My Worst Exercise Mishap

After all those years of training I'd had a few exercise mishaps no different than else who has been working out long enough. But all would pale in comparison to the mishap I had on my work-out gym date with Mr Rutgers, oh so many years ago.

If memory serves the year was circa 1986 and I had recently begun working out. I had quickly grown weary of the Jane Fonda-esque girly girl gym where I was working out. For all of my efforts, I simply was not getting the body that I wanted. One day I saw another young girl working out at Living Well Lady and I summed up the courage to ask her how she got "her body". She explained to me that I would have to train more like a guy and eat more like a guy. Her boyfriend was a competitive bodybuilder. That is who she learned from. So I bit the bullet and decided to swallow my pride as a pudgy fat chick without clue one regarding proper training techniques or proper nutritional habits and check out the local sweaty, seedy bodybuilding gym that was populated by, you guessed it, a lot of men who had the bodies of Greek gods.

I still remember the day I walked into Apollon Gym when it was still located in Highland Park, NJ. I was so embarrassed and intimidated by all of the big sweaty scantily clad hard-bodied weight lifters grunting and moving massive amounts of weight. I was only 17/18 and had never seen such a sight, let alone been present in a small area with so many men. I could barely look up long enough to ask what the membership fee was and put the money on the counter before nearly passing out. I broke out in a sweat and had major heart palpitations but managed to stay long enough to sign the 3 month for 99$ student special contract.

After many months of dedication I began to see the positive changes in my body that I'd never before dreamed possible. And then my older brother and his friends took me to my first bodybuilding show: "The Rutgers University Mr and Ms Rutgers Competition". Without question, I was hooked. I wanted to belong to that world more desperately than ever before.

Shortly thereafter I ran into one of the winners of that competition, an absolutely gorgeous young man by the name of Adam Eismann. He was waiting tables at J August's, a local New Brunswick place my friends and I would frequent. I was stunned when this well-muscled handsome young man not only asked me on a date but made that date an invitation to work out with him in another local gym where he trained, Ron Capodanno's Muscle Mill in Milltown, NJ. I was terrified and floating on air all at the same time.

So came the day for the date. I was so twitter-pated by this stunning Mr Rutgers taking the time to work out with me, a gym novice that I was paying more attention to his blue eyes, perfect smile and bulging muscles. This meant that I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. As we were loading and unloading the 45 lb plates on the angled leg press I neglected to realize my pinky finger worked its way between two plates. So as I gave a big push to securely slide that plate onto the bar I crushed my finger so hard that it started to bleed all over the place, the nail hanging... but there was no way I was going to cry, especially not in front of Mr Rutgers. We all thought that the finger was broken but everyone of the guys was stunned that I wouldn't cry.

I didn't ever go on another date with Mr Rutgers after that but I did learn a valuable lesson that afternoon, one that I've not forgotten for the next 20+ years. That lesson was: "Pay attention to your workout no matter how many stunningly beautiful well-muscled Greek gods you are surrounded by and you won't get seriously hurt."