Finding Fitness

I'm dreadfully sore today. The squats and lunges from Sunday LITERALLY kicked my ass. My glutes ache. My thighs howl. Walking isn't pleasant. I'm sore in places I haven't been sore in years. But I'm fully committed to this eight week program and a little pain isn't going to hold me back. So I'm going to keep raising the bar and push myself to new limits.

To that end, there's a new gym in town: E-Fitness & Wellness. Cindy and the kids have been going for a couple of weeks. I've been sticking with my old gym. Unfortunately, my gym doesn't offer too much other than weights and cardio gear. And, sadly, the Men's locker room reeks. I don't know what died in there or left its stink on the place, but nothing they do seems to diminish the foul funk. It seriously turns my stomach every time I'm there.

Today, I tried E-Fit. Goods and bad with this place:

• Good: Only took me 15 minutes to get there. Plenty of space. Very clean. Spectacular locker room. Cardio machines everywhere. Fitness rooms (ie: aerobics, yoga, etc) everywhere. An indoor track. An indoor pool. And a very nice cafe with some decidedly good-smelling meals available. And I mean MEALS, not just snacks or smoothies.
• Bad: They wouldn't let me try it out before buying a month membership. It's pretty crowded. I could only find one poorly-located water fountain. And I did NOT like their free weight room. The weight "areas" are too far apart and doing "circuits" between free weights and machine weights is impossible. Not to mention that I honestly think the machines at my old gym feel more natural.
  

That being said, I still had a freakin' phenomenal workout. This new program is killer. I break a sweat within 15 minutes and power through the circuits. Had to hit leg presses. They were brutal. But I fought the urge to quit, and did the complete workout.

Afterwards, I started to find a treadmill or a cycle machine to do a 5min cool down. Instead, I found a pilates class. Full of women, of course. No other males. Some ladies actually chuckled as I took a spot in the back. They weren't laughing mid-way through when they were struggling and I was still firing on all cylinders. Grrrreat way to cool down. I was sweating like a Boyscout at Neverland during the first quarter of the class, but after I settled my breathing and slowed my pulse, it was a great stretch. And my legs stopped aching!

I don't know how well an hour of pilates fits into my new training program, but I don't think it does any harm. Onward and upward...