This week, What’s Your Workout? looks at Sheri Woodruff, 38 years old, single, manager of financial communications for General Motors Corp. in New York City:
‘I don’t respond well to the idea of doing something because it’s good for me,’ she says. ‘For some, exercise is stress relief or quiet time for themselves, but for me it’s trying something new or challenging myself.’Her membership at New York Sports Club across the street from her apartment is seldom used. She drops in about twice a month to use the treadmill or elliptical trainer but rarely lifts weights. She runs the three-mile reservoir loop in Central Park once or twice a week, but the majority of her weekly exercise comes from activities she’s signed up to do, such as her company softball league or bike-ride fund-raisers. She also plans her vacations around sporting activities. “My life is my workout,” Ms. Woodruff says.
Frankly, I wasn’t that interested in her workout routine, and she didn’t seem that impressive in pictures either. This bit caught my eye though:
Ms. Woodruff’s adventurous attitude toward fitness began as a teen. An athlete in high school, she played field hockey, lacrosse and was a catcher on the softball team. One day, the wrestling coach approached her in the weight room and asked if he could sponsor and train her as a power lifter. “I was 17 years old, and took it as a weird dare so I said ‘sure why not,’” she recalls. She went on to win the 127-pound-and-under division, squatting 400 pounds, in a high-school weight-lifting tournament.
OK, that’s impressive.