Welcome To The Jungle

Decades ago, I thought I was a gym rat, but I was really a gym hamster.

Every day, I'd head to the gym to do the same damn thing I did the day before.

Sure, there was a slight variance.

Monday was back and biceps.

Tuesday was chest and triceps.

Wednesday was leg day (which, more often than not, was skip day).

But it was still like being on a wheel in a cage.

Same shit, different day.

And I hated it.

I persisted, not because it was fun but because I wanted to look good naked, and I didn't know what else to do.

In my single days, the naked goal was enough to overcome the boredom.

But you've seen what can happen when the guy finds the girl.

It's a cycle.

Get fit --> find girl --> get fat.

Now that I'm old and married and my wife will have sex with me even if I'm fat, the naked motivation isn't enough.

And although I haven't stepped foot in a traditional gym in a decade, I still get bored.

So, when I'm not feeling it, I'll do something out-of-the-box or make up a game.

For instance, once, I called my friend Steven and asked if he'd go for a three-mile run with me. He said yes, and then I showed up with 10lb medicine balls to carry with us.

It sucked, but on a day when monotony threatened to keep me on the bench, it did the trick.

Yesterday was the same. I had a long day of meetings, and by the end of the day, my TinyGym® was the last place I wanted to be.

To stave off the boredom, I came up with this game.

Play Appetite for Destruction from start to finish, during which I had to attempt (in any order I choose, either straight-through or on shuffle):

100 Pull-ups

150 Curls

200 Box Dips

150 Push Ups

100 Reverse Flys

Spoiler alert: I failed.

The only set I completed was Push-ups.

The first ten minutes sucked because, let's face it, push-ups and curls are boring. But as the songs progressed, my competitive nature kicked in, and I found myself pushing much harder than I would have otherwise.

For the last six minutes, with Axl singing Rocket Queen, I was moving fast and determined to squeeze out reps until the final note.

And then I fell out on the floor, smiling but exhausted from the effort.

Already, I'm excited to try again, so I'm going to do it again next Tuesday.

Join me if you want, we can make a proper competition out of it!

Who else gets bored in the gym?

What do you do about it?