Get Your Fit On: Introduction

Well, one of the goals I wanted to accomplish was to exercise more.  I debated back and forth between joining a gym and not joining one, and the biggest contributing factor was affordability, accessibility, and hours of operation.  Well, this place, which is less than ten minutes from where I stay, encompasses all three, so I will stick with it, for the time being.  Here's the breakdown of how I came to my decision.

Some of the other places I was debating on were LA Fitness, Lucille Roberts, Retro Fitness, and Curves.

Proximity:  Out of all of the locations, Planet Fitness is the one which is closest to where I live.

Facility Hours (overall):  Planet Fitness is open 24 hours.  At some of the other places, by the time I get off of the day job, and I make the commute to get over there, it’s almost time for them to close.  Plus, if I get the urge to work out at one in the morning, the others aren’t open during convenient hours.

Cleanliness: Planet Fitness had an unfair advantage because of the fact that it is new.  However, the other places could have done a better job of looking clean.  One place in particular was absolutely filthy; I was almost scared to even tough the equipment—wipe down or no wipe down.

Availability of equipment:  Some of the other places I noticed there was a significant wait before you could use the equipment; in some cases, it was because some machinery was broken.  Other times, it was because there was too few equipment or just too many people. 

Customer Service:  The customer service is good so far.  They answered all the questions I had prior to my signing anything.  A couple of the other locations didn’t seem to care whether I wanted to work out there or not, and one organization in particular I had such a bad experience with in the past, I don’t think I want to return there again.

Massage Chairs, Bed, and Hydrotherapy:  I haven’t tried the hydrotherapy booth yet, but I am a fan of the massage chairs and the bed.

The downside to Planet Fitness are there are no dance classes like Zumba, but I will probably either get the collection to do at home or just do Zumba via Xbox Kinnect or Wii (whichever comes first).  Also, they only have one trainer and some of the hours for the training conflict with my work schedule, and on top of that, there’s no trainer for the weekends, which is one of the main times I can work out.   

I did work out Saturday, July 28^th.  That was my first time.  I wanted to get a feel for a lot of the equipment and how it worked.  By the time I had finished, I had been there for a little over two hours.  

I went there again the next day, Sunday, to play with the 30 minute workout---that 30 minute segment is no joke; I didn’t want to do anymore working out that day after the 30 minute burst.

I met with Alberto after the reschedule on July 31^st.  He gave me the handout, outlining the machines and what each was for, demonstrated two quick warm up exercises, and demonstrated how one would use most of the machines listed on the handout.  He also gave me my target HR zone and what range to stay in to ensure I was building fat instead of muscle.  

I was going to sign up for some of the classes last week but the 2^nd gig had me working 5 days, so it may it hard for me to sign up on the days when classes would run late, so I am hoping for more success this week.

I'm going to track my progress, so when I work out, I will put in a blog entry to outline the following:

1.  Day I went

2.  Time I went

3.  Machines I used

4.  How many repetitions

5.  Adjustments in resistance

6.  Changes in appearance, energy, morale, etc.

I will also get measured and obtain a scale as well as a heart rate monitor/chest strap to being able to measure my success in that way as well.  

Unlike the other starts, I am actually looking forward to the journey and going to celebrate the victories, both large and small.

Peace.