Back to the gym

After a long hiatus, my gym buddy, R, and I finally decided to get back into some weights training. R's motivation was an expanding waist line. Mine was the fear of growing man boobs.

Attempt no. 1: Late last week, we finally got our shit together, primed ourselves, and trudged over to the gym only to discover that our memberships had lapsed...so much for subscribing to a 'continuing membership'. On the bright side, at least neither of us had been charged for not going in the past 4 months. Since we both wanted to salary package our gym membership, this meant that we would have to postpone our first session and, feeling satisfied that we had at least spent 10 mins walking to and from the gym, happily went back to the office to fill in the paper work. Hmmm...the health check.

"Are you over the age of 65?" No.

"Do you have diabetes?" No.

"Do you have asthma?" No.

"Have you experienced pains in your heart, chest or surrounding areas?" (Ummm....define chest pain...) No.

"Do you often feel faint or have spells of severe dizziness?" (Hmmm....) No.

"Have you experienced unusual fatigue or shortness of breath?" (Doesn't everybody? Isn't that the whole point of going to the gym? ) No.

Attempt no. 2: This time we made it. After an uneventful warm up, involving the rowing machine, we moved our way around the various pieces of equipment (torture devices). We both decided that we weren't going to go hardcore. It was important to pace ourselves. So while all the other muscle-bound gym-goers were pushing and pulling the entire stack and grunting their way through their sets, R and I settled for more modest targets. After 45 mins, we had had enough (it was all about the pacing). And besides, R had a meeting and my left knee was feeling kinda dodgy. And so it was...as quickly as it had begun, our first session was over.