For the
strength (resistance) piece, you don’t need to join a gym or health club but I
did. As much as I knew and had experienced about walking, that’s how little I
knew about strength and resistance conditioning. True, I had likely joined more
than a half dozen health clubs, gyms or Ys in my life, but never succeeded in
staying with it and, consequently, wasted time and money.
I
interviewed two establishments and went with the less plush – Gold’s Gym
in Arlington Heights – in October 2010. Good facility, reasonable price,
competent staff and trainers, not too crowded, right off the Minuteman BikeTrail so I can walk there, weather permitting (BTW, I view the trip there
and back ( 2.8 miles each way) as ‘activity’ – not ‘exercise’ and do not
include the mileage in my stats because my typical Nordic-walk is way longer).
You get a
free orientation session with a trainer who set me up with 2 1-hour routines.
I’ve been going on a regular basis – mostly twice a week. My dues are ~
$40/month for unlimited use. Do the math; that’s less than $5 per visit!! Oh,
and my health plan reimburses me $150 per year. How great is that!! But even
without the refund, aren’t you worth the investment in a healthy and hopefully
long life? Of course you are! By the way, this is a mantra we need to repeat
again and again – “I am worth the investment in time, effort and
$$ to achieve a healthy lifestyle and sustain my physical and emotional
wellbeing”.
It first
became clear to me how much the “gym” thing had improved my general body
strength in December 2010 when we had our 1st big snow fall of the
season. Shoveling was a breeze, so much so that after finishing our place, I
helped some of my neighbors, all with no evident strain or aftereffects. That
was a big difference from my recollection of prior years.
If all this
weren’t enough, in the summer of 2011, I experienced what I call the “cross-over”
effect. My aforementioned daughter Ali was in from Columbus OH for a visit. As
she was training to do a ½ triathlon, she asked if I would do some biking with
her. I hadn’t been on a bike in at least 10 years but agreed. Bottom line, we
rode from The Bike Stop near Arlington Center where she rented a bike
(nice place by the way) to the end of the bike path at Railroad Ave. in Bedford
and back, about a 16 mile loop. Even though we pushed it, the only place I felt
it – either during or after -- was in my butt. Just amazing!
And as an
unintended side effect of coping with my broken toe, as per my prior post, I am
adding biking to my exercise regimen. I’m not a linguist but someone once said
the Chinese character for ‘crisis’ and ‘opportunity’ are the same.
“Once in a while you get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right…”"Scarlet Begonias" Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
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