A couple o’ days ago, I went to the el gym-o and hopped on an el bike-o for a quick 20 minutes spin. I like to try out new things, so I thought I’d scroll through the presets and see what I haven’t yet done. It was then that I encountered, the ‘Extreme Heartrate’…
So I input my info (age, weight, credit card info, name, social insurance number, things like that) into the machine and it then says that I have a maximum heartrate 172 bpm (beats per minute). ‘Ok, whatever, I also don’t like olives, anything else you want tell that I already know?” ( I actually didn’t know my ‘max’ heartrate, but I was simply displaying my intellectual prowess in contrast to the exercise bike). So I start pedaling and pedaling and it never gives me any instruction. So after about 3 and a half minutes, I start to think, “the preset seems to revolve around this so called ‘heartbeat’, and it previously gave me a number, so perhaps that it a goal to which I should obtain.” So I pedal furiously and for about 90 seconds I kill myself on the bike striving for the preposterous 172 bpm. I final reach it at 3:55 into the workout only to discover that the first 4 minutes of the session is a warm up. “Well flip you in the face, you stupid stupid stupid” I think in the general direction of the bike upon which I sit. “I’ma gunna kill yoo”.
So again I am pedaling along with no reason for existence when the bike in all it arrogance, challenged me with this:
Hr Goal : 172
“Oh shizzad, son, this mofo is on”
So I pedal. And pedal. And pedal. And what the crap my heart is so lazy, it’s barely beating…
I cannot tell you the pain and agony I went through to have my heart beat at one hundred and seventy two beats per minute. There was, and still is, and excruciating pain in the upper part of my gluteus maximus that is most sensitive when I sit in a slouched position. The entire upper part of both legs ache still two days after the fact. Yet I have this sense of accomplishment. I have obtained a seemingly unobtainable goal. But that is not the whole story. Not by far.
Back to being on the bike, I had reached my first goal of 172 bpm and was hopping to God, quite literally I was asking God to “make the pain stop”, when I was unsuspectingly rewarded with anther goal. It read:
Hr Goal : 132
Now it is common knowledge, but important enough to mention, that the reasons ones heart rate increases is the need to flow blood to the lungs for the muscles of the body are using oxygen at an above-normal rate. So to increase one’s heartrate, one must increase muscle oxygen use and to best do that, one must use their muscles, such as in pedaling a bike. To do the opposite, calm ones heart thus reducing the beat rate, one must cause their muscles to use less oxygen, which is done by moving less. So to make my heart beat go from 172 bpm to 132 bpm, I must sit back and relax, and pedal only enough to keep the bike knowing that I am still here. Never before had I been assigned such a wonderful goal. Oh, the sweet bliss of sloth.
As I gradually came nearer my goal, as I can always see what my current heartrate is using sensors on the side handle bars near my seat, I began to wonder what I might have to do once I reach my goal of 132. Was I in for a shocking surprise.
I had thought that perhaps my next goal would be to obtain 165 bpm, and then 140 bpm, and then 158 bpm and so on and so forth, eventually being asked to maintain a steady heart rate of, say, 150 bpm or so. But instead of anything less than 170, I was again asked, no, demanded, to reach for the uncomfortable.
Hr Goal : 172
“You stupid jin-faced, jerkassed mofo piece of crap.”
You can imagine the work it took to do that. 3 times. That is correct. I was required to make my heart beat at 172 three times before my twenty minutes of hell on stationary wheels was finished.
But I liked it. And am proud of it. So proud, in fact, that I now wish to share with you the results of my like escapade on the gym floor.
Attached, below, are two pictures of what remained of my shirt once I got home. Being fresh from a gym session, one can imagine what the darker areas of the shirt are.
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