Jock Tickle Challenge:
Dumbbell Flies


by

Jack

jack@ropejock.com


O.K., Bud...You're up:

Stripped down to your gym shorts, you are forced to lay on your back on this low wooden bench I have here. The bench is narrow and about 5-1/2 feet long, enough to accommodate your body from head to ankles.

Your ankles are tightly lashed together with rope, and secured to the foot of the bench with your bare feet hanging over the edge. Your knees, upper and lower quads, waist, chest and neck are very tightly tied to the bench, making your body virtually immobile. Only your arms are free. Your big toes are tied tightly together with a short length of rawhide thong.

Two longer lengths of rawhide are produced, one end of each tied around each of your little toes. The other ends are pulled back and fed through eyebolts in the sides of the bench, near your knees. The rawhide is pulled back sharply, causing your feet to be flexed back severely by your little toes, and tied off. Now, if you try to wiggle or move your feet at all, you will really feel it in your little toes. This also tends to stretch the soles and separate the toes for some further exploration.

Two 10-pound dumbbells are brought over to you. (20-pound dumbbells will be used, if you are as strong and tough as you think you are) . You are forced to grab one in each hand, and they are tightly taped to you hands with duct tape, the tape wrapped around and around your clenched fists as you grasp the dumbbells. You can't drop them, even if you wanted to. And you will want to, eventually.

Finally, you see me tie two short lengths of rope to these ring bolts in the floor on either side of the bench, about five feet out from the position of your shoulders. You wonder what these ropes are for...

Now the rules are explained to you:

You will begin doing 150 reps of dumbbell flies, in perfect form.

When you complete them, you will be released. Simple as that.

While you are doing your reps, nothing will happen to you.

I will just "spot" you like a good buddy.

But, as soon as you stop doing your reps, or your form gets sloppy, I go down to those trapped bare feet and start mercilessly tickle torturing them. And believe me, my fingers can really put your trapped soles through hell!

And if you refuse, or if you stop performing completely, or try to rest those weights on your chest, Phase Two of the routine will kick in. And I promise you, you wouldn't like Phase Two at all, dude.

So, buddy, you are safe from being tickled as long as you keep up your reps. Try not to think about the consequences you will suffer when you finally work yourself to exhaustion, and can't do any more reps. Or if you start to get sloppy. After all, buddy, form counts a lot in lifting weights. I oughtta know, I been lifting for years. But try not to think about the intense way you are tied to that bench, not being able to move a muscle except your arms.

Try not to let that distract you from your workout, dude.

So, let's go. Bring those weights straight up from your chest. With your arms straight, fan them out to the sides until they are parallel to the ground, then bring them back up to the vertical position. That's one rep. Feel the strain in your chest and shoulders and arms? Feels good, don't it? Now, keep going.

Don't even think about what will happen if you stop.

How many consecutive reps, buddy, before your arms are shaking, your elbows are trying to bend, and you just can't do any more? Twenty reps? Fifty reps? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? As you feel your strength failing you, you know that you are coming closer and closer to the inevitable tickle torture on your trapped bare feet. I am just waiting patiently, yup, you guessed it, enjoying a beer, and criticizing your sloppy form. C'mon, tough guy. You call them flies? My little sister could do better flies than that. What's the matter, dude? You starting to get tired? Is that why your form sucks so bad? Ya better keep 'em up, buddy. Would HATE to have to start tickling those feet of yours. That might distract you from doing all 150 of your reps. You want to avoid Phase Two, at all costs, dude. Other jocks who have gone through Phase Two have wished they were dead. And a wuss like you, it just MIGHT kill ya. At the very least, you would have no pride left whatsoever.

When you finally start to fail, and your arms occasionally crumble with the weights resting on your bare chest, you wish you could drop the weights to rest your hands and arms. But you can't.

That's when I start to go to work on your trapped bare feet. You need a little motivation to finish your workout, buddy. Maybe this will light a fire under you and goad you into finishing your reps.

Using my devious fingers, I wiggle, scrap and explore your bare soles, the balls of your feet, your arches (brutal!), between your toes, finding the most ticklish areas, and bearing down on them. You are so tightly tied that all you can do is lie there and take it, wishing you could squirm away, knowing that you can't. And those dumbbells taped to your hands make you feel even more helpless.

Very soon, the tickling gets to you, you are trying to hold in the laughter, but you are afraid that you might lose it. Damn, that tickles on your feet so much! Soon you rally your strength and determination, get those dumbbells straight up from your chest, and continue doing your flies. The tickling on your feet suddenly stops. A sigh of relief escapes your lips. You try to concentrate on several good reps of flies, but your muscles are shaking, and especially in the "down" position, when they are straight out to the sides, you really start to feel your strength fail you.

After only three or four good reps, you are losing it. Your elbows are bent, you are not getting the weights down so your arms are parallel to the ground, the weights are shaking when you hold them in the "up" position. Bad form, buddy. Deserves some foot tickling to spur you on to do better. C'mon, buddy, be a man, huh? You can do a lot better than this. Don't you want to show me, another jock, what you can do?

The bad form earns you more tickling. The tickling forces you to lose concentration, and the weights crash to your chest once again. Your arms feel good for the break, but your feet are now being mercilessly tickled. You start giggling, and soon, several bursts of full-throated laughter escape your lips. You realize that, now that the laughter has started, it's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to put a cork in it and stop laughing.

Once again, through the laughter, you try to rally your strength. Up come the weights, even shakier than before, but you barely manage to do one rep. The tickling stops momentarily, but on your second rep, your elbows crumble again, and the tickling starts up immediately. Huge burst of laughter, as you are being slowly broken down, both your strength and your resistance to the tickling of your feet.

After five minutes of solid tickling, you are helplessly lying there, trying to surpress the gales of gut-wrenching laughter, trying to get those weights up and continue your reps. The sweat, which had been beading up on your body, now starts to roll out of your armpits and off your brow and chest. You realize what a helpless situation you are in. And the tickling goes on.

I explain to you that you can cut yourself a break in the tickling. All you have to do is raise those weights and give me five perfect reps of flies, and I will stop tickling your feet for five minutes.

Laughing, sweating, moaning, yelling from the merciless tickling of your bare feet, you muster the super-human effort needed to raise those weights off your chest. The veins are bulging in your face, arms, shoulders and chest. Your face is turning redder and redder by the minute, as you strain, grunt and groan, all the while laughing and gasping for breath. You eventually straighten your arms and try to squeak out five more flies. You know that is the only way you will catch even a short break from the unbearable tickling.

But you are shaking so much, that your form sucks. You can't even do one rep without bending your arms and shaking all over the place. This time, the tickling only stopped for a moment. You ain't cutting it, dude. Tickling starts again, to a new burst of laughter from you. Man, you are getting soft, dude. Remember, it's on to Phase Two if you don't complete all 150 of your reps. You are up to about 100 right now. Better get your ass in gear, tough guy.

The tickling continues, getting more and more intense, as you struggle to continue your flies. What's the matter, buddy, is it tough to do perfect flies while your feet are being tickled? That shouldn't bother a TOUGH GUY like you. Man, that must be rough to fail in front of another tough jock like me. Must damage your pride. Better not give up, jock. Better keep trying.

And you do, repeatedly sweating and straining to do five reps in order for the tickling to stop for a few minutes. You muster up all of your strength and willpower, but each time you try, you still can only do one or two reps before you fail again. You see the hopelessness of your situation, but there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

When you finally give up and just lie there with the weights on your chest for several minutes, huffing, sweating and laughing, you have signaled defeat. I tickle your feet for five minutes straight. You are going absolutely nuts. The weights are on your chest, but you are shaking from the laughter, and they are bouncing up and down. You begin howling, sweating and begging me to stop at this point.

You don't realize that we are just about to start Phase Two.

You need to be punished for not sticking to your workout routine and finishing your 150 reps.

I grab the dumbbells and one at a time, stretch them straight out to the sides, in the perfect "down" position for your reps. I tie them in that position with those short ropes from the rings in the floor. Your arms are stretched out to the sides in a permanent "fly" position. Now you have two choices, neither very pleasant: you can try to use your muscles to hold those dumbbells out there to the sides, in mid-air, or you can relax your arms, letting the heavy dumbbells touch the floor, relieving your muscles, but putting a very unnatural stretch on your chest, shoulders, elbows and arms.

This is when I straddle your belly, take a comfortable seat on your abs, poise my fingers near those vulnerable armpits, and explain how Phase Two works:

Your arms are now going to act like "ON/OFF" tickle switches. "ON" is when the weights are resting on the floor, stretching your arms out to a painfully intense position.

"OFF" is when you raise the weights into the air. In order to avoid having those armpits being mercilessly prodded and tickled, you must keep those weights up off the floor, dude. It's just like a switch that you can control.

If you use your strength to keep those weights up off the floor, you will not be tickled.

When your muscles fail, and the weights hit the floor, the intense tickling starts up again, and continues until those weights are raised.

During those brief moments when you actually manage to hold the weights up, I am just sitting on your belly, smiling down at you, fingers poised near your armpits, patiently waiting for those weights to tremble and hit the floor again. And when they do hit the floor, it feels like your chest and shoulders and arms are being ripped apart, with the unnatural stretch it puts you under. In that position, some light, relentless tickling of your armpits and ribs will get quite a reaction out of you.

And of course, the tickling switch would be "ON" and the tickling in full swing at the moment when you needed those muscles. You would be suffering through some intense armpit tickling when you had to muster your strength to begin to lift the weights up off the floor, to turn the tickling switch "OFF", for as long as you could hold them. I hope you're pretty strong, dude, and that you have some good endurance.

Every once in a while, when those weights are resting on the floor, I move down to those bare feet and renew my tickling efforts down there. You've got to work REAL HARD to get those weights up off the floor. Is it harder to lift those weights when your feet are being tickled, or when your armpits are being tickled? Let me know, because I am really interested.

After about an hour of this merciless tickling, with the weights mostly resting on the floor, your arms stretched painfully out and down by the weights, you will eventually collapse completely from the strain, and you would be lying there, stretched out painfully to the max, unable to move those weights at all, almost too weak to laugh, gasping for breath, still being hopelessly and helplessly tickled. You are defeated. Your pride is history. You are a mess. You barely have the strength to keep laughing. But the tickling continues, on and on.

That's when we START to negotiate your terms of release.

I wonder what I'm going to get you to say, or promise to do?

Do you think I might come up with something that is REALLY going to be tough on you, to make damn sure that your pride is gone for a good, long time?

You think I'm going to have a blast rubbing this in, and making your suffering continue, even after you are released?

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK, BUDDY?

Jack
jack@ropejock.com


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