“What is that sissy pushup?! Back straight, Klassen!”

I remember the verbal lashing I got from my physical education instructor when I was in school. We had been “testing” for a fitness certificate. Yeah, it was like that.

This morning I was watching another guy who was swimming a lane over from mine. I noticed that his feet actually left the water when he’d kick. “Okay,” I thought to myself, “I know that I’m kicking but let me make sure that they’re actually that close to the surface.”

I kicked away from the wall, leveled out until I could feel my feet leaving the water, and started kickin’. Surprise! My face was in the water further than usual, my mid-section was being recruited more to twist my body enough that I could get a clean breath of air, and I was having to work more with my arms to keep myself afloat.

I’m both disheartened to learn that what I was doing was not “true” freestyle and encouraged that there is more effort to be put out and I won’t have to roll out of the pool and into walking like a madman on the treadmill for a while longer.

P.S. My new Omron Body Fat Analyzer has arrived. I put the batteries in, gave it my vitals, and after sending an imperceptible quantity of electric current up my left arm and and back down my right, the resulting strength save attenuation puts me at 42.1%.