Bruce — You Live and Learn

I recall "having" to do weight training for swimming on an antique Universal Gym machine in a room that was sandwiched between the old Junior high and the pool that was added onto the building about 40 years after the Junior High was built. I was even scrawnier back then (110 lbs) and I think the combination of the type of exercises we were told to do and the fact that, looking back on things, they were all wrong anyway.

In college, the only weights we did were huge amounts of repetition of exercises designed to build endurance mostly--things like seated lat pulldowns, but with elbows high so that the finish was almost like a triceps pressdown (to mimic the underwater pull of butterfly) 2-3 sets of 200 reps with 30 lbs gave new meaning to "burn." I was always intimidated when someone twice my size hovered by and asked, "Ya almost done?" "No, I have 150 more reps to do."

After college and before starting seminary, I bought a Sears plastic, weight set and a flat bench. I would attempt to lift in the basement every night, but I didn't have a clue as to what to do, how to eat, etc. Not much to speak of by way of progress, but I did almost lose my front teeth when I failed to rack the weights after a set of benches.

had a pathetic little gym at the Seminary and I actually got into a regular lifting routine, but that was interrupted when I moved off campus, my last year to concentrate on urban ministry. I did eventually purchase a home gym set--bench, lat, squat combo, but was highly irregular--2-3 months on, 6 months off. In the meantime, I did several triathlons, but kept coming back to the weights.

All this time, I really wanted to join a real gym, but I was intimidated by such places, since I felt, well, so small. I felt you had to be in shape to even set foot in one, so I didn't.

Fast foward to my 38th year, when I finally had the financial wherewithal to join the local YMCA. My first day was heaven. The weight room was a converted racquetball court, with very basic equipment that you got to by descending down a metal spiral staircase. The natilus stuff and anything that resembled a leg extension or leg curl machine was upstairs in the "fitness" area. So if you wanted to superset leg presses with leg extensions and or leg curls, you had to run up the stairs and hope that you could hone in on the Nautilus stuff. Still it was better than home and I found that even getting up at 5 a.m. was exhilerating as I actually saw progress for the first time in my life.

After two years at the Y, I joined a more hardcore gym. I felt that I was at least "worthy" of setting foot in that place--that somehow you had to look like a bodybuilder. The goofy thing was that this was not the case at all. I was intimidated for no good reason and I sometimes kick myself for letting that fear get in the way. Live and learn.

Bruce

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