Working out

Stationhill.com

Non-Fiction

Working out
Non-fiction by Kylie Grant
    Winter sports are over and now it's my turn to relax and enjoy the time
off. Of course, my mom would say otherwise. After a week or two of coming
home and hanging out around the house I often hear, "You need to start working
out pretty soon." Which in another week is followed by, "You need to workout."
So my short lived vacation is over. Back to "working out". There is just
one catch, my idea of "working out" differs from my mother's.
    The dictionary defines working out as, to exercise, train, etc. Exercise
is defined as physical activity, especially to develop or maintain fitness.
That's how my mom sees it too. I really do like to exercise and be active,
shooting hoops, swimming, or riding bikes. I enjoy sports, but there are other
activities one can do to exercise the body.
    Eventually, I have to give in to my mom's demands and actually exercise.
It isn't the easiest thing to start and it is difficult finding the right
time of day to exercise. Taking this into consideration, I try to get in some
exercise anytime that I can. Just the last week, we visited my sister who's
attending college in Portland. We made this a girls' visit, which included my
mom, younger sister, and myself. On our way there, my mom said we could stop
and shop at the Woodburn Outlet Mall. We arrived about 2:00 and called my
sister so she could drive down and join us. We shopped until the stores closed at
8:00. During this time, we never stopped to eat or rest. My feet ached,
since I chose the wrong shoes to wear, my arms and hands were numb from carrying
the bags, and my back was killing me from being up all day. Even with my aches
and pains, as we were walking out to our cars, I felt pretty good because I
had been active and enjoyed a good workout. As I vocalized these thoughts to
my mom, she promptly laughed and told me that shopping does not count as a
physical workout. I think it does. Walking around for hours, always on one's
feet and never getting time to rest can be tiring. To add to it, I tend to walk
kind of fast so my heart rate can get going.

    However, I don't always enjoy walking. My younger sister and I feed and
watch my neighbors' animals while they are out of town. One of my neighbors
has a very steep driveway that requires a good deal of energy to walk up. My
other neighbor's driveway has a more gradual incline, but it is about 1/3 of a
mile long. When the weather starts getting warmer and the days longer, my mom
encourages us to walk to their homes so we get a little bit of exercise. To
me, this is a workout I can do without, especially when it is so quick and
convenient to hop in my car and drive there. My ankles and feet become stronger
from driving my stick shift and it's not like I don't get out of the car at
all. I have to walk a short distance to feed the donkeys and I have to shovel
the horse manure. Also, it is part of the job to play with the dogs, so I get
some activity from that as well. In my view, that is a pretty good workout
and I don’t even have to go to a gym.
    Not that you have to go to a gym in order to get a good work out.
Especially around my house, activities abound. We have a basketball hoop and cement
driveway making it a fun and easy place to play. In the summer when it is
hot, I really enjoy swimming. This is convenient since we have a swimming pool
in our backyard; something that my parent's promised we would get when we
moved here. It's hard to run in the summer because you have to get up early to
beat the heat. It's not that I'm not a morning person, just not an early
morning person. Due to the summer heat, my muscles warm up quicker, thereby helping
me finish my workout sooner. A twenty minute workout in the summer is enough
to leave me feeling well-conditioned, until that is, my mom asks me how long
I exercised. When I tell her 20, or even 30 minutes, I often hear, "you can't
get a good workout or enough exercise in that amount of time," implying I
need to increase my duration.
     This occurs every year. It has almost become a ritual. Naturally, I
would prefer to never workout, but I know that I can't stay in good physical
shape otherwise. This is fine, there are lots of fun activities for exercising
and I like being physically fit. It's just that I have a much different idea
of what a workout is and how long it should be as compared to my mom's.
However, my mom usually wins. By the summer's end, I am working out and doing most
of what my mom asks me, but naturally I let her know what I consider "working
out" to be.

Kylie Grant, age 17, contact Rascals2276@hillside.com
Copyright 2003 Kylie Grant.
Reviews and comments requested
Posted 05/26/2003