I felt it on the second set.
4… 5… 6…
That burning sensation creeping up my arm every time I lifted the 15-pound dumbbell to my chest.
7… 8… 9…
Fifteen pounds today, because I couldn’t find the 12.5-pound set.
10… 11… 12…
The Planet Fitness at the Carson Town Center was never good at keeping its gym equipment together. The weights I need are always going missing.
13…
That burn pulsates with each rep. I’m regretting the weights. I’m regretting going on a low-energy day. I’d rather be in bed, watching “The Day of the Jackal.”
14…
Deep breath… just one more rep, then rest. But it’s getting harder to move my arm and I know I’m going to be shaking once this whole ordeal is done.
15…
Thunk! The weight drops at my feet. My arm is numb, trembling, screaming from relief.
I look up at the wall-sized mirror.
I look like garbage.
I feel like garbage.
My face is still flushed from the half-hour run on the treadmill earlier, hair sticking out to make an even messier bun and sweat stains are pooling around my neck and under my arms.
It’s almost the end of January and the gym is packed with people. But I’m not here to fulfill a New Year’s resolution.
I’m here to try something I saw in a video game.
“The Last of Us Part II” is game developer Naughty Dog’s follow-up to their blockbuster 2013 action-adventure game of the same name. This time, the main character Ellie is grown up and is on her own as she seeks vengeance for the murder of her surrogate father, Joel.
The sequel to ” The Last of Us” was controversial when it was first released in 2020.
One of the reasons was due to Ellie’s nemesis, Abby Anderson.
It wasn’t just because of what Abby did in the game, which – spoiler alert – was beating Joel to death with a golf club while Ellie was forced to watch.
Gamers had a problem with her look. Abby is a beast; she’s tall and rippling with muscle.
They took to Reddit and GameFAQs’ message boards to speculate about how she could have achieved a jacked physique after seeing her workout plan and her weights, 20 pounds, in-game.
And the discourse got ugly, fast. On GameFAQs, users were leaving comments including “women don’t become like that even with steroids… Abby is [literally] a woman’s head on a man’s body..”
I wanted to see what would happen if I tried the workout plan as seen in the game. Was there any legitimacy to it, or did a game developer throw it in without a second thought?
From Jan. 1 to Feb. 28, I hit the gym four days a week. For the first month, I alternated between upper body, jogging and full body workouts. The second month focused on full body as well as lower body and weights. On Saturdays, I did yoga.
“The Last of Us Part II” doesn’t show what Abby does on “leg day,” so I made exercise plans with the help of a Planet Fitness instructor, YouTube and even Google AI.
I also had to work with my limits.
As impressive as it would be to bench press 50 pounds, I will accidentally crush myself.
As it turns out, Abby’s plan is feasible. As long as you allocate 45 minutes on each of those four days, then you satisfy the CDC recommendation that adults get in 150 minutes of physical activity on a weekly basis.
My biggest problem wasn’t how much I could lift.
It was pushing through my chronic excuse-making.
I’m tired. I have to go to work later. It’s too late. It’s too crowded. I have nothing to listen to.
Every time, I had to remind myself that I had to see this experiment through. Tired? You’ll feel better later. Have work today? Find the time before work. Can’t find something to listen to? You can watch “Futurama” on your phone while on the treadmill.
The workout plan from “The Last of Us Part II” is a maintenance schedule. It’s impossible to get to Abby’s size, especially for someone who just started lifting weights. She is a post-apocalyptic soldier with years of training and physical conditioning.
Having been a casual gamer for over 20 years, it’s unfair to see Abby get this criticism. You don’t see the criticism aimed at male characters, such as Duke Nukem or Kratos. Or even female characters who still look feminine, like Lara Croft or Chun-Li.
As a society, America is hostile to the idea of what a woman should look like.
You can be thin, you can be curvy, but you can’t have broad shoulders, big biceps, a flat stomach or even a gut and still call yourself a “girl.”
Young women, from actor Millie Bobby Brown to university freshmen, say that social media hurts their self-esteem and their mental health.
For example, American rugby player Ilona Maher made a tearful TikTok post addressing comments calling her a man and asking if she was taking steroids.
Then there is Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer who faced down accusations that she was a man competing in a woman’s sport.
Meanwhile, Israeli judoka Inbar Lanir posted on Instagram about how she was “afraid to look muscular. [She] was afraid to look male” at 12 years old.
All three women won medals in their respective fields during the 2024 Summer Olympics.
If an Olympian can get body shamed, what chance do I have?
I’m five feet and two inches tall with thick arms and legs. My body type doesn’t look as impressive as if I were, say, maybe six inches taller.
In fact, I look stumpy.
Back in elementary school, I got singled out to play a farm animal in an assembly because the teacher thought I “looked strong.”
An ex-roommate called me an “oddly-built dyke.” As if my gym-going habits also decided my sexuality.
By mid-February, I was starting to see the results: the muscle tone in my arms, the flatter stomach and how my uniform fit me better as I was getting ready for my LAX job.
Later that shift, my coworkers and the baggage porter were gobsmacked after they saw me easily lift a 50-pound suitcase off the baggage claim carousel.
On our anniversary, I literally swept my boyfriend off his feet and into a kiss after he gave me a bouquet of red roses.
My sister jokes that I’m going to look like Luisa Madrigal from “Encanto” by the end of the year if I continue.
Those 15-pound dumbbells don’t hurt as much by the end of February.
I am never going to be stick-thin, nor will I be voluptuous.
But “strong” suits me better.
