Tag: gym

100 Push-up Challenge

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not long after the new year, I was laying in bed surfing around on YouTube on my iPad, and eventually I came across this video where a guy did 100 push-ups every day for 30 straight days.

He did the smart thing and took measurements of his chest and arms on day 1, and then the video is a montage of him doing push-ups in a variety of ways, and a sub-challenge within the month was that he had this goal of doing 50 straight push-ups, which he eventually accomplished 20-some days into the journey.  Eventually, after 30 days, he measured his chest and arms, and there was some gain size, which was ultimately the goal.

“Hmm,” I thought.  I could do this.  So I did.

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Dannyspeak: Overpopulated Days

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Like most people out there, we tend to have our own personal vernaculars.  Phrases that we use, mostly in private, but sometimes out in the wild, which occasionally requires explanation.  Most of the time, people scrunch their eyebrows and are dubious about the use of particular phrases, but occasionally others adopt such things, and introduce it into their own vernacular.

I don’t know why, but I’ve often felt the compulsion to write about my use of the general term “overpopulation;” it’s sat in my drafts file as a topic to write about on more than one occasion, but I’ve never actually taken the time to actually write about it.  Seeing as how my writing habits have become quite strained throughout the last few weeks and months, mostly due to work trying to suck the ever-living life out of me, I’m always trying to improve my motivation and capability to write, and no matter how bad things get, writing is the one hobby and outlet that I really do not want to let fall too far off the rails, and much like being able to run a mile at any drop of a hat, I always want to be able to write whenever I feel like it.

There are two places in which I most frequently decide that the world is too overpopulated: the parking lot at work, or at the gym. 

Being the creature of habit that I am, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that I wish to park in the same parking spot every single day.  In order to accomplish that, I realize that I need to pick somewhere that isn’t necessarily rockstar parking, right next to the entrance of the office, but somewhere where I could (hopefully) reliably get the same spot on a regular basis.  That being said, my preferred spot is one floor up from the main entrance, but fairly close to the stairs, so I can traverse one flight of stairs and be at the aforementioned rockstar entrance.

For a while, it was pretty nice, getting the same spot on a daily basis.  I knew I could be five minutes earlier or five minutes later than the usual arrival time, and it would be there, and I took comfort in knowing that I basically had a consistent place to park.

But then, much to my dismay, I rolled into the parking lot one day, and there was a fucking pickup truck in my spot.  It pissed me off royally, and I hoped this was a one-off occurrence.  But then the truck was there the next day, and several other days in which I happened to be off by a few minutes.  Even after I rattled off a nice little streak of getting my spot back for several consecutive days, this fuckface would still take my exact spot whenever they managed to get there before I did.

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No-context writing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes, I feel like I haven’t done any writing in a while, and then say that I haven’t really found anything that’s sparked any inspiration to write.  But then I chastise myself that the whole point of me wanting to write doesn’t always have to have specific context behind it, and that sometimes, it’s just the urge to write, even if there’s no specific subject at hand.

Despite the fact that I’m still offline, a notion that isn’t ever not there whenever I sit down to write, it’s been an entire week since I last ranted about how much the Morbius movie is probably going to suck.  Since then, no matter how much I scour the news for an interesting topic, various websites and feeds to hope to see something that piques my interest to turn into a word explosion, it’s been pretty barren out there for my interests and inspirations.

Regardless, such shouldn’t be an excuse to go stagnant for too long, and despite the fact that I don’t really feel like I have anything to write about, the inherent urge to write is still there, which brings us to now, where I’m sitting in front of my laptop with a word doc open, no specific topic in mind, and my fingers still moving.

For the most part, a lot of this general writing stagnation probably has to do with the fact that these days, I don’t really have a tremendous amount of free time anymore.  Such is the nature of being an adult, and trying to maintain my place in the working world, as well as undertaking the responsibilities of a job that is no longer really on the ground level anymore.  At work, I’m often times operating with varying levels of stress in place, with there seldom being none at all, and simultaneously I have to remind myself that my decisions hold more weight than they used to, and that I am actually responsible for other people.  I can’t phone it in as much as I’d like to at times, and sometimes it feels like I’m doing less work, which feels strange, especially since I still see that the workload amongst the team hasn’t exactly dwindled.

Outside of work, has been a tremendous amount of other work, specifically all related to the planning of my own wedding.  I’m not going to pretend like it hasn’t felt overwhelming at times, the sheer amount of tasks and things to consider before June, because it sometimes does, and I hit points where I don’t want to do anymore work at home, and just want to marathon something on Netflix or watch the WWE Network for four hours instead of doing actual work.

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Some Black Mirror shit coming to life here

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A little while ago, my gym brought in these three new stationary bikes.  Expresso bikes.  They do that every now and then; bring in some new cardio equipment, presumably to try and get people to actually work on their cardio instead of doing the age-old practice of bogarting elliptical machines for 30 minutes and calling it an adequate workout.

At first glance, they don’t look like anything special, they look like some fairly standard, nondescript exercise bicycles – except that they have a screen affixed to the front of them.  Obviously, with the constantly advancing rise of the digital world we live in, it’s no shocker to see screens ending up on bicycles, when there are already screens attached to various other bicycles, treadmills and elliptical machines; distraction is the key to long cardio sessions, and if screens can provide some distractions, then maybe some fat sweaty Atlantic City sweat hogs might actually lose some weight.

But it’s not television that these screens broadcast; users have the option on what they want to have broadcast between different settings of paths, some interactive studio training, or interactive games that can be played while bicycling, utilizing your own cycling as the controller.

Honestly, I’m intrigued by these Expresso bikes, and if I weren’t always in the mindset that running is really the only acceptable form of cardio, I’d be willing to give these a try.  Frankly, I’m under the belief that gamification is an effective way of teaching and training, and if making an exercise bike more fun by adding games or creating competition is going to be what it takes for some people to get up and exercise, I think it’s pretty cool.

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Ben Affleck hair

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s no secret that I make a lot of observations at the gym; it’s one of the great settings for the observation of mankind to occur, as it’s at the gym and the ensuing locker room in which the male species has a tendency to strip away societal norms to their truest selves, whether it’s extreme narcissism, misogyny, douchebaggery, or all of the above.

At my current gym, it’s unmistakable that the vast majority of the members are about as white as Paul Ryan’s interns, so naturally this doesn’t just open the door, it kicks it open for ridicule and judgment at how insufferably white it is.  And I’ve already pointed out whether in writing or not, many of the so-white behaviors of the locker room, whether it’s bitching about European vacations, tariffs affecting their businesses, or my recent favorite, the fact that there are quite a number of them who show up to the gym, don’t work out, but still take a shower; and then lie about what they did at the gym today to any colleagues that happen to be present.

However, I have noticed another thing recently that’s caught my fascination, and that’s the immense precision that Ben Afflecks put forth towards styling their hair.  The way my gym locker room is set up, the toilets, urinals, sinks and the accompanying mirrors are like in this separate alcove away from the rest of the lockers and showers.  So when I’m done dressing out, and I want to go fix my own hair in the mirror, there’s always a good chance that I’ll turn the corner into the sink/toilet alcove and then every sink will have Ben Affleck standing in front them, with them very precisely working on their hair.

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Going to chalk this up as a white people thing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Gyms on Fridays are pretty much the best time in the world to go to the gym.  Mondays are often times the worst, because it’s the one day when everyone feels guilty for the shit they do to themselves over the weekend, and they overcompensate by making it a point to go to the gym on Mondays, thinking a single day of exercise will absolve them of whatever booze and/or junk food they plowed into their bodies the three nights prior, so the gyms are obnoxiously packed and I want to kill every motherfucker who impedes my ability to have a routine workout.

On the flipside, Fridays are pretty much dead.  Be it pleebs falling back into their usual routines of giving up, giving themselves a little bit of an extended weekend, or any other weak reason, by Friday, gyms are nice and empty, and I’m more often capable of having a nice relaxed workout, without many if any people, interfering with my routine.  And today was no exception, as I was able to have my pick of the benches, never had to look for a single weight, and proceed with my entire routine without any interruptions.

I was in a good mood after finishing up my last lifts.  And then I went into the locker room.

And it was fucking slammed.  Motherfuckers all over the fucking place like cockroaches scattering when you walk into a dark room and turn off the lights.  Everyone in varying states of undress, but just about all getting ready to hop into the shower, to which there are only six of at my particular gym.  When I gathered my effects to shower, I turned the corner into the shower area, and was luckier than a leprechaun at the end of the rainbow that there was one left, resulting in me not needing to wait.  But the point was that, for some unknown reason there were way more people in the locker room preparing to shower, than there were dudes that actually worked out, and actually earned their shower.

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Today’s forecast has had a high amount of white privilege

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

While I was in the locker room getting dressed after my afternoon workout, there were two guys having a candid conversation about how white they were.  They actually weren’t talking about literally how white they were, but the entire conversation they were having was pretty much explaining just how white they were.  It’s not that I wanted to eavesdrop on their conversation, but they didn’t make any effort to suppress it in a public area, and I couldn’t help but hear just how white they could make the locker room.

They were complaining about how close to turning 30, and how they were “old as shit,” and then they started talking about how their parents are just turning 60, and how their grandparents are getting old, and that the next visit to them might be the last, so they should consider taking a week instead of three days to visit them… because they’re overseas in foreign countries, because like most white-collar stereotypical white people, they come from some money.

And then came the comparisons to their parents gallivanting in Greek villas, and how much of an inconvenience it would be to spend time with family, when it encroaches on their time in which they’d probably rather be snorting coke off of hookers or belittling minorities; but who’s to say not both, and simultaneously at that?

I left the gym with a feeling of agitated disgust at perceived as white privilege on display.  Both these guys are clearly younger than I am, but in cushy corporate positions doing most likely intangible work on computers that is probably eons removed from consumers, but probably make more money than I do.  They come from families that are younger and way better off than my own parents, in their Italian vacation homes on remote private islands.  They’re discussing foreign vacation plans, and although I’m no stranger to international travel, I’d wager that my trips are vastly less extravagant as theirs might be.

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