Of course, joining a Gym just after Christmas is always the joke. In my case its not actually related to Christmas but under the instruction of my Osteopath. His instruction is that I need to improve my upper body strength and the gym would be the way to do it.
The problem was finding the time to go and set things up. Monday 23rd was the day I did it, so technically I joined BEFORE Christmas. Today was my first day to visit. FIL also attends this establishment, so I went along with him to get a feel of the place.
So, here’s the plan for this blog. I am going to record my progress on here to encourage myself. I do have an appointment to setup a training plan but I also know what the Osteopath wants as well. This is the machine selection that I have made so far, and my self determined program for each one.
Firstly the good old Cross trainer. All though to be fair the ones I get to use are a lot more jazzy than this one. Mine has a TV built in. I jumped on one to warm up and worked my way up to 100 calories burnt. The resistance level was set to 7. FIL commented I was working myself hard at this level but I have always had powerful legs so it was no worries. It took about 15 minutes.
Later on I returned an did another 100 calories. I aim to increase the calorie burn by means of increased resistances and longer time. I have to get the audio system set up for some sounds to listen to.
The “Low Row” machine was one that the Osteopath was particularly interested in my getting to grips with. I set the machine up for a load of 30 and completed 15 reps. Its a baseline, now I have to improve.
The Osteopath wants me to pull a load towards me with my arms, with my shoulder blades (Scapula) pulled right back so I could trap a pencil in my back. Okay, do what? This picture shows what he means, its called Scapular Retraction.
Yeap, I see how you could hold a pencil like that. Not that I would want to…
So on the upper body strength theme I then selected the “Shoulder Press”.
This is like the weight lifters final lift, pushing the load up above your head. I was surprised how hard this was for me. The load was set to 10 and I completed 10 reps. Again its a baseline to improve on.
FIL then showed me the “Lateral Pull Down” machine, which is a multi-mode machine designed for upper body work. These are the two types of exercise I can do with this.
Okay, these are different machines but the one I use caters for both functions. For the pull down I attempted with hands wide apart at each end of the bar, and hands close to the cable eye. I set the load to 4 and completed 10 reps in each of the three actions.
So, that’s my first session done. I came away feeling pretty good to be fair. My shoulders were loosened up and my legs knew about the cross trainer, but not badly so. I am thinking of returning tomorrow, which on account its a 24 hour gym, is do-able.
