Fitness Fad

Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida

I'w writing today about something that most blog readers knew about for many years -- life at the gym.

During our road trip last year, I became aware of how poor my physical condition had become after wintering in New Bern.  For example, when we went to Bryce Canyon, I was afraid to walk the trails down to the bases of those magnificent hoodoos.  I was afraid that I could not walk back up without help.   Well, resumption of our cruising life improved that some, but not enough.  I've always eschewed the idea of gyms in the past, but now I threw in the towel.

I joined Keys Fittness Center and have been going there for the past 5 weeks.  Being a Scotch type of person, if I pay a fixed price for use of the gym, you can bet that I'm there every day using it to the max.  33 of the past 35 days I worked out for 90 to 120 minutes per day at the gym.

I typically work 1 hour lifting weights on the various Nautilus Machines, then 40 minutes on the treadmill and spin cycle.  Is it working?  Yes.  I've noticed steady improvement.  I increased the weight lifted day by day.  Those areas where I was initially weakest, showed the biggerst improvement.  Then I added more.  After 20 repetitions at regular weight, I added 1 additional repetition at the maximum weight I could manage.   I got so strong that I could do 420 pounds on the leg press, and I maxed out the weight capacity of the hip abductor.

My goal was not strength, but rather cadio-vascular.  Still, it is hard not to get caught up in the game.  How much weight could I do?  On the 2nd of January I felt especially strong and energetic.  I stepped up all my routines and set new personal weight records on nearly all the machines.  On January 4th, it caught up with me.  I felt that I had strained muscles in one foot.  I also felt a sharp pain in my belly that almost shouted HERNIA at me.  Then on the treadmill, I got a big leg cramp.  Reality set in.  At age 69, constant escalation of weight could only lead to one result; overexertion and injury of some kind.  Since then, I've leveled off on the amount of weight, and focused on more repetitions.  I'm very very sure that I don't want a hernia.

The people you meet in the gym are fun and easy to stereotype.  Along with ordinary unremarkable Joes like me, there are:

• Muscle heads: That's what Jen calls them.  People who have been body building for a long time.  The things they can do make my eyes pop.
• Babes:  Beautiful young women who obviously feel that fitness and trim are an essential part of their beauty.  Besides being inspired by their sexiness, I also feel sorry for them.  Their battle is a loosing one.  Unless they are blessed with very good genes, their beauty will fade no matter what they do.
• Hunks:  Young bulls could be compared with babes.  But I believe that babes are motivated by how they appear to men, while hunks are motiviated by how they look in the mirror. In other words, they are narcissistic.
• Personal Trainers: are almost always of the opposite gender, younger and much sexier than their clients.  It's not hard to imagine what psychology is going on there.

I'm not the only one on a fitness fad.  Libby and several friends have been going to Tai Chi several times per week.  I'm kind of fuzzy on exactly what Tai Chi really is, but I believe that it is related to Taekwando which in turn is related to what we do in modern rest rooms.  Wetkwando gets water from the sink, and Drykwando gets a paper towel.

Below you can see recent photos of me and Libby with our new fit looks.  Amazingly, working out has also made our gray hair go away.