Squats
At work, there is a small but nice gym for employees to use. try to go there at least three days a week during my lunchbreak for a nice weight lifting session to break up the day. Although the gym has most of the equipment needed to get a complete and proper workout done there has always been one machine missing. And in fact, it was the “machine” for doing my favorite exercise: squats. Many people would agree that my body is nearly designed for this exercise. I can almost touch the floor during the squat and still keep the balance needed since my legs are fairly short. And the weights? Well, I put a few kilos on the bar.
But since the frame for the bar was missing I was forced to use an alternative way. My friend David suggested I try something called Tabata squats. In essence the Tabata method is about performing as many repititions of an exercise as possible in 20 seconds followed by a 10 second rest period. This is then to be repeated 8 times totaling in 4 minutes for the exercise. Yeah, I know. No, really, I know what you are thinking. I did too. I also hated a good friend of mine for 4 minutes once a week. In fact, never have 20 seconds taken so long to pass while 10 seconds went by in a ... well, they are gone.
So, it was with great pleasure when I heard the company would be shelling out for a squats machine for the gym. So, on a Friday afternoon me and a monster (Amador) colleague headed for what I thought would be a short trip to a nearby Decathlon to pick up the needed stuff. Turns out the “nearby” Decathlon was across Barcelona, on the south side. To make things just that little bit harder, the nearest Metro station to Decathlon was what seemed a million blocks away (in reality more like 6). I figured it couldn’t be THAT hard. Amador had thought of bringing a ridiculously gay looking trolley which we were pushing together through the busy streets of downtown Barcelona. Did I mention ridiculous?
Once at Decathlon we bought the required stuff after hanging out by the muscle men equipment for a while, just to make sure people didn’t think the two trolley men were a part of the Meditterranean ballet group from the next aisle. It became apparent at the counter that the 70 odd kilos or so would be a challenge when it came to switching Metro stations or lines. “Ahh, let’s take the line that takes us direct to the company.” Oh, there is one? Of course there was, but the problem with that one meant there would be much much much more walking. After way too little deliberation we settled on taking the bus as it turned out one of the lines went nearly direct to our company. So off we went, into a stuffed bus full of impatient Barceloneans on their way home from work. While people looked at the funny guys in the bus, one holding a gay trolley and the other hugging a big box, Amador gave me a good sight seeing tour of places he knew nothing about. The bus took a ride through parts of Barcelona I’d never seen while others I have been to a few times already.
The bus stopped about 6 blocks away from the office but to make the challenge greater (and more heroic after the fact) all the streets were up-hill. After running down a few old people with the box and hitting a few kids with the barbell we finally made it to the office. The machine was in the house. Now, two weeks later I have used it but to my surprise I am going to keep doing the Tabata exercises as well.
Every good story should have a punch line. If it doesn’t, it isn’t good. This one doesn’t. So I’ll lie... you know what? There is a Decathlon 5 blocks away from the office!

Labels: day2day, english, exercise, Spain

as written by Tobbi G. at 3:24 PM GMT