I'm Proud of My Lower Abs

I know what you're thinking. He's fucking with us. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell he's got body-image issues. He doesn't really mean this, does he?

I hate to break it to you, but I do mean it. But not because of their amazing definition (which is nonexistent). No, I'm proud of their resilience.

As part of my summer of self-improvement, I've taken to long walks on a (mostly) daily basis, and I've been trying to work some kind of muscle-building exercises in as well so that I can build lean muscle--which will, presumably, also make me less fat.

Two weeks ago, I decided to start with some abdominal work. I had a relatively simple routine that I'd read about a while ago, and I decided to kick it into gear and see how I felt. I started with the upper abs, then the obliques, the middle abs, and the lower abs. On the first set, I got through 50 reps, so I figured 50 across the board would be no sweat.

BIG mistake.

Because after 200 crunches, which were relatively straightforward, I got to the lower abs. Muscles that, I'm almost positive, I've never used before in my life. So color me surprised when the first 10 hurt more than the other 200 combined. But I persisted. No pain, no gain, right?

Well, I sure as hell hope I gained enormously because by the time I was done, I was in a lot of fucking pain. Oh, sweet merciful heavens. I could barely move. I was sore for days.

But after I was able to move again, I got back on the horse. Knocked the reps down from 50 to 30 (baby steps, after all), but I've been at it for well over a week now, and whenever I do those lower ab reps, they don't hurt nearly as badly. I can get off the floor on my own! I'm capable of hopping right back in two days later! Amazing! Boys, I'm really proud of you!

Now, if we could just work on the spare tire, the love handles, and the man boobs, we might be getting somewhere...