Sting like a butterfly, float like a bee
I totally think muscle memory exists. Without it I probably wouldn’t be in the shape I am now.
I remember back in ‘93 a Marine buddy of mine said, “Man, you know you can overwork your abs.” and I’m like, “Really?” as I continued to grate the cheese onto the frozen pizza using my chiseled abs. My friend responded, “Yes.” as he feed curls to his two massive pythons while preheating the oven to 350 in the community lounge. Ptyhons prefer rats or mice but this guy was a little strange so we let him feed whatever he wanted to his pythons. (Have you ever used pythons in a paragraph as many times as I just did? I think not!)
Then when I went to college in Dallas there wasn’t a whole lot of space to go for a run, or walk, or drive for that matter. Driving in Dallas always took an hour. And my rock hard abs began to soften into pebbles smoothed over by rivers of beer, dew and dorritos.
When I finally arrived in Maryland and entered my years of fog and living (and working behind a computer) in a basement my pebbles had congealed into a large boulder suitable for spraypainting by overpass lovers wanting to express their forever love to random strangers on the highway. (Only to break up two weeks later because she decided he wasn’t mature enough for her, but he didn’t mind because he found out she was sleeping with his buddy Mike and was about to dump her sorry ass anyway right after some angry sex.)
But I could still feel the foundation of former structure and glory during particularly difficult moments on the throne. The power of strenous taunt muscles screaming to rip out from behind the drapes of the Ice House and sink beneath the seat of velvet Crown Mansion, to slide off the slopes of Mt. Dew and bitch slap the Red Barron and his cheap (not inexpensive) pizza. Wait. What were we talking about? Oh yeah.
Muscle memory.
So I totally think muscle memory is going to help me reclaim some of my former status as a God of Mount Olympus. And if I’m not able to move in at the top, perhaps I could make camp at the foothills? My memory ain’t what it use to be.
I’m still fairly strong in the upper body even with the winter coat I’ve been wearing for the last decade. If I were to reduce my entire persona into a d20 attribute system it would be this:
(Note 10 is where everyone starts out and is average human skills/abilities before training or experience, max is 20 and you are basically the best in the entire universe.)
Str - 12 (I’m not an ox but I’ve consistantly been stronger than most people. It’s hidden under my winter coat but I can lift and work pretty hard when needed.)
Con - 13 (I rarely get sick and when I do it’s bad but I emerge better and with a glossier skin tone.)
Dex - 11 (Perhaps this should be 12 as I’m fairly athletic when I put my mind to it.)
Int - 12 (Me’sa so smart. I understand why 2+2=5)
Wis - 12 (Me’sa occasionally have insights.)
Cha - 8-11 (depending on the situation and audience. I once dropped a baby on its head. That didn’t go over very well but since I wasn’t sued and was invited to my own going away party a couple months later, I think it worked out all right. This is the reason I don’t pick up children/babies. They make me nervous and lower my dexerity and strength stats.)
My ideal woman’s stats would be as follows:
Str - 8-15 (If she’s stronger than I that’s great. She can help move trees. I like tall woman anyway and they are usually stronger than most men. Although I’m not saying she needs to be able to plow fields using her fingernails, lifting a fifty pound bag of cat food (or grass) would come in handy. 
)
Con - 10-17 (This is dependant on which of us is doing the cooking.)
Dex - 12-16 (Nimble is good.)
Int - 11-13 (you can’t be too much smarter than your significant other, or else one would start to resent the slowness of conversation. Unless the sex was above 15 then that can modify other stats.)
Wis - 7 (Any one with a stat higher than that would see through my Charisma stats and realize they could do much better, then stop returning my calls. This would make me sad.)
Cha - 13 (I like to laugh and being able to tell a joke/story or cover up for my awkward pauses at social parties would come in very handy.)
How did we get onto this topic? Oh yeah, muscle memory.
So I’m hoping you are right and my previous conditions will help with this current routine. I can already feel it in the abs. Tonight I did twenty sit ups to make up somewhat for the fact I didn’t get to walk tonight. They weren’t super easy but I could definitely feel them around 18. I also did 15 dips and those only winded me a bit. I think I’ll take it back down to 10 and 10 tomorrow. I’m only in week two of a six month program.
My shins and ankles were tearing me up from Sunday to Tuesday so I took Wednesday off. On Thursday they felt much better. I’m thinking I’ll take a single day off from walking each week until my legs start feeling like they aren’t on fire with each step. When I was in the service running was the worse part of PT (physical training). It was only when I started running on my own (during that three month period where I started doing the sit-ups and crunches etc) that I was able to slowly build up my stamina and was running 4 miles in under 30 minutes. It felt so good doing those runs. It wasn’t exercise it was joy. The body was toned and racing with energy each time I went out. You feel so good you just want to keep running and running. I suppose that’s why prisoners enjoy running in circles in the yard?
Then some huge high school kid named Lewis broke my collar bone when I was on leave during a “touch” football game and I couldn’t exercise anymore for nearly six months. Then I moved to Camp LeJeune and it was so freaking hot and the bugs were terrible and they kept us doing such menial tasks, I just didn’t have the drive to get back into it. Then of course college was all about the happy hour, and after college was all about the in house bar and computer work in the basement and one thing lead to another and here we are today. Man this is depressing. jI sound like a slug and hapless loser. Who writes this crap?
But not anymore. I’m back on the train baby! and it’s going straight to the top.
“But first I’m gonna go buy some donuts.” - W.A.