Good news: the couch and I are still on the outs and I’m
getting along with my pants pretty well. Bad news: since I decided that my spin
instructor just wasn’t the one for me (I think she was pretty broken up), I’ve been getting pretty personal with
Jillian Michaels, and we are not getting along pretty well.
I recently leveled up to the second workout on her 30-day
Shred DVD. Generally when you “level up” in something, it’s a good thing. It
means you get some great prizes or a nice castle or at the very least, a little adulation.
Not in this case. When you level up with Jillian, you get plank jacks. Plank.
Jacks. Not sure what plank jacks are? Yeah, neither was I. I stopped
mid-workout and stared in disbelief at the television while Jillian
demonstrated this madness. Not only was she requesting that I move myself to
the floor and then hold myself up in a planking position, but that I then do
jumping jacks with my legs while holding that planking position. HAHAHA. In case the emotion isn't coming through the text, that was maniacal laughter.
Now, this fresh hell is nothing compared to the other cardio
circuit. At one point while you’re jumping around and flinging sweat all over
the walls and maybe wondering if you have a notarized will because you’re
pretty sure you’re having a heart attack and you want to make sure you are cremated, not buried, she actually says: “I want you
gargling your heart when this is over!” Let that sink in for a moment. If someone
walked up to you on the street and said that, you’d probably be perfectly
within your rights to shoot them and walk away. When Jillian Michaels says that
to you, you better get your ass in gear and tighten up those abs while you
plank jack.
To distract myself from the feeling that my abdominal
muscles are going to burst through my stomach at any moment, I like to
speculate about the amount of money her exercise models make to tolerate her filmed death camp. I’m going to assume that it’s a hefty sum because otherwise
we may have ended up with a DVD about how Jillian Michaels died (i.e. was murdered by one of the exercise models) instead of how
she tried to make us die. This goes out to Natalie, the long suffering model who never gets to do any of the altered moves, and who Jillian loves to
harass. During one of the Satan plank moves, Natalie is cruising along when
Jillian decides it looks too easy for her. I know this because she says, “Look
at Natalie, she’s thinking this is easy, aren’t you Natalie?” and even though
Natalie huffs out a “no”, Jillian proceeds to push down on her back as she
planks, causing Natalie to grunt so loud the microphone actually picks it up.
Then Jillian says, “How do you like me now??” and then I distract myself further by
thinking of all the things Natalie probably wants to say in answer to that
question. I think Jillian’s eyes turn red around this part but I’m not sure because
I’m always busy trying to make it obvious that plank jacks are hard to do.
Jillian has that effect on you – you know she’s not in the room, but you’re
terrified to take a break anyway. Every time I crawl across the floor for a
drink of water, I’m waiting for Jillian to grind her heel into my calf and
scream at me about how weak and pathetic I am. It’s horrifying, really, but I
can’t complain too much because thanks to her, my calves are pretty solid at
the moment and maybe it wouldn’t even hurt that bad if she stepped on them and
laughed. I mean I would probably cry because that would really hurt my
feelings, but my calves would be fine.
Tomorrow is day eight of this level, which means I’m getting
close to level three…I can only imagine the horrors that await me. I will
probably relay them to you around day seven of that level because much like
this current level, that will be when my muscles relax enough to allow for
other physical activities. Like getting out of bed. And typing.
