sweat-free exercise

Exercise without sweating has long been my aim.

No, wait, that's not true. Not sweating has long been my aim - usually achieved by not exercising. But on the odd occasion that I feel the urge to jiggle the kinks out of my limbs and perhaps get some mobility back to my neck and shoulders, I have searched for forms of exercise that do not involve sweat. Or pain, as merl points out - no sweat and no pain.

Which reminds me of a crap joke: The maid of all work was scrubbing the floors one day and remarked to the housekeeper that she was so hot she'd worked up a sweat. To which the housekeeper replied that we didn't use the word 'sweat', that the word in this house was 'perspiration'. So the next day the maid remarked that she was "a-presbyterian all over".

My brief flirtation with Powerlifting fulfilled one of the criteria - no sweat (or not much). It was pretty cool, walking into the free-weights room at the university gym with all these big sweaty grunting guys and actually using the equipment. At last I was one of the cool kids, doing real weights while all the pussy girls scurried past the free weights door and into the circuit room. Of course, I'd never have had the courage to go in there myself if I hadn't had my great big powerlifting flatmate to protect me, but that is beside the point. That was very cool, and for about a year a girl friend and I partnered each other at the bench, squat and deadlift. But people with long long limbs are not really cut out for powerlifting. And it hurt...

Enter Tai-Chi. Once I'd had our first baby, the ability to just flounce out to the gym vanished (it has never taken much for me to avoid going to the gym, and a new baby is an absolutely rock-solid alibi). I liked the sound of Tai-Chi, but couldn't see my way clear to actually getting to a class (why are all the beginners classes right at the mad hour of 5.30? Children need feeding then!) so I got a book out of the library. I used it quite often, but then it had to go back to the library... Occasionally I'll still do a bit from memory, but I'm not convinced I'm doing it right. But I did really really like this form of exercise. Like slow dancing. Merl even bought me some cheesy Chinese music to play in the background, which actually turned out to be very peaceful. I keep thinking I should get another book out of the library...

A friend and I have weekly "aqua bobbling" sessions, but they're not quite as weekly as they perhaps could be...

Today's experiment was with Pilates. Before Mum died she got me to choose my christmas gift out of a catalogue, so I chose a Pilates DVD and kit. We had our family gift-giving celebration on Sunday, so today I tried out my new present. It was good. No sweat. A little pain, but because the lady on the DVD can't see me I just stopped when it hurt too much - I figure that it will hurt less next time perhaps. It suited me very well. It was a half hour session, which was long enough to work but not so long that it put me off repeating it.

A cautious thumbs up.

By the way, I chose this somewhat bizarre (for me) gift because even though the baby is nearly 11 months old, my abdominal muscles have still not healed back together, and I'd really like to remedy this situation before it turns into permanent back pain. So it still fits with my pain-avoidance strategy...