My Comfort Zone

I've been doing a lot of things that are outside my comfort zone lately. For instance, my armpits never hurt this bad in my life.

There are muscles in my armpits?

Even worse, there are muscles in my armpits that have been neglected? For all these years? Who knew? (Are you neglecting your armpit muscles? You should really think about that.)

My armpits still hurt 3 days after they've been worked out. I can't put my arms up.

Working my armpit muscles reminds me that I'm doing things that are wayyy outside my comfort zone. It feels like I am constantly looking at our trainer who's doing a demo of an exercise we're about to do a million of and thinking, "Egad, how on earth am I going to do that?!" She always makes it look easy but inside I know it's not easy and it scares me. No, it terrifies me.

Our bodies are going in weird places at the same time and I'm flailing about and balancing on objects and doing things while we're balancing on objects (sometimes I feel like a circus elephant on a ball but not nearly as graceful). I'm not even doing it in the privacy of my own home, I'm doing it in front of people, real people, and they're watching me fall over and lose my balance and going into total body failure. (Pullups do this to me almost immediately. Along with something called an "inchworm.")

Last week I asked her to turn up the music to mask my heavy breathing.

If I thought I was once in shape, I certainly don't feel that way now. That's why I know I need her. She has a way of sending my body into total body failure in less than 60 seconds.

If it weren't for her, I'd be sitting on my spin bike or running my same 3.1 miles at a comfortable speed or doing the same weight machines over and over and over again and going through the motions. And my armpits would still be neglected.

So I know it's good for me. I mean look at all the things I'll be able to do with beautifully defined armpit muscles.

Right?

So how often do you push it? Have you found any muscle surprises along the way?