Gymtastic Return

Okay, it's been a while since I've last darkened the doors of Gold's Gym on any sort of regular basis. There, I've admitted it. Given that I know exactly how beneficial regular gym work is to my running and to my general health, this is pretty sad. However, today I took some baby steps back to the road to Complete Gazelles Training Program Compliance ("CoGaTraPCom?") and visited the den of iron-pumping iniquity.

First thing I found out was that I've somehow lost my keychain Gold's tag, but that problem was rectified in no time by the helpful desk person. Now with new badging, I got to work. 15 minutes on the indoor cycle with 3 minutes of extra cooldown time (those darned computer-driven machines!) got me started, and so far, so good. I stretched just a little, maybe 10 minutes, to hit the most important leg muscles, and then it was time for core exercise.

As I hit the mats for the floor exercises, I found out that I've regressed significantly from back in the day. I managed my 2 sets of the three exercises, but they were really tough at the end of each set. That will come back to me, but it really showed me what I've got ahead of me. I didn't do any of the other core stuff today, since we nailed them pretty well yesterday in the circuit workout, but I'll gradually bring all the old exercises back into the rotation.

I did most of the leg exercises, only skipping the standing calf raises (machine out of order). I only did single sets of the 4-way hip machine (actually, I only do 3 of the 4 "ways"), and I was relieved that those nagging muscle issues in my left leg seem to be healed. I felt no discomfort at all, although I was slightly weaker on the left side. That'll get fixed pretty quickly. I did just a single set of leg press today, and as on most exercises, I found that I'm behind where I was back in December, when I last was totally regular with the gym. Oh, well, now I've got a target.

I had time for a quick survey of the upper body exercises, too. The bicep curls went very well, but I was way behind on bench press. Still, 2 sets each of those exercises, and that's where the most improvement is usually seen with me, on the upper body stuff. When you're starting from Less Than Zero, it's easy to improve. :-) I finished things off with lat pulldowns (no big problems there, at least!), and a pitiful demonstration on tricep extensions. Apparently, I haven't used my triceps for anything in many months...

Oh, music! The usual potpourri, of course. Started with Bob Dylan, and I got everything after that from Electric Light Orchestra (I've recently transferred a bunch of my old LP's to the digital world), Chicago, Warren Zevon, Tommy James and the Shondells, Linda Ronstadt, Ben Harper, Bruce Springsteen, Marshall Crenshaw and Mississippi John Hurt. According to iTunes, I've actually heard 790 of the 1103 songs on my iPod at some point. So, do I really need a 6 Gb capacity for music? According to those stats, maybe not. But, it's sure cool to have pretty much all of what I would call "essential" music with me at all times.

Anyway, after having completed the workout, I am much happier. Once I get to the gym, I usually sort of enjoy the process, after all. Now, Wednesday is just a tempo race with Gazelles (I plan to run, uh, cautiously), and Thursday is recovery running and the next gym visit. That's as far as I will plan at this point. One step at a time, one step at a time.