My Sorry Ass: A 6 month challenge

Did you ever think you would come here and find a photo of my ass? (I imagine someone in my Tribe is frantically trying to issue a Fatwa against me. I don’t mind posting this photo since I have been walking around in this outfit all day and it doesn’t feel as some sort of a gratuitous shot, unlike this one here with an amazing bottom.)

Well, there it is. In real time, that image was taken about 13 minutes ago at 6pm EST on June 27th, 2012. Approximately an hour and twenty minutes earlier, my Orthotic — a really lovely woman by the name of Rebecca — gave me her doctor’s professional opinion, which is that I officially and totally have the condition of asorryassitis, which to the English speaker is: “a sorry ass.”

Amazing, no?

We had met about 10 minutes earlier, with my on-the-nose arrival for our appointment. She had been with another patient, and when she stood sideways, I marveled at the incredible bubble bottom pushing out her pants.

I have never really thought it was too bad of an ass; it’s a size 6 and is relatively cushion-y which, I mean, I don’t know what more an ass should provide. Like, I can’t expect it to bake a cake or fix my car, right? But still, it is officially “a sorry ass.”

Now, let me first back up (see what I did there?) a little bit to that time I was hit by a car and I broke my femur. I was 13, and I was starting professional figure skating competitions and so had both very strong legs and a very strong ass. The breaking of my femur threw all of that away, and replaced it with an actual fear of falling because the bone wasn’t broken due to the strength of the impact, but rather due to fact that I fell incorrectly onto my right leg. Since then, I am very weary of any activity that takes me too far off the ground, lest I fall. Additionally, I am very careful with activities that are bouncy — accounting for why I have not yet gotten laid — like a trampoline. It’s really weird. And by it’s really weird, I mean: I’m really weird.

The reason for the appointment was two-fold: last summer I had problems with my right ankle (the ankle of the broken femur), and this year, now that I walk 4 – 6 km daily, I am having trouble with my hips. My appointment was to test whether or not I required orthotic inserts (I do not), but ended at “you have a model’s walk. You swing your hips like a model, but you have a sorry ass.”

Rebecca is a competitive weight lifter; this, accounting for her amazing ass and also for the humour of her statement that the muscles in my bottom were far too relaxed for their own good, lazy pricks that they are. She explained that most women have this problem of a sorry ass, so I am not out of the norm (and I have never pretended to be any sort of original, so hurrah for this). Diagnosis complete, her prescription for me is to work my ass. Literally. She recommended I join cross-fit at l’Usine Gatineau and here is a sample of what they do. Essentially, they are a bunch of assholes and I would like to be an asshole right alongside them because I can not even imagine how tight my body would become if I did that three times a week while someone was yelling at me.

I will return to their site once the month of Ramadan is over and consider it a little more seriously. I will do this while eating a cookie.

Until then, I have four exercises to do, three times a week, three sets of twenty repetitions each without any weight to start:

– Squats
– Dead lifts
– Lunges
– Romanian dead lifts

Her and I did them all. Within 30 minutes, my gluteus maximus tried to reach up and feed me a cookie as seduction to. Just. Please. Stop. Especially when Rebecca kept telling me to “push out [my] ass” and to which I responded that I clearly need to watch more Fitty Cent videos to learn how to shove’er out while maintaining my balance.

After our training session was complete, we were standing having a chat and my mum magically appeared because she was picking me up to drive me home. Waiting in the car was obviously not an option. When Rebecca and I told her the diagnosis, my mum’s response was “oh yeeeeaaaah. You have a very flat bum,” which, thanks much Mum. Rock on.

This diagnosis is so exciting that I could take a nap but not before I have another cookie. Because have I ever mentioned how much I hate working out my legs? Always have, and always will. I could work my arms and back for hours. My legs, however, I hate working them out…but I will. Because I have to, because I wish to remain active for a very very long time, and hurting while walking is not a f/cking option because I walk absolutely everywhere, and I love hiking though none of my friends have gone for a hike with me yet this year because they are surrounded by assholes who take up all of their time. And by assholes, I am indeed referring to their children.  (HI KIDDIES!! TELL MUMMY TO CALL AUNT MAHA!!)

Anyway. My way around this  is to make it a personal challenge, just like my 6 week hot yoga challenge. If I don’t, I will have a sorry “flat” ass forever and I will die a sad and lonely death, with one cookie in my mouth and another clutched in my sweaty hand. I also won’t be walking around for more than 4 – 6 km comfortably. A spreadsheet will be created, and the spreadsheet will be placed in my face so that I can’t run away from it. I will use crayons to cross out the days and I will interval train between the exercises she has given, and that stupid Insanity (which really is insane) plyometric situation, and the NYC Ballet Workout to cover all of my basis.

I will also report back here, as I did with the 6 Week Hot Yoga Challenge; likely, I will be miserable for the first while, so consider yourselves forewarned. Also, chances are that I will not begin this until the month of Ramadan is over, so consider this a marker for what’s to come.