More over- Jenny was too messed up and Forest was too immature and “gentle” for a relationship earlier- Jenny even tried to sleep with Forest in college and Forest couldn’t make it past foreplay. Forest was lost himself after his mother died and exiled himself. Jenny got in touch when his exile ended and was finally in a good place mentally and emotionally thanks to having a child and having time to heal. Through the decades they always came back to each other so it wasn’t to do with his money because she had been his friend and slept with him back when it looked like his life would be nothing special. She finally grew up and so did he- as much as he could. She didn’t know she had aids and when she got it almost no one knew it existed. By the time she found out it was years later.

Between both of them moving around, Forests time in the war and the military and traveling for Ping pOng and his medal- his time “off the grid” with LT Dan and getting his fishing empire started; and Jenny being a drugged up mess- there were a couple decades where there really wasn’t hope of anything between them.

Tl:dr- Jenny was a badly abused child who was most likely also sexually abused. She showed signs of low self esteem, using sex as her only value and as a form of self medicating to feel good along with seeking the validation of men (even terrible and abusive ones in a classic pattern of abuse) and self medicating with alcohol and increasing it hard drugs. She was a mess for most of her young life and knew it. Part of her wanted to die but she didn’t really- she just didn’t want to live in pain.

Finally- she has a child- her views change and she has something to live for. She’s going to make sure that child doesn’t have the life she did. She has to get it together and she does. They didn’t know what aids even was for a long time. When she got it it was still largely a mystery and many people thought you could get aids by being in a room or touching a person with it. Many still believed aids only effected Gay men. There was a lot of misinformation and panic and unknowns.

She returned “home” and saw Forest- she was tired and hurt. Still mixed up but finally coming to a bit- but she also knew she was still very messed up mentally and emotionally as we saw when she had the breakdown at her old home. We see the evidence of her low self esteem and her views of sex as all she has to give. Forest has always been good to her and she sleeps with him then leaves- because in her mind if she isn’t fucking you she’s a burden. She doesn’t want to hurt him and knows he has feelings for her.

Then he spent a year running- which for a single mom of a young child it’s not like she could go run after him to say hi.

Forest comes back- he spends time with Lt. Dan. We know that Jenny wrote him and he didn’t get the letters for a long time. We know that she moved a lot. She didn’t have Lt Dans address or even know where Forest was. He did his ping pong- traveled and was still in the service. He then had to take care of his business and keep up his word. He was very busy and she likely didn’t know where he was etc.

It’s not like she could visit forest while he was in Nam or vice versa. Even if- we see that she’s heavily into drugs and it is implied many casual hookups. She’s in pain and trying to numb it with drugs and alcohol. She feels like dying and teases at it on a balcony before collapsing into tears after almost tripping.

We see her when Forest visits her while she’s doing nude stage shows. She is lost, she is toxic, she will hurt him. She knows it. The two fight when a patron assaults her and she doesn’t care or think forest should defend her (another sign of her trauma and low self esteem.)

We see when she’s seeking validation through activism in the 60’s and with an abusive boyfriend (not exactly the circumstances under which two folks would most likely hook up- especially Forest who would likely take a very fun view of being part of cheating.)

But I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for people wanting to invest in themselves and a disdain for all the conflicting information and confusion and everything else out there on the subject. It’s hard to do, hard to get into because there’s so much and it can be intimidating. I like when people are able to feel good about themselves and feel healthy- so whenever I can I try to spread info. There’s no “magic bullet” or one road- but there are basic principals of science, and observations of experience that may not get everyone to “pro athlete” levels- but will help anyone who can apply them consistently to improve.

I had trained in some way or another a good part of my life. I took martial arts, fought, and did various acrobatics when I was younger. I also have raced cars since I was about 17, so there was a whole conditioning routine for that. I got started though by chance. I went back to my old college and couldn’t get the classes I needed but I could sub a nutrition class- but it was part of a fitness wellness program so I’d have to take other classes on that program- which worked since they filled elective credits. At the same time I started to train again with a coworker who was a trainer in their spare time and had too many clients. We worked it out and I took some off their hands and it was good side money but like I said- it just got to be too much.

More in my spare time, not as a job. I used to do it as a side job but it’s a lot. You fall behind on your own training, and with a full time job, keeping up with training and everything for that, life, other hobbies and business ventures it’s just too much. I stopped taking “real” clients about 7 years ago. I’d mostly take on sliding scale or pro bono referrals of friends or family, or chance meetings who had some situation and story. People with health or body issues who needed help but couldn’t get it, couldn’t afford it, or didn’t know how/were intimidated. The last 2 years I haven’t really done much besides help friends or family occasionally.

I wasn’t taking offense. Just clarifying.

Lol.

Well yes unicycle. The fun fact was the fact right after the statement- here’s a fun fact. The rest was just elaboration for the sake of comprehensiveness should anyone like to have details. Somewhat like how they write headlines but can’t get the entire story into that space- so you know “man was murdered by best friend” but some people might like to know things like why or who they are, where, and so on.

Most female clients and women I’ve worked with don’t like the idea of pull ups, dips or pushups and more women than men hate those (lots of men hate leg work which... I don’t get but ok..?) but most of them end up very happy. Do t know if it applies- don’t know if you care, but lots of women consider the backs of their arm problems and get skin or flapping there. Dips and pushups and those behind the head dumbbell lifts work the arms but especially the triceps and can really help people who consider those areas problematic. Squats are a must and should be done every session. I say do the squats first because those are one of the heaviest and use the most muscles.

What they weigh doesn’t even really matter that much except for efficiency. If you have something uniform like water or sand- and you know you can lift buckets on a stick with 4 scoops of sand, and you add a scoop every session- if that works it works. So you can get very creative. As long as you keep the basic principals in mind the rest gets down to how to use your time most effectively and making sure you’re getting the muscles worked that you want to work.

Track what you do at the gym- have a plan, follow it, and track it. That way you can see each week how you’re progressing. You will forget stuff because life is life and you have important things other than how many reps you missed last week. You’re trying to increase weight each week, but if you are using water jugs you can add more water. Bags with books- add more books. You just need some idea about what the things you’re lifting weigh and the rest doesn’t matter.

You don’t HAVE to even use weights for weights. The key here is consistency. You’ve gotta make this a priority. If you go every session for 3 months and then skip weeks for the next 3 months all that work goes down the toilet. Try not to miss days and if you do- try to do something of a workout those days. There are no makeup days. You can’t go twice as heavy or twice as many sets next workout and equal out. It’s like sleep. It doesn’t work that way. You can’t not sleep for two weeks and then sleep 3 days straight and everything washes out. It’s about consistency and incremental gains.

It also adds work to your routine which means that if you’re “only” doing sets of 5 or 10, even if you do 10lbs by the time you leave the total weight you lifted for one exercise will be over 1,000lbs. Once you get into big weights you can total out 40,000+ lbs easily in one session- that’s more work and more for your body to fix.

Except deadlifts (which require weights on the bar to do right) any new exercise with the bar should start with an empty bar. Just add weight every workout and yeah- you’ll lose some time getting up to where you could have started- but that’s not the only reason. You should also warm up with the empty bar every time and then do a few sets where you start with like 20% or less your session weight and add plates until you are close to working weight. The reason behind both of these things isn’t just some mumbo jumbo about warming up. It’s because you have to learn form. No bar- empty baright weight- you can be sloppy and so bad things and get away with it. You rush through and suddenly are lifting a couple hundred lbs and are as sloppy and you get hurt. That’s bad and it also means a loooong recovery where you can’t work out so the rush to get in shape costs you time.

Some other important concepts: “feeling the burn” or “go till it hurts” are bullsrcud. SOME minor soreness is normal- especially when starting a new workout. Pain is not, and leaving the gym feeling like you’re going to die every day isn’t generally good. If you “like” the feeling go for it as long as you stop at sore and not injured- but it doesn’t signal results or contribute to them. For most people feeling sore puts them off working out and can cause missed work outs- and if you’re still sore for next workout you may have to not go as hard as you could and that hurts results. So figuring out your “max” weight for any given exercise you can usually figure that about 70% or so of the max is the weight you want to use to start. Early on you can adjust and experiment a bit without much issue to find the working weight to start with and how much to add each time. Just remember: