allows. This week marks the start of a new block. I’ve planned a squat and lunge focused lower body on Monday, an aerobic burner using my jump rope on Tuesday, a high volume push/pull set for Wednesday, my second lower body lift, which is hinge focused, on Thursday, and push/pull plus conditioning for Friday. The rep tempos are written out, too, along with rest periods. I ramp up my push-ups a little each week. I’m doing pistol squats again, and they suck.
The porch imposes its own terms on how I train as well. When it rains, I don’t workout. This past week, I’ve lost five days of training. My runs are on the road and trails now, not on a treadmill, so I answer to the heat, too, cutting cardio sessions short. The weather gets a vote it never used to have.
Healthy Futures is free to read and always will be. Paid subscribers get Wellness Debrief, The Shelf, and a few paid essays per month. If you’re not ready for that but want to support the work, you can also leave a tip via PayPal.
I’m making the most of it, though. The only thing I can’t do effectively is add load to preserve the insane strength goals I’ve achieved in the past 18 months.
Unfortunately, adding load is the whole game for certain adaptations. Achieving and maintaining maximal strength is the most load-dependent thing the body does, and it starts slipping within weeks. I can mostly keep my muscle mass since hypertrophy isn’t dependent on weight itself, but pushing every set close to failure. Cardio’s not an issue; the jump rope handles that, and I can take walks. Another concern is bone loss. Heavy resistance training is one of the best interventions for strengthening bone. A 30-pound vest and two 15-pound kettlebells do not replicate that for me. I’m in my 30s. The decisions I make about load now compound as I enter my 60s.
I’m probably overthinking the long-term effects here, but this all runs through my mind as I flick an ant off my arm, lying flat on my back, trying to catch my breath after a 60-second AMRAP round of single arm kettlebell swings. I’m confronting the limits of my current reality as someone who doesn’t believe that anything limits me. Everything about this is stranger than I expected. But the body needs the movement, whether or not there’s a gym to put it in.
So tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, I’ll put on the vest and do it again.