Gym brain

So I cannot write after I come back from the gym. I feel like working out flips some switch in my brain to revert to caveman mode and leave me incapable of conjugating verbs.

This always happens. I come back from the gym and have a free hour to write—only my brain is mush and all I can do is stare at my computer screen. Maybe I'll troll the Facebook feeds or watch hulu (we cancelled cable). But I can't manage anything productive with this free hour.

I googled it and apparently gym brain actually is a thing:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/my-brains-tired-scientists-looking-at-seratonin-find-you-may-well-be-right-8519939.html

Scientists have even studied it.

I'll take it as a good sign that I got a good workout. Thank you Laura and your slightly evil but effective gymnastics ab drill.

Favorite line of tonight's workout:
Context: I was whining about the ab drills. Hips on raised pads, with a partner (Grace) holding my feet down and were were doing holds (hold a swim position, go up and down, side to side obliques).

Grace: Think of all the clothes you can wash
Me: ???
Grace: on your wash board abs.
Me: Thanks, Grace.

I should add that Grace (who is a medical student and I bother her way too much about med school because I think it's fascinating and wish I were smart enough to go to med school) cheated on abs by using the trampoline do bounce back up. I thought it was a genius way to outsmart the evil ab drill. (She mostly did this to be funny, and it worked.)

So because my brain is mush, I will give you a gratuitous picture of me and the dog. He's always happy to see me when I come home from the gym.

Does gym brain happen to anyone else? Does cardio turn anyone stupid?

Introduction: The Nerdy Girl's Guide to Working Out

I really should point my toes!

Hi I’m Sara. The sometimes-secretary of the nerdy girls club. I’ll be in the back taking notes and hoping no one looks at me.

I’m also a horrible show-off at the local trampoline gym and am utterly addicted to working out. That’s a new thing though.

By day I am a bespectacled copy editor (not a particularly good copy editor and I completely blind to my own typos. Apologies in advance) and after work, I do back shoot-outs on the TRX bands or work on one-handed supermans off the wall at my local trampoline gym.

I started working out seriously about a year ago. I went from a girl who exercised a few times a year (when she felt fat) to a girl who feels like I have to apologize to my trainer if I miss a day. (I’m sorry I had a work emergency and that’s why I missed the awful, awful TRX saws.)

This blog is dedicated to my awkward adventures at the gym—hoping to inspire other nerdy girls, even nerds still in the closet about their nerdiness, to not be afraid of pushups, spandex and guys with 8-pack-abs and biceps that make Popeye look like a pansy.

GET THEE TO THE GYM!  

You can still be a smart, educated, geeky girl who sneaks in any chance to read her kindle and still go to circuit training and kick serious ass on the rope climb or goblet squats.

You might not have as much time for fanfiction—but you could also write it off as research on your muscular hero or for your secret spy heroine and how they learn to do those flying kicks.

It might even be your duty as nerd to be well-rounded, to read, be cultured and be in shape. You might even::gasp:: like working out. At any rate, you should try it. (Can’t knock something you haven’t tried.)