My Gym

I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in a while. I did a weigh-in to see where my starting point is in my goal of getting down to about 180lbs with less body fat and  more lean muscle mass. I weighed in at 208 which was less than I thought I was but still has me losing 20-25 lbs.  I brought my daughter with me because the gym offers free baby sitting so you can bring your kid and go work out and the kid can play in a supervised environment. That is a big selling point to the gym along with other things like the pool, group exercise classes, the basketball court, they offer personal training and they have many machines so if it gets busy the odds are that there will always be an available machine.

My gym has lots of treadmills on both the first and second floors. I've found that the treadmills get very busy on Sunday evening and Monday evenings. That is because people start thinking about how much they ate over the weekend or the planned exercise time that was missed for one reason or the other. People are creatures of habit and it consistently happens that on Sunday and Monday evenings it may be difficult finding a treadmill that's open.

What do you look for in a gym?  Do you prefer joining a gym or staying in shape other ways?

A Good Leg Workout

When I go to the gym I split my workouts between upper body and lower body workouts. On lower body workout days I like to do leg extentions, leg curls and have started doing a workout similar to the following video in which you take some dumbells and step up onto a bench with each leg (one at a time). I do 10 repetitions and then increase the weight. Here is the video....

I train legs about 3 days a week and I like to do leg curls and leg extentions on different days. A lot of times I notice people in the gym focussing their workout on upper body and I hope people do not neglect their leg workouts.

New week to begin working out

So today is Monday which means it is a great day to start a week of exercising. It's a fresh start for people that might have indulged in the weekend a little bit too much. Too much pizza or beer or burgers eaten while watching football on Saturday and/or Sunday means that the gym will probably be packed today. This seems to happen every Monday. I think it's because people feel guilty about how much they ate or drank on the weekend.

Due to the fact that the gym is going to be packed today, Mondays are usually good days to run outside or due some sort of workout at home. Pushups and situps are great exercises and can be done anywhere. Find two chairs and you can do tricep exercises like this one:

The most important thing is to realize that Monday may be a start of the new work week but it can also be the start of a new workout week and that provides motivation for me and it can also do it for you.

Running Again

Well it's a great day to start running again. I went to the gym and focused my attention on cardio. When a person starts working out for the first time in a while he or she needs to start slow. My goal today was to be able to do 1 mile. I accomplished that plus I did some biking too.

What's the best way to get back to the fitness level I was at before I stopped working out? My plan of action is to try to run at least a little bit every day or so. I know I will be sore if I run every day and in the long run it is not healthy or smart to run every day as the legs can't take running every day. I'll also watch what I eat more closely. How many people out there have stopped working out for one reason or another and decided to start again? What makes people get back to working out? Let's hope things continue in the right direction and I can make it a habit again!