Karen writes: Gym

Well I continue to get deeper into this ‘taking exercise seriously’ thing.  I went for a strength training session last night at an excellent little gym setup in Clevedon. I got there a bit early and enjoyed watching people support each other doing a circuit of different activities, for example, the person on the treadmill was timing 1 minute intervals for the others then they all moved around.   It had a really nice atmosphere and I spent the briefest of moments reflecting about the days long ago when I used have ‘evenings’ (rather than ‘routines’) and I sure didn’t use all that time for something useful like these people were.

Anyway, then it was my turn.   Warmup on the recumbent stationary bike, felt like I was sitting in a chair which was a very appealing way of exercising, nothing to interfere with reading a book on that one!   Then 1 minute harder work on the bike, 1 minute doing an exercise and this went on alternating for what seemed like ages.  I learned that my arms are WEAK.   The exercises I most struggled with were to do with upper arms, and this must surely be telling me something I need to know before I start swim training again.   So I came out sweating profusely, and feeling like I had actually done some exercise.  Trainer Grant has promised to send me detailed written instructions, I have no recollection of what exercises I actually did apart from a few which stood out for negative reasons, the ‘plank’ for a minute, a minute of press-ups in particular.  

The dreaded plank...looks simple doesn't it?

So that is what my Mondays evenings after the children are in bed will look like for the foreseeable future, I shall be at home slogging through my list!