All weights being equal, I have decided to give Power World a shot.
I noticed this particular one a while back, when driving by. So one day I popped in, had a quick chat about membership (less than 1/3 of what my last gym membership cost) and took a stroll around the facilities. They have 3 floors, with the cardio equipment on the ground floor, weight machines on the second and free weights on the third (I could be wrong about floors 2 and 3 since my memory is sketchy but we will find out soon. More on that later).
So since my home workouts have now plateaued, last Friday I went in to get my membership and do my first workout. The session went about as expected. The trainer didn’t know me and seemed skeptical about the “full body workout” I said I was currently doing. He asked me to start with not one but two cardio warm ups. 15 minutes on the stationary bike and another 15 on the treadmill. The bike was set to “barely there” so that was an easy 15. And when I asked him what speed I should set the treadmill at he said “about 2.5”, looked at my jaw on the floor, and corrected it to “even 3 is okay” and then added “do a brisk walk, don’t run”. And left me there wondering how one could run on a treadmill set to 3 mph.
Once all that was done its was time to hit the weights! Much excitement on my end. Much “hehe heh little lady” energy from his.
Now I’d seen some “ladies only” signage to the back and I assumed they led to changing rooms. Nope. They led to an area dedicated to “ladies” with two benches and an odd lot of dumbbells. And I mean odd- some in kilos some in pounds and one lone dumbbell seeking a partner, preferably chrome. These were all no doubt discarded by the men who ruled the floors above. Anyways, he hands me two 2 kg dumbbells and asks me to do front raises. I don’t want to argue about weight right off the bat so I did my allocated 12x3. Next up was a standing military press. He kindly said I could switch up the weights. So I gingerly picked up the 5kg dumbbells. Since he was making me do 12 reps per set I didn’t want to be too ambitious. For the bench press I firmly told him that I needed to up the weights. The next in line were marked in pounds not kilos. And he gave me the 15 lb ones. I did 3 sets of flat bench presses and 3 sets of incline presses. Then he asked me to do 3 sets of curls and by the time I was done the trainer had morphed into a different one. (The day just started, what gives, trainer #1 why did you leave?). This second guy completely ignored my poor triceps and asked me to use what I can only imagine was an ab cruncher bought off Telseen marketing donated by a disillusioned housewife. It did nothing for me except cause me great amusement and embarrassment in equal measures.
And then we were done! I asked him what was next and he said I would be doing a similar basic routine for 2 weeks and then they would give me a proper schedule. Apparently schedules needed to be earned. But on the plus side he said my next workout would be upstairs. In the holiest of holy man space - so maybe things will be better? One hopes. I’d better take a big towel to wipe up manly sweat off the benches for sure.
Day 2 tomorrow. Await updates.
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