The New Gym

My daughters have convinced me to join a new gym.  I have been very happy at the Y.  A small gym with lots of people just like me - slogging through our little routines on machines I understood.  But a new, state of the art gym opened in town. It is cheaper than the Y and my daughters are very into fitness and begged and so we have made the move.

I am now faced with more aerobic machines than I have ever seen, with so many high tech gadgets I have yet to figure them out.  There is a section for weight machines, a section for  pulley machines, a section for machines that use your body weight and move multiple joints at the same time.  There is a room just for kick boxing, one for something called gravity where you hang on straps, a pool, rock climbing wall, a spinning room, group exercise room and a high performance training room.  

I am overwhelmed.  

My daughters, who pop out of bed every morning at 6:00 am to go, are thrilled.  Beaner has signed up for personal training, and when I see her she is drenched in sweat and her eyes are crossed with effort.  At one point I thought she was looking at me saying “please save me.”  But she comes out energized and excited.  

I was offered a free personal training but I declined.  I realized that although I probably need someone to “take me to the next level”  I really don’t want to have to do the necessary work.  And someone prodding me like a drill sergeant is just going to piss me off.   I am content going through my too little aerobics, a few upper body weight machines, a couple of leg machines and if I’m really motivated, some ab exercises.  Of course, now I don't understand how to use most of the weight machines.  The free weight section is filled with way too serious bodybuilders and I am wondering around aimlessly trying to figure out what to do.

I was disappointed that they have very few yoga classes and are at times I can not go.  But my daughters reminded me that I didn’t go to classes at our old gym either, even when they were convenient.  Right.  

But . . .  they have a hydromassage bed!  It’s a bed where you lie there while water pressure vibrates under you. You can adjust the area of your body to be massaged and the speed and intensity of the water pressure.  OMG it is deliciously decadent.

Oh yes, I think I am going to like this gym.