I’m stuck in a bathroom stall in Grover Center right after my last session with Eli, and for the first time throughout this whole semester of “getting jacked,” I’m convinced that a workout is going to make me puke.
If there’s anything I learned from the last week of working with a personal trainer, it’s not to cancel your weekly meeting two minutes prior to when it’s supposed to start. The way that your session plays out is in the hands of this fitness expert—it goes without saying that it’s best not to piss them off.
My last meeting with Eli started innocently enough: we caught up with one another as I got my body warmed up by rowing on the row machine. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and I assumed heading in that he had crafted a tough final workout.
And then he went over what we were going to be doing. Two rounds of 10 workouts, each with rep counts no lower than five, though many exceeded at least 10. With each new exercise explanation a little part of me died, and by the time he reached “30 box jumps,” I knew I wasn’t leaving the gym the same person.
After completing the first round, I felt fine. Tired, but okay. I was halfway to the finish line and confident that I could get to the end without a hitch.
But by the time I threw my body to the ground to start the push-up part of my final burpee—or the final rep of the final exercise—a new feeling consumed me: nausea.
I tried to tell myself that everything was fine, that I wasn’t going to be sick and I was just getting in my own head. I tried to rush along my farewell to Eli so that I could get my butt to a stall that wasn’t located in WellWorks and save face in case I ended up with my head shoved halfway into the nearest porcelain throne.
Long, gross story short: after a good fifteen minutes filled with light-headed, dehydrated hysteria and cringing with every other guy that walked in to spring a leak, I eventually got my act together and walked out of Grover Center fully intact.
If you’ve made it to this point in the column without throwing the paper away, or losing your own lunch in the process, there’s a lesson to be learned here. Simply put: you can always avoid enduring a similar hell by listening to your body and not pushing yourself to the utmost extremes.
The unfortunate thing about this experience is that it isn’t uncommon, especially for people who are just starting out and don’t know their limitations. Crazier still, other people who want to put on as much mass as possible in the shortest period of time work out this intensely on the regular.
Maybe I’m just a baby when it comes to vomiting—always have been, ask my parents—but this kind of bodybuilding isn’t for me. Oh, and Eli? Congrats on graduation, but it may be in your and the janitor crew’s best interest of wherever you end up working as a trainer to warn your clients not to drink heavily the night before you decide to torture them.
Just a thought.
How do you avoid getting sick after you work out? Let Jake know at jd202409@ohiou.edu.
