Never listen to a young guy at Sports Authority when buying weights...

In my efforts to lose a little weight, I bought the 30 day get cut dvd by Jillian Michaels. I figured if it worked for all of those bigger folks on the Biggest Loser, it would work for me. Jillian likes to workout with just your body and very few formal props so that you can work out anywhere at anytime. One of the props she uses for this workout is hand weights.

I didn't have any hand weights and had never worked out with them so did not know what my needs or threshhold were. I headed off to Sports Connection and explained to the young (really young) guy there what I needed. Nothing big or fancy, just hand weights so that I could use them while doing lunges, laying on my back on the floor, etc. -- an augment to a workout and not the weights for weight sake itself. He scratched his head and then called over another young (very young) male clerk and asked him what size he would recommend for me. They both recommended starting with 5 lbs and said that would probably still be too light.

I was seriously doubting my ability to work out with 5 lbs and told them that I was very weak in the arms and maybe not so young (not that that has anything to do with it - only more years of being weak in the arms to overcome). They said that they were thinking about weak in the arms when they said 5 lbs. Hmmmmm............... I was still not convinced. 5 lbs felt like a lot. Now, I do lift the 40lb bags of dogfood and their 40lb water cooler regularly but that is usually once to dump the food into their bin or put the water bottle into the cooler. It is not repetitions. To me, 5 lbs seemed like more than enough for repetitions. They recommended a small set with a stand - 3lb, 5lb and 8lb pairs plus buy an additional 10lb pair because "that was probably what I really needed".

As for me, I kept looking at the 2 lb weights - maybe because they were colored such a pretty purple. I just couldn't walk out of the store without them.

This morning, I did the workout with my new weights. I chose the purple ones - why not? 2 lbs - simple right. I went through the 20 minute workout and boy! did those 2 lb weights feel heavy. I think that they will suit me just fine for a while. I would have been dying with the 5 lb weights - ugh.........

And, I still have the 3, 5, 8 and 10 pounders just in case I ever get that strong........