Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah

I did a light workout today--a little cardio, the single-joint-isolation leg strengthening exercises my old coworker showed me that keep my knees from falling off in long runs, some ab work, some pullups...

Interesting, though, to realize my role in the gym has seriously shifted since the last time I paid attention to it. Maybe it's just a product of the gyms I've belonged to, but I've always felt young in comparison to those around me. (Hell, I'm 23--I feel young most places!) At the gym, where people go to keep themselves looking and feeling, well, as if they were my age, I've always felt kind of on top of the game.

Today, however, as I finished up my leg extensions and wiped the little patterns of Rachel-sweat off the seat, I noticed a group of three high school aged girls wearing cheerleading t-shirts gathered around the assisted pull up machine. They were giggling and gossiping and spending a lot more time working their mouths than their lats and I actually started to slip into a mental rant about the "damn-kids-hogging-the-machine-who-aren't-even-working-I-don't-pay-for-this-when-does-school-start-someone-get -me-the-manager-etc-etc-etc" when I caught myself. I was thinking like an old person. I was being age discriminatory and that is lame. Weren't these girls participating in the exact kind of "feel good" exercise I claim to feel so passionately about? Weren't they choosing to spend a morning of their coveted summer vacation exercising in the company of friends instead of watching The View at home alone or smoking cigarettes with the boys their mom's warn them about?

I sucked it up and waited for them to leave and did my pull ups, but there they were again, messing around with boxing gloves and targets, when I went to do my abs! After a couple rounds of oblique crunches on the Bosu (one of my all time favorites for me and my clients) I decided to treat myself to a little bit of playtime with some balancing exercises. 10 attempts and about 9 wipe-outs later, I noticed 2 of the girls had pulled out Bosu's themselves and were attempting the exercise they had just seen me do.

I'm not gonna lie, this kind of thing really feeds my ego. Especially since completing school and becoming a personal trainer, I feel like the cool kid when I go to the gym: not only am I working out, I know all the gimmicks and how to use the best toys, too. Since I had to walk by them anyhow to get a mat to stretch on, I asked the girls (who were a little embarrassed I had noticed their following) if they were on a cheerleading team together (yes) and which school they were from (Westmont High) and told them I thought it was pretty cool that they were working out together. I also pointed to the Bosu and said, "You know, you can stand on the flat side of that--it's a little bit harder but really good for practicing balance and working your abs."

Guess what the entire squad was doing when I left the gym.

(Good deed for the day? Check.)