The history of the T-Rex arms

All my life I've felt strong.  I've always felt like I can take on the world, damn all the odds.  I could climb mountains, ford streams, change my name to Maria and sing my way through the Alps.  Then I met Sean "The Hottie" Trainer.

I knew I was out of shape, but didn't think it was that bad. My first workout with him proved just how wrong I was!  It started with some standing push ups and pull ups.  Simple, right? Then came the step up/down on stacked weights (think mambo steps minus the hip action).  Easy peasy. Then back to the push/pull ups for 3 reps.  "Bring it on!" I thought.  Not even halfway through the first rep I was nauseated and ready to stop.  My brain kicked in like a horse balking a jump.  My heels wanted to dig in and tell Sean "The Hottie" Trainer where he could put his no-hip-action mambo moves.  My mouth watered.  My stomach churned.  But I'll be damned if I was gonna give up (and waste my hard earned pesos!!)

Post workout, I felt good.  I'd sweated, I survived my session, and left feeling like I could actually make it.  The next day I longed to have the joys of the ease of movement and confidence I had mere hours before.  It started before my eyes even opened when I reached over to turn off the alarm.  My eyes flew open, and somehow my lungs managed to expand enough to gasp in a whoosh of air, as a hot searing flash of  mind numbing, paralyzing pain rocketed from my biceps to my brain in 0.00001 seconds.  It was like Hermione Granger had hit me with a stupify spell.  I now understood on a deep visceral level what Luke Skywalker felt when Emperor Palpatine hit him with the lightening fingers.  Ever so gingerly, I reached again for the alarm clock, only to have a repeat of the same god awful fire burning through my limbs.  With as little arm movement as possible, I rolled to my side and was able to get the alarm turned off (without squashing my cat) and then laid quietly in bed, pondering the wisdom of my choice to work with a trainer.

And so, the T-Rex arms were born.

Day 2 was even worse than day 1 (as everyone warned/predicted it would be.), and in only using my forearms I found a renewed respect for the mighty dinosaur (how DID they feed themselves!!?!?)

Eventually my arms were recovered, just in time to have my next training session. In total, it took 4 days for me to be able to fully straighten my arms out, and another 2 to feel like I could bear any weight with them.  And you know what?  I wouldn't trade a second of it!  It was like a baptism of fire into my new world of exercise.*

* Thankfully and mercifully that was the worst of it (so far).  Every workout and session since then has been glorious - even when I'm feeling grumpy, bloaty, and tired!