a note on the new gym

This gym is small here at the apartment.  No bars, just some dumbells and a broken multi-purpose machine.  The rest is treadmills, stairmasters and bikes, which are popular.  Those and the ab cruncher benches, all of which I don't use.  I think they're silly.  I'd rather really run or ride or climb.  Or crunch.

The only other people I've seen use the dumbells are women who do lite workouts, and that hasn't been often.  I've had to change my routine a little.  For example, some dumbells are missing, but they have the all-in-one dumbell that you can adjust.  So I have to use that for 25 and 40 lbs, I think it is.  And when I''m ready for 60 lbs +, I'll have to go there, too.

I don't mind the smaller gym, the fewer options, the different crowd - mostly thirty-somethings and middle-aged professionals here.  I've chatted with some of them, just a bit.  It's more, what's the word...well, the conditions encourage social interaction.  Which is nice.

"Crunch it out. Good."

So, we moved into our new apartment this weekend (thanks to my parents) and it looks great (thanks to my parents and family, who donated furniture). Today, I was going to begin working out in our gym, but my body said NO when I woke up. I'm telling myself I did enough work over the weekend moving dressers and sections of a sentional. So I'll start tomorrow.


Also, I wanted to add to my reflection on the pop music in the UNO gym. It may have sounded like I didn't like any of it. But I did like the Maroon 5 stuff. And other stuff. And thanks to my mom, I now know that I also heard a lot of Daughtry (she has his cd, man, he has a lot of songs out on the radio).

Finally, I wanted to mention the trainer at the UNO gym, a guy I only started seeing there recently. He was training a woman. And he was a real motivator. For example, while I was doing my bike-ab workout, he had the woman on an ab-machine of some kind, and he was pushing her the whole way: "Crunch it out. Good. Crunch it out. Good. Squeeze it. Good. Crunch it out. Good."

Shrug it out

Chris, my know-it-all younger brother (what, am I writing a kid's book here?), took a look at my slideshow when he was in town and the first thing he said was, "You need to do some shrugs." He pointed to my traps in one of the photos.

So I'm doing shrugs now.

I'd hate to leave out, as I record all this, the exposure I get to pop culture while I'm working out. The music they push through the air is all pop. Pop, pop, pop. Maroon 5, Fergie, the song about tear drops on a guitar and the song where the guys sings "Stop and staaaaaaaaaaaaare." I'll admit that if it weren't for Gym Radio, I woudn't know any of these songs, they would have passed me right on by and dissappeared. And I wouldn't have cared. But now maybe, in some future game of Pop Culture Trivia, I'll get a random song question right.

Also, in the tradition of moderm gyms, there are a couple dozen television sets lining the gym walls. That's where I get my SportCenter fix. I actually don't mind that at all.

And today might have been my last day in the UNO gym. That's because we're moving, beginning tomorrow, and I'll start using the apartment complex's gym. To celebrate that fact, a capoeira group danced in the lobby on my way out. That is on my list of things to do, to join up with a group like that. It was a good show. I love new experiences. (Oh, it also just happened to be National Sports and Fitness Day.)

Doh!

This past week was rough. I did work out on Tuesday last, in the evening. And I realized that night, as I tossed and I turned in bed, that working out in the afternoon/evening equals bad sleep. Funny, right? You'd think it tires me out and I sleep like a baby. But I've found my adrenaline shoots up, really up, and it takes awhile for it to fall back down. So, working out in the morning gives me a big boost for the work day but evening sessions give me a big boost for a sleepless night. Same thing when I play a soccer game in the aften (Danish for "afternoon"). Me no sleep good.

And then I didn't get back to the gym all week. This and that got in the way. One "this" is that we're looking to move into another apartment, one which has a gym. Boom, I think, no more excuse I just couldn't get out to the gym! Another "that" is I started my Spring semester at school. And Bek started her school, so our schedules are all hoo haw.

And in my haste I forgot my tennis shoes, so I had to work out in my green ankle socks and brown deck shoes.

missed out

Classes started yesterday, and though I can't blame the classes, well, I missed a work out. I even had all my stuff ready, my clothes and stuff. But the timing didn't work, which is a bummer, because I am trying to make these workouts as important as anything else on my schedule. So, i will try to go today, a Tuesday, and just shift this week to a Tues-Thurs-Sat schedule. I will keep u informed.

Ah, and I DID drink 120g of whey yesterday (I've had a little trouble getting 120g on my off-days).