Getting sized up for a bike fit last month made me realise that although I’m fit and healthy, I could do with some gym time. Sure, I’ve plenty of aerobic fitness, but I know I’ve plenty of muscle imbalances contributing to posture issues, both while running and cycling. For example, my stomach muscles are pretty weak, but my lower back muscles are quite strong, so my pelvis ends up tilted. Running and cycling take care of my legs, but I don’t do any upper-body exercise, so I figured it was time to join a gym and hit the weights.

I knew that I didn’t want to do any classes, and that all I wanted was access to a combination of free weights and machines, so most of the elaborate gym memberships were too expensive and a waste of money. Fitness First and other start at $80/month and I wasn’t going to use enough facilities to warrant that expenditure. Luckily, I found a local gym, Fresh Fitness, five minutes walk from home, which had a special offer of $379 for a year’s membership, or roughly $31 per month. I checked it out and, while basic, it had everything I needed, so I signed on the dotted line and went along for an assessment and to get a weights programme drawn up for me.

I told the instructor I’d prefer to be doing compound free-weight exercises, rather than using machines, and while that’s a bit adventurous given my current state, the program I have is aiming in that direction. The fun part of the assessment was when I had to do press-ups and chin-ups; years of neglect meant I could only manage eight press-ups and two chin-ups! Yes, two! Oh well, at least I can only improve from there.

Tomorrow will be my sixth session and the exercises which were killing me are now merely hard, the ones which were hard are easier, and the ones which were easy have warranted weight increases. The good news is I’m now up to 10 press-ups. I’ll be a brick shithouse in no time :-)