A look into Drewan's mind

 On Monday I learned that my gym is closing. It's the Bally in Bloomington. They've sold the building, and told all of the customers to go to the other to nearby Bally gyms in Richfield and St. Louis park. Sadly, the gym they are closing is probably twice the physical size of these other two.

The Bloomington gym is great for weight lifters. There are probably eight barbell benches, and another eight plain benches. Two cable machines, several different leg presses, and enough equipment that I rarely have to wait (for long). They have a good sized pool, two hot tubs, a sauna and steam room.

Richfield is maybe half the size of Bloomington. There are three barbell benches, one cable machine, and lots of weighting. And there is no pool They filled it in and turned the room into a studio. They only nice thing about the Richfield Bally is that it is only a mile from our house.

St. Louis park is a tad bit bigger than Richfield, but it also has a pool. They have more equipment, but it's packed into the space REALLY tight. And it's almost ten miles away.

The only thing keeping me at Ballys is the incredibly low rate I pay. The renewal letter I just got ask for $230.90. That's ANNUAL. I'm going to check out other nearby gyms, but I don't think any of them are going to be beat that price. 

Changing gyms is annoying, whether just to a new location or a new company. I'm sure I'll adjust. Now I just need to call my some-times-trainer and find out where he's moving to. 

Today at the gym was both a great day, and a not-so-good day.

Good: I managed to do single max rep of 165 pounds, which is my own body weight. This was a goal I didn't expect to reach for another week or two, so both the trainer and I were very happy to achieve it today.

Bad: Near the end of our session, the trainer had be doing these crouching jumps, and my back spasmed during the third jump. I tried one more jump to see if it was real, and it was! So we stopped the jumps and moved on to some skull crushes on the bench so I could lay down.

I went home for a while, instead of going back to work, and laid down with an ice back for a while. Then I showered and applied some Icy Hot, which I've never used before. Wow, that stuff is fun!

Now I'm back at work for a little while. I'm feeling just okay, but good enough to keep going. I have a busy weekend coming up, with the MN Storm Patrol run happening over in St. Paul, and the Atons' EROS party tomorrow night. I'm going to have to be a little careful for the weekend, but I should be ok.

Things are moving ahead pretty well with my trainer. My strength levels have been slowly increasing and I'm been gaining muscle.

I ran into one problem over the last week or two. When I was at GNC a couple of weeks ago to pickup from Muscle Milk Lite protein powder (yummy chocolate!), I picked up some Arsenal-X dietary supplement on a whim. My reasoning was that the Arsenal X would help me keep my energy levels up during my work out. This supplement contains 100 mcg of Vitamin B12 and 188 mg of caffeine, plus an "arsenal-x blend" of ingredients like Zhi Shi, Paullina cupana, St. John's wort extract, and more. The GNC sales person suggested taking the supplement about 1 to 2 hours before the workout.

The first couple of times that I used the Arsenal-X I was ok. I took it about 3 to 4 hours before working out. The last two times I've taken it I took it about 2.5 hours before working out, but then I felt very nauseous during my workout. The trainer and I are suspecting that it might be the supplement that is causing the nausea. He suggested I not take it before my workout tomorrow and see how I feel.

Anyone have any good experience and suggestions for a supplement that would benefit my workouts?

I have one more month of trainer sessions scheduled. The plan after that is for me to try working out on my own for a while, maybe with the occasional trainer session to check-in and reinforce the original training.

The trainer suggested a good goal for this upcoming month would be to increase my bench press up to my own body weight, which is about 165 pounds. I am bench pressing 135-145 pounds now, so 165 doesn't seem to far off. This doesn't have to mean that I'd do 8 reps of 165#, but to just get to one bench press at that weight.

Tomorrow is our first session in May, so it will be time to be weighed and measured again. It's nice to have numbers that support the changes that I'm feeling.

(Wow... I'm really chatty on LJ today, aren't I!)

I'm feeling pretty tender from my training session on Monday. To make it worse, I have my second weekly training session tonight. I fear I'll be very sore on Thursday and Friday. Oh well. It's the price we pay for beauty.

Except for stretching and a little medicine ball throwing, the entire workout was in the weight room. This is a change for me. Usually the trainer and I spend at least the first 15 minutes upstairs doing some warm up cardio/endurance stuff.

After a set of bench presses, we did weighted lunges and squats. My favorite! That might explain why I get up from my work chair like a 90 year old man.

Ok, I should shut up now, finish my work, and get on the road for my 5:30 session.

Damn lactic acid! I'm sore from my workout yesterday. I'm finally getting back to the gym after taking a very long break. (No, this is not a New Years Resolution kind of thing. It just timed out that way.)

Something Tuesday night caused me to start feeling really nauseous, and I've been feeling queasy off and on since then. This was a really problem while working out yesterday. I've hired a trainer to help me get back on track, but during our session I had to take a 10 minute break to find a quiet place to try and get my stomach to relax. Nothing like doing core exercise while fighting the urge to vomit.

For the past year or so when ever I have stomach issues I seem to fell "aftershocks" for roughly a week after. This didn't used to happen to me. I'm wondering if I should go find some over-the-counter anti-nausea medicine. Or maybe just some Pepto-Bismol.