Training Arc

Cling!

“Uuuugggh…” I groaned. My hips were sore, and I lost control of the weight on the way down. At Seri’s request, we were starting with one of my least favourite exercises: the hip thrust. I previously avoided it like the plague due to my fear of someone I know catching me engaging in such undignified motions. As a result, my butt muscles were likely underdeveloped. Three reps was all I could do at this weight.

This was my second time working out with Seri. I was eager to come because I found her presence motivating; she held her own against the gym machines with such a dainty frame, yet the weight difference in our lifts still made me feel good about myself.

“You warming up?” Seri asked. She wore a grey sports bra and workout leggings. This was the most skin I’ve seen her show, so it still took a little getting used to. I only looked when necessary.

“What do you mean by warmup?” I turned to see her carrying an olympic plate in her hands. Each one weighed forty-five pounds, or twenty kilograms.

“Can you help me grab another one?”

Stunned, I examined the smith machine. It was a long metal bar that had a resistance of twenty-five pounds. There were already two plates on each end, so if we added one more it would be… two hundred and ninety-five. That was double my body-weight.

“Are you sure you can do three plates?” I asked, still in denial. My heart pumped as if I was on the treadmill.

“Was two plates too much?”

Her words struck a certain chord in my chest. Not in a good way, but in a terminal diagnosis kind of way. I begrudgingly grabbed another plate to balance out the smithing machine.

“Alright…” Seri nudged her body into position under the bar. I mentally clutched my heart in preparation for the nastiest rep I’ve ever seen — Seri, in all her skinny, one hundred and sixty centimetre tall glory, lifting the weight of a baby elephant using purely her glutes. I held a gasp in anticipation for her feat, and… huh?

She proceeded to pump the bar up and down multiple times without breaking a sweat. In fact, she looked exactly the same as she did during our last set. It was as if hip thrusting three plates was something she did regularly. A weird, tingly feeling started growing inside of me. Wait, did I find this oddly attractive? I averted my gaze until she finished.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Do what?” Seri questioned. Her genuine ignorance irked me a little. Did she even recognise the significance of her physical feat? Were my lifts all but a joke to her?

“Three plates,” I said. “My hips were about to give out on two.”

Her grin was smug. “I bet you’ve been skipping leg day.”

“No I- okay, yes I have.”

“Not anymore, kiddo. Now you’ve met your match.”

“Not like this…” I groaned. “Leg days suck…”

“It’s okay, we’re a team! You got the arms, I got the legs! Unless you’re unsatisfied?”

Enough was enough. I puffed out my chest. “Three plates is easy. Out of the way.”

To spare myself from embarrassment, I’ll cut out the details. Needless to say, it was not easy.

I sat hunched on the bench after my failed attempt. Seri had to help me lift the bar, which proved to be a struggle for her arms. I wondered if there was a way for her to spot me with her legs…

She patted my back. “There, there. You’ll catch up.”

“That’s my goal for the end of the summer,” I declared.

“Summer’s almost over. Finals are next week.”

“Huh? Oh, I guess you’re right.” Since we enrolled in six-week long summer courses, we were almost done. Our midterms were barely two weeks ago, and finals were coming up already. Which meant-

“You think you can do three plates by then?” Seri challenged.

“Next Friday, after the Math final.”

“Swear on a cheeseburger?”

“I’ll swear on a double cheeseburger.”

“Deal.”

We shook hands.

Next up was the leg press — unlike the hip thrust, this was an exercise I did regularly. In fact, leg press was probably the only thing I did. As with any other leg workouts, I hated traditional squats with a passion.

“What’s your record on this one?” I asked. Better to know in advance if I was about to get crushed.

“Just two-hundred.”

“Oh that’s not bad.” Having seen her insane hip thrusts, I was expecting a much higher number.

“My goal is to reach twice my bodyweight next week,” she said.

“That’s pretty realistic,” I said. “Bodyweight goals are good to have.”

“How much do you lift?”

I adjusted the machine’s setting to three hundred pounds for the warmup. “I’m aiming for four-hundred, but I haven’t been able to make that final push. Maybe it’s my music.”

“Your music?”

“I’ve been getting tired of it recently. Maybe I could try your workout playlist?”

“Ooh!” Seri grabbed my phone enthusiastically. “Let me queue up some songs. What’s your password?”\

“Go study, no space no caps.”

“What kind of password is that?”

“One that helps me study.”

“Whatever you say… here, give me an earbud.”

I took a wireless pod out of my left ear and handed it to her. Listening to the same music makes you feel strangely connected to each other. My face grew warm. It was probably just the workout.

“This is a good one,” Seri said. She started playing an instrumental track that sounded familiar.

“Is this from Locket Monsters?”

“Yeah! It’s the old battle theme. Did you play?”

“Only as a kid.” It was an old pixelated handheld game, one of the classics from my generation. The soundtrack she played was an orchestral rendition of my nostalgia.

“Doesn’t it get you pumped up?!” Seri asked. “Think you can hit a new record with this?”

“Hmmm, maybe.” I changed the weight setting to four-hundred.

“Wait for the violin solo. It goes hard. Here it comes…”

As I pushed my legs, the aforementioned solo kicked in. Flashbacks to my youth flooded my mind, as I remembered the rush I felt playing the turn-based strategy game for the first time.

“Uuuoooohh!” I grunted with the might of a thousand overhead fluorescent lights.

“LIGHT WEIGHT!” Seri yelled.

My legs went numb halfway into the rep. It felt like my muscles froze and wouldn’t extend any further.

“Come on! Almost there!”

It took everything I had to follow through the motion. As the violinist started shredding her strings like an electric guitar, adrenaline fueled my body. My achievement was not earned without sacrifice, and I hit a new PR on the leg press after an excruciating push.

But it wasn’t over yet. I let down the weight as slowly as my legs allowed. The pain burned through every fibre of my lower body.

“AAAUGH!” I grunted. The weight touched down. It was over. I was free.

“Nice,” Seri said in a dramatically deepened voice. I turned to see her outreached hand. I dapped her up.

“LET’S GO!”

“LET’S GET ITTT!”

She truly was a gym bro at heart.

~~~

“So for strength and size I’d want to do four to eight reps each,” I said.

“Uh huh,” Seri nodded diligently. She had fake glasses on for some reason, and was taking notes on the workout tips that I was sharing. Instead of preparing a study plan, we were writing up a workout plan for the remainder of our summer.

I continued my explanation. “Lower reps is for strength, and higher is for toning. I think you would want to stick to the tone zone.”

“Tone zone?”

“That’s eight to twelve reps for multiple sets. Then do one or two really slow reps on the highest weight you can, if you still want to work your way up the weights.”

“I see,” Seri said. “Also, what’s your protein shake recipe?”

“I’ll tell you if you score higher on the finals.”

“Bet.”

“One scoop of powder is enough, in addition to eating normally during the day. Sometimes I drink two, since I’m trying to look bigger. Any other questions?”

“Nope,” Seri said. “Wow, this feels so easy. I could never wrap my head around gymming back in high school.”

“Maybe I should be a Phys Ed teacher.”

“It’s probably because of nursing. Stuff like nutrition and muscle building feels more intuitive after taking physiology.”

I looked down at the pen I was spinning. Thinking about nursing usually bummed me out, but I’ve been more optimistic about the topic lately. Maybe it was because of her.

“I guess our last couple years weren’t really a waste,” I smiled.

“Yeah. Other than twenty-thousand in tuition.”

“…”

There went my optimism.