11/9/09 Discovering the Treadwall

I have a confession to make. Before today, I hadn't been to the gym in two weeks. And maybe two weeks doesn't sound like a super long time, but gym attendance is a slippery slope. (Make that a slippery, cookie dough covered slope, because Heaven knows that my chocolate chip cravings certainly didn't take a two week vacation while the rest of me just sat around doing nothing). The point is, once you miss one day, it's really easy to miss a second, and then a third, and then a fourth, until suddenly two weeks have gone by and you just feel sluggish and gross and full of imitation Pillsbury.

I told myself that it was okay to miss because I was busy doing important things, or because I was tired, or because I was letting my neck heal a little longer, but I think the truth was that I had just gotten bored of my gym routine. I love my gym and everything it offers, but I have the attention span of a caffeine-buzzed gnat with ADD, so I need to mix it up on a regular basis to keep things from getting stale. And so today when I forced myself out the door and over to the gym, I promised myself that I'd find a new class or machine or something to liven things up.

Hooboy did I find something.

Enter: The Treadwall. What's a treadwall you ask? Well, it's a rock climbing wall that rotates like the belt of a treadmill, so you can climb and climb and climb and never get any higher than a few feet off the ground. And because you can adjust the speed of the wall, you can get a great workout out of it.

Now, I'm not a rock climber. I don't have any experience with it whatsoever. But as soon as I saw the treadwall, I was like, "I have GOT to get me some of that". And I bounced over, clicked the speed to turtle, and scampered right on up. And you know what? It's FUN! I like that you have to think about where you're going next. It's a puzzle that you have to solve as opposed to just setting the speed on a regular treadmill and zoning out. You have to pay attention; otherwise your foot will be way over on this handhold and your arm will be over on this handhold, and you best get things straightened out because you are rapidly sinking back to earth on your little rolling wall o' fun there. It's like Twister meets Tetris.

Or something like that.

Anyway, I've only done the wall once, but I'm totally hooked on it. Not that good at it, mind you, but hooked on it anyway. I can climb for about 10 minutes, halfway between the turtle and rabbit speed before my arms start quivering and I have to rest. But that doesn't really matter, because I'm sure I'll improve as I get used to it. In the mean time, it totally did the trick of rejuvenating my workouts. I was so excited when I left today that I called everybody I knew and told them that they had to come try this thing out for themselves.

So. Moral of the story? Treadmill climbing wall rocks. (Hyuck, hyuck. Get it? "Rocks"?) If you get a chance to try one out, by all means, do it. It's a blast.

Just make sure I still get my turn.

A Treadwall. How awesome is that?