Gym update.
A brief update from the Life of Me...
I've joined a commercial gym, not far from my house - it's walking distance (though I drive to save time), and it's been around for as long as I can remember, since I was in primary school, at least! The reasons for this being:
(a) my university gym is "closed indefinitely for repairs", and has been for over a month.
(b) I've been going for almost five years now, and the results have been minimal. I get stronger, but hardly put on mass... So I figure that some professional supervision is long overdue, and this commercial gym provides this. The manager spent 1.5 hours on Wednesday giving me detailed, hands-on advice on the proper form for each exercise, and Wah! - have I been sloppy the past five years!
Not bad, considering I haven't paid a cent in membership fees yet. :) The manager's not a personal trainer (he doesn't stick by your side every minute) - but he keeps tabs on your progress, and draws up a programme for you, which he revises every fortnight or so based on your results. This place has machines, but the emphasis is on free weights, which are more effective.
The only drawback? I was the scrawniest guy on the floor that night. :) Embarrassing! (The university gym has a few buff regulars, but the majority are average-looking undergraduates.) Since this place isn't very commercialised, the price is reasonable (compared to other gyms I've checked out before). I may have been the scrawniest guy, but perhaps that's a good sign: if the others have trained with the manager, and look like they do, how long will it be before I resemble them? :)
P.S. Guess what I just found out? Some of my updates on LJ haven't been getting comments, because they haven't been appearing in other people's Friends pages... Posting an update "back-dated" means the entry is automatically left off the Friends page! For some reason, the "back-dated" box is already checked sometimes - and not knowing the result, I haven't been unchecking it! Curses!