From princess to pumped: An introduction

By Hayley Woodin [Contributor]

Allow me to introduce myself: I am an 18-year-old Kwantlen student enrolled in the Richmond campus journalism program, I am fluent in French, play the piano, love music, food, shopping, and Gossip Girl, like sports but don’t really play any (apart from recreational tennis), and am one of three current reigning Miss B.C. Ambassadors.

My schedule is filled with school, work, clothes and pageantry. Through Miss B.C., I volunteer, travel the province and do a lot of public speaking. Unlike other pageants, the B.C. Ambassador Program is no beauty pageant: we do, however, have the perk of getting to wear gowns and crowns.

With such a busy schedule and an avid love of food, it’s amazing that I don’t weigh 800 pounds. But somehow, I manage. I’m a fairly healthy person when it comes down to it, and I like to think that I’m fit enough. And my personal self-beliefs had for the most part gone unquestioned until very recently, when another Kwantlen student took it upon himself to burst my little bubble.

Two weeks ago, I made a bet with said classmate. He challenged that he could do 10 times as many chin-ups as I could. Seem like an unreasonable bet? It’s really not. His seemingly unwarranted and exaggerated self-confidence came after I couldn’t even hold myself up while hanging from my hands in a school doorway.

Sure, the conditions were poor: I was mentally unprepared to physically exert myself, I had to be hoisted up in order to even reach the top of the door frame and gripping onto a ledge by your fingertips is no setup to a chin-up.

However, I will be the first to admit that my arm strength barely hovers over non-existence. And my contender already has a good leg up on me.
He gave me two months to prove him wrong.

My plan is to master three proper chin-ups in 60 days. This would mean my challenger would have to successfully perform 30 chin-ups in a row to beat me, an extremely difficult feat to accomplish.

I have another confession aside from my poor arm strength: I have absolutely no idea how to train my body.

I’ve decided that my first step is to tone up. In the pageant world we have this running joke about when you’re waving a princess-like wave in a parade of some sort, and you stop waving, but the rest of your upper arm is still jiggling a woe-some goodbye. Yeah… toning up is probably a good first step.

At home, I just so happen to have a sturdy chin-up bar setup in my garage. Lucky me.

Because I can’t quite hold myself up without some sort of assistance, I’ve taken to standing on my tippy-toes, arms positioned as though I was performing a chin-up, and flexing my biceps while pulling my elbows down towards the floor.

You’d be surprised at the results I’ve achieved by repeating this exercise a couple of times a day, for several consecutive days: I now have these lumpy growths on my arms that don’t jiggle as much when I wave.

Next stop, mastering the half chin-up.