Which one is that again?

           Learning the names of different exercises can be an exhausting process. I rely on descriptions to help me remember what certain exercises are; so does Ashley, but she also uses hand gestures. These different names, descriptions, and gestures have begun to stick over the past few years. Janelle, Ashley, and I have really formed our own gym language. I’m sure other people think we have no idea what we are talking about, but we really don’t care. We have to entertain ourselves somehow!

1. Roman chair knee lifts or straight leg lifts are simply called Uppy-downies with knees or legs. It is usually accompanied by a hand gesture too.

She looks way better than I do
when she does knee uppy-downies.

2. Dumbbell Military is abbreviated in the workout book as dbl. mil. One time I was looking at the book and saw the abbreviation; then I asked Janelle what the eff double windmills were. Now we always call them windmills and do a few arm circles to represent the windmill.  

This is a very buff drawing.

I think imitating this windmill
would be a good exercise. 

3. Dumbbell Row is referred to as the lawn mower.

The real Dumbbell Row

The real dumbbell row.

4. When we do Planks we do them on our elbows and hold them for around a minute. It’s supposed to be 2 minutes, but I can really only do a minute. At first we called them Watching TV because we looked like kids on the floor trying to watch TV. Now we call them Slumber Parties because we are all on the floor and facing each other. We look like little girls huddled together gossiping.

I wish I looked this good
during Slumber Party.

5. Side Bridges are called Side Uppy-downies and also accompanied with hand gestures.

Side uppy-downies and a smokin' hot dude.

6. 2 Arm Side Raises are called Airplanes because they are done lying on a bench and lifting your arms up and then down. We usually bend our legs up at our knees because it’s more comfortable, so we really look like an airplane, or a bird that flaps its arms really slowly.

Actually, this is exactly how we do our
airplane exercises too. 

    

7. This isn’t an exercise, but we complain about how things feel. Sometimes things hurt so we have to talk in terms of good hurt v bad hurt and good sore v bad sore.

     8.  We do these jumpy squat things. I think they are called Rocket Squats. Hell, I don't even know what they are called, but we call them frog jumps because that's what they look like. I hate them too!

I bet his feet make no noise when he lands.

Jump little guy, jump!

            When people hear us talking, I’m sure they think we are insane. We speak like kids and that’s probably because we spend our days with kids and when we get to the gym we haven’t completely left work at work! Because of that, we’ve really developed a little language that sounds crazy to outsiders, but totally normal to us.