Gymnasiums

[cyberknight]

Unless you are going to do the organised classes, then there is nothing you can do at a gym that you can't do at home.
You already have a bike, a static bike as well. Do you have stairs? then you can run up and down them as a cardio vascular/leg muscle exercises.
Use carrier bags with tins or bags of groceries as weights for arm/chest exercises.
With a little imagination there is much you can do at home without paying out a lot of money in membership fees.

Indeed until I farked my shoulder I used to do a bit, couple of dumbbellls and judicious use of the kids swing as a pull up frame etc covered it all.
Of course gyms canbe like cycling club s ,a place to spend time, socialize etc.
In my 20s I lived in gyms, could explain why I found it hard to get a date as it's hard to pull when they are not phished

 

[screenman]

What do you want from going to a gym?

 

[cyberknight]

What do you want from going to a gym?

If it has a bar .......

 

[Mrs M]

We joined a gym to get fit and to help my recovery from an accident.
Did me more good than weeks of physio as the instructor gave me the correct excercises to strengthen my core which helped enormously.
I particularly liked the hot tub and steam room, a nice treat after a good workout, funnily enough I never use a hot tub on holiday, the gym one just felt so relaxing.
A combination of things meant I stopped going.
I have my bikes, local pool and kettle bells DVD but am now so unfit I can't get past the warm up
The "gym poseurs" never bothered me as I was too focused on what I was doing.

 

[mr.conrad]

We have a gym in-house so I get to go to the gym at lunchtime and then go to lunch later !

 

[fossyant]

Real gyms have concrete floors and free weight stations. These places are fashionable haunts for the trendy, not real gyms.

If someone doesn't try to sell you growth hormones, its not a real gym

I used to go to one like that with a few cycling mates. We could lift as much as the big lads with our legs, but not arms - weeds.

 

[cyberknight]

I used to go to one like that with a few cycling mates. We could lift as much as the big lads with our legs, but not arms - weeds.

Used to full stack the leg press machine,I think it had about 400llbs on for a set of 20,knee cap explosion!

 

[mustang1]

Don't you use your lungs and heart? Maybe you need to push a bit harder

Yes perhaps! Id like to have more more upper body muscle mass.

 

[vickster]

Yes perhaps! Id like to have more more upper body muscle mass.

To what end?

 

[MarkF]

Cycling alone never gave me a total overall fitness that cycling swimming and gym session does.

Agree, I am 55 now and can't have my physique without putting in some gym effort. I go 3 times a week, only for maybe an hour, of which I'll only spend 40 mins actually lifting any weights, that's not a lot of effort to stay in shape IMO. I still want to have a good upper body, I don't want to be a regular round shouldered middle aged man with loose flesh arms and a pot belly thank you.

I used to just do a 3 month winter membership, but now I have an annual one, as I get older it was getting harder each year to re-start. I am not interested in corporate hanger gyms with their saunas and lounges, just a weights room and a shower. It's a small gym business in a converted canal building, a nice cycle ride from my house. I enjoy it.

 

[Sandra6]

I was a member of a local, fairly run down gym for a while when I first decided to lose weight. I lost a stone and had some laughs.
I joined a "proper" gym after we moved house and lost another stone, much more quickly. I had a personal trainer and everything. I loved it. But it got too pricey so I left , full of good intentions of riding more, eating well and doing exercise at home. I put on a stone more quickly than I'd lost it!
I then joined a much cheaper gym but the personal trainig on offer wasn't up to much and the classes were nowhere near as good, so I was left to my own devices and I really didn't work hard enough, then I started making the usual excuses to get out of going and now I'm even heavier!
I do enjoy going to the gym and if I could afford it, and could fit it into my day I would go back.
If you dont enjoy it or aren't benefiting from it then there's really no point in the expense.

 

[screenman]

Just got home from 90 minutes in the gym, I enjoyed it and I feel great.

 

[mustang1]

To what end?

Well, once a week would be a good start.

 

[Accy cyclist]

Thread revival.

Ok,over one year on and i still haven't joined one,but i intend to join the council run one soon. I'm having a hernia op' a week on Thursday,so i'm supposing i'll be unable to do much physical stuff for a couple of weeks after,so there's no point in joining now then not being able to use the facilities which i'll be paying for. I'll join about mid October. I've had a look round the council run one. I think the council one is better than the private one nearby as it has a sauna/steam room which will be good for warming up my old body come the cold wet months and it has quite a few static bikes which offer different pedalling positions. Not to mention the swimming pool and then there's the other 2 council run gyms in the borough which you become a member of at no extra cost. I was toying with the idea of buying one of those TdF static trainers,but not only the cost puts me off but also it'll mean more me doing things on my own, where i think it'll be good for me to socialise a bit more. Plus i want to get back into other things besides just riding bikes or sitting on static bikes pretending i'm in a race or similar.
A month's membership is £27.50 for all the facilities bar such things as exercise classes,swimming classes etc. If i was to pay separately it'd cost me £3 for a swim,£2 for the gym and about £8 for the sauna/steam room and that's at JSA rates for the unemployed. So all those cheaper rate visits would soon add up to over the monthly £27.50.

 

[Accy cyclist]

I use a gym 3/4 times a week, its a 24 hour gym whereby you can check on an app to see how busy it is before you go. I think your comments about poseurs are a bit off the mark to be honest, 90% of the people in there are trying to improve fitness/health wearing baggy clothes, no make-up, and a sweaty mess!

The free-weights section can have the occasional vest wearing, bulging men grunting, but to be honest....they have worked hard to look like that, so why judge them? As far as i can see everyone seems sociable, staff are helpful, the place is clean, and filled with people who just want to improve themselves....whats so wrong with that?

Did i say that about poseurs? When i had a look round the other day most folk were using the machines. I saw one grunting weight lifter. That thumping noise (so called music) seems to have been quietened down since i had a look round a year ago,which also adds to the appeal.