For the past three years, I have climbed aboard the Schwinn Airdyne AD7—better known in my household as the Misery Machine—two or three times a week for fifty to sixty minutes. It complements my three weekly kettlebell workouts by providing just enough suffering to convince me that my life choices deserve constant reevaluation. On a typical ride I burn between 600 and 750 calories. About once a month I have a monster workout that sails past 800 calories. About once a month I have the opposite experience, when my body feels as though it has been poured full of wet concrete and refuses every command I issue. On those days I wave the white flag around the 500-calorie mark.
The workouts embody the old saying, “It hurts so good,” though that cliché hardly captures what actually happens. On my best days, the ride unfolds in two distinct psychological stages that I have come to call Nirvana I and Nirvana II.
Nirvana I usually arrives around the 400-calorie mark, roughly thirty to thirty-three minutes into the workout. By then my shirt has surrendered completely to perspiration. Sweat drips from my elbows, pools beneath the bike, and convinces any reasonable observer that the plumbing has failed. My breathing settles into a steady rhythm, the static disappears from my mind, and I feel as though I have been lowered into a warm bath of endorphins. The outside world recedes. My obligations disappear. There is only the machine and me. About eighty percent of my workouts reach this stage.
Nirvana II is another matter entirely.
It cannot be scheduled, negotiated, or bullied into existence. It appears only on those rare mornings when physiology, mood, sleep, and providence decide to cooperate. I continue sweating rivers, but fatigue never quite catches me. My cadence remains smooth. My breathing stays controlled. Instead of counting down the remaining minutes, I begin believing absurd things.
“I’m unstoppable.”
The Misery Machine no longer owns me.
I own it.
The fan roars. My legs keep driving. Every revolution of the pedals reinforces the illusion that I have temporarily escaped the ordinary laws of aging and entropy. For twenty glorious minutes I become convinced I could ride forever. Nirvana II is the Holy Grail of my fitness life. It is the workout equivalent of pitching a perfect game.
Unfortunately, every heaven has its corresponding hell.
I call it Shut Down.
Unlike Nirvana, Shut Down announces itself almost immediately. Within the first fifteen minutes I can tell something is wrong. My breathing becomes shallow. My legs feel leaden. The usual RPMs suddenly resemble Olympic qualifying standards. Every minute feels borrowed.
Years of yoga have taught me not to argue with these days.
When Shut Down arrives, resistance is futile. I simply acknowledge reality.
“Today is not my day.”
I lower the intensity, keep pedaling, and allow my body to dictate the terms of surrender. Most Shut Down workouts end around forty minutes and 450 calories. They leave me discouraged, though experience has taught me not to overreact. Ninety-nine percent of the time the next workout restores me to normal, as though my body merely needed to remind me who actually runs the operation.
Oddly enough, the existence of Nirvana II is what keeps drawing me back.
Every workout carries the possibility of discovering that elusive state again. It is exercise’s version of Christmas morning. Will today be the day? Will I feel invincible? Will I conquer the Misery Machine instead of merely surviving it?
I never know.
That uncertainty is precisely what makes me keep climbing back aboard.
Cinemorphosis 
Leave a comment