esrosedotblog

John saw a guy in the gym using one of these masks today.

Elevation Training Mask

It can also be used to hype your training. Read the comments.

If I were still running and in my fifties I would definitely use this. Faddist that I am.

If you want to see the how it looks which is the main thing, here it is.

Why do I get the idea that this might be part of some SandM paraphernalia? I will have to check in with some of my resources on this.

I have no intention of using it so don't start writing to me about it.

Labels: fun, gym

I went to the chiropractor today.

The news is pretty good.

I can pull back to a weekly visit for the next phase.

I can feel the difference in my back and legs and everything is stronger.

He says that I could go back to weight training at the gym and I am thinking about it.

I did do some ab work on the machines today. Working the other side of the deal. The front holds up the back and visa versa.

But at some point I have to be realistic about the weights. I am going to age out of it.

Everyone does except the phenoms who keep on going and probably use a few drugs here and there to keep their bulk.

Me? My bulk left a long time ago. Thankfully it didn't turn, too much, to fat like happens to a lot of ex-weight lifters.

I am still in good shape but I attribute that to the stationary bike and afternoon walks with the pooch.

Look at this old fart. He just looks silly to me. I can see his pacemaker!

But he does have the muscles.

I don't know.

Maybe I should consult someone. I do know a couple of trainer types.

Labels: gym

Our gym changed its name overnight from Golds to EOS.

What the fuck?

There was a letter with a lot of miss mash but no one seems to know the score. Or even whether the score is important.

They want us to exchange our key tag but I haven't done that. I "forget" to ask for it each morning.

I have read all about it and there isn't much.

Gold's here and in the Southwest is a franchise. Mostly use of the name.

Gold himself is long gone.

I am dragging my feet. No one says anything at the desk about my old key tag. So I just go in. It unlocks the turnstyle.

I suppose that when I get over my attitude and adjust it to the real world, I will get a new tag. I am sure that I have missed out being one of the first thousand who got a new t-shirt with the new logo and name.

This stirs up all my rebellious blood.

But I will get over it.

Labels: gym

I took off a day from the gym this morning.

Perhaps this is a trend. Yesterday was a low activity day and now, well, not so much.

I go to the store today and see someone at 8 and then perhaps go get a new bush for the patio planter that has been empty all summer.

Nothing elaborate.

Then, well, slow down to a nap and a movie and a regular day until dinner.

Actually, I took the gym day off because I still have a touchy lower back. It is a lot better and responds completely to Advil or Ibuprofen, I alternate, but it might like to have a rest along with me.

The photo is interesting. It is the first class gym on the Titanic.

Labels: gym

I have actually worn out my gym bag.

It isn't a piece of shit or anything. It is a black canvas thing. The canvas is intact but the pockets are nylon and have given way to the day to day stress of holding my wallet and keys, earplugs and i.d. bracelet.

My Kindle of course. It is smaller than whatever book I used to take but still, it hardly fits in the side pocket. In and out. In and out.

My one liter water bottle. Filled.

There is a lot of stuff in that little bag.

Some fabrics just wear out. Get tired.

I can't believe how long it took me to find something that was OK on Amazon.

Do you have any idea how many gym bags there are for sale in the world? Unbelievable.

It took awhile for me to narrow the field with size. There aren't a lot of bags that are only 12-14 inches long.

I want a small bag because I carry my shit around with me. The phone is in there. The Kindle, I read on the stationary bike. The water bottle. Are you sure you don't want a swig?

So I finally narrowed it down to this one.

Then the color. It used to be that black covered it all. No longer. At first I thought it would be easy to just pick the black but, not so.

Availability of options creates a dissonance. Choice means decision. Decision requires deliberation.

I thought it through. On all days, I have on a white tee, either collared or not, and a pair of nylon shorts. Yes the big baggy ones like everyone else. The only thing one can by at Lands End without it being called a bathing suit. Not the baggy baggy kind. No one in my gym wears that shit.

I have four colors of course. When I find something I like I buy all the colors. Three sets too. I have black (not really a color), navy blue, royal blue and red. Bright red. A narrow white stripe up the sides.

So. Bag color. A lot of colors. No suspense here. You have already seen the picture. I chose yellow.

Why? I don't know. It is not rational. Probably because I don't think that a lot of people carry a yellow (canary) gym bag around with them. Actually not many people carry a bag around with them at all. So if I am in the bare minority why bother about colors. Get something that might elicit comment. "Look at that old queen with the yellow hand bag". Something like that.

I suppose the yellow will not really "go" with the red or royal blue shorts. Certainly OK with the black and navy blue. But what the hell. If I am to be a minority of one. I don't have to traipse over to the fountain where there is barely a trickle of water. I have it right with me. In my "fuckin' canary yellow faggot bag".

Labels: accessories, clothing, gym

So I left out one of the most daily of the daily routines.

The gym.

I still go. I could not not go.

That is not me, incidentally. But you can look at him. I have.

Something in me fades out if I am not at Golds every morning at 412 AM more or less.

I begin on the recumbent bike and get going. Keep the heart rate at 100 which for my age is the right target. A nice thing about aging is that the ideal heart rate for exercise goes down. I suppose eventually it will be zero and I will be there. I think that 100 is it. The chart that I have stops at 70. I am 7 years past that. Add it up. I am quite proud of it.

150 beats per minute is the maximum rate for me. I am not sure I could muster that nor will I be trying it any time soon.

Half an hour on the bike and I will move on to stretches. The shoulder bar twists, ten up, ten bent. The railing around the stair well, three pipes high. Each stretch twice. Bottom rail, foot and ankle back pull it out. Then the other one. Next foot up on the middle rail, up on toes. Down. Then full leg to the top bar, out straight stretch that hamstring, ooh aahh. Done. Off to the abs now on a machine. There are two. I alternate.

The rest is all weight training downstairs. Ten reps twice or to failure on each exercise. Monday, I skip it and go home after the cardio. Tuesday I do the chest. Wednesday, the legs, machine squats and calf burns with some leg curls. Thursday is easy. I do the shoulders; presses at angles and some raises and I am out. Friday the back. Various alternatives like rowing, pulldowns and the like.

Saturday no gym. Sunday the same but we do a family walk, all three for a theoretical hour. Actually it is usually 45 minutes.

Then Monday again.

The gym is, more than in the past, a small social occasion. Nothing long. But mini chats between sets with a large cast of people.

I am a long time fixture at the gym now. A familiar face to many. I usually outlast all of them who show up at that time. Only a few have been there from the beginning. Youseff and a guy I do not speak to. He is a yakker and I fear being caught in his conversational web.

Others fit in when I have seen them for awhile. I do the straight guy "get acquainted" thing. First the slightly perceptible head nod, then a smile on top of it. Later, a "good morning" or a straight guy "hey" and, if I have been interested enough to get the name I will use it. I ask the desk guy. I would never ask the person. Weird. But there it is. After quite a while there might be an exchange of info. I have made some longer term more serious friends. Many of those have passed on to other times. Some to the gym in the sky. John who comes every day is a relative newcomer but I enjoy his company a great deal. "New comer" means a couple of years ago. Not 1976.

I know and like one of the desk guys. The other one, newer, is stiff and unavailable.

I still wear earplugs throughout. I do not want to hear the music. If I talk to someone I take one plug out. I am not the only one who shuts out the music although most people use earphones with their own melodies. At my age, one's head music tends to be more enjoyable than anything by others. Meditation practice has helped me to keep mental chatter down and the mind centered. I like to focus on the muscle and not do much else.

I do read on the bike for half an hour. I cannot sustain self discipline otherwise. The time passes much more quickly. I have a Kindle now. Gasp.

I will write about the Kindle another time but it is a by product of brief chats with others at the gym. A woman who is there every day came up to me while I was biking a year ago and asserted herself with a suggestion that I get a Kindle. On her advice I got one. The rest is history. I am totally bookless now. Everything is electronic. When I am not in the gym I have the Kindle app on my iPad.

Yes, that too. A fucking iPad. I love it. More about that too at a later time.

Labels: gym, routine

BACK IN BUSINESS

Back to the gym this morning.

I must have been excited, I woke up at 2:45, 15 minutes early.

People were glad to see me. I was glad to see them. Not everyone was there so I will get a little more attention tomorrow.

I was told to take it easy, first by my John and then by my good friend John who I saw there first thing.

I kept the bike at half the usual "effort" and did my Tuesday workout, chest, triceps and abs, which is the least pushy.

I was able to do all the crunches I usually do.

Good news.

I have worn shorts all day. Nice. Glad to be back.

Labels: gym

CHECKING IN

I have not been to the gym in ten days which is like an eon for me.

And I am not going to be there any time soon. Maybe in a couple of weeks, maybe not.

I can't go as long as I have the apparatus in me.

I realized that while I know a lot of people, I have no phone numbers. Nor them of me.

I wondered if they missed me of course but I also knew that I missed seeing them.

So I saddled up this morning and went in.

I couldn't have picked a better day. They were all there. Youseff who I have known for years, Gene the other left winger, Stu and Wayne, who came to us as a set (just friends) when the 24 Hour gym closed, Sol who I know well from another place, the "girls", three intense young women who work out so hard the floor shakes sometimes, Chris the AC guy, my good buddy John whose husband nearly died from a coronary and I could be there for him, Craig who is a muscle head, in a good way, and some others who I nod to. And of course John at the desk who told me that a few had wanted my phone number that he couldn't give them but he would have called me soon to get them off his back.

I even ran into the guy who owns the energy drink place across the plaza on his way in. I see him every month or so.

These are people who I see more or less every day, more often than family. All have some tug on my heart. One way or another. And they like me in return.

Over the years, I have seen people I knew not come back to the gym. I never saw them again. And had no idea what happened to them. They never said goodbye. Of course, some of these never said hello either but there were some who stuck and were friendly. Then gone.

I know that a gym is not the best place to expect any consistency of acquaintance let alone friendship. But still. I miss some of them.

Now, my peeps know I am OK, just not attending now for health reasons but that I am OK, alive, coming back.

I also now have Youseff and John's phone numbers and they mine.

Labels: friends, gym

SHOCKER

I went to visit with my friend John at the gym this morning.

He was working out at the weight rack. The dumbbells.

As I started to say hi, I noticed that something radical had happened.

They have bought a whole new rack of weights.

That is a lot of weights. Maybe thirty feet from one end to another.

They are great looking.

I didn't pick one up.

I told John I would try to use the free weights next week.

He laughed.

He knows that I have pretty much forsaken free weights for the safety and comfort of the machines. There are many choices, none really the same as a free weight workout but still. I am an older guy.

I need a softer landing.

There was some sadness here.

I have used the old weights in this gym for maybe 20 years. I used to come for vacation and went to Golds when it was way out near the newspaper plant. The other side of the airport.

They were a bunch of mismatched, rickety weights. Many of them would unscrew themselves as you worked out. Actually not integral, just a bunch of weights on a bar.

I didn't ask where they went. I would be too tempted to go and see if I could get, maybe just the 7.5 weights as a souvenir.

The good old days.

Labels: gym

SLEEP IN

I woke at 340 AM today. Too late to go to the gym. And do the rest of the stuff I wanted to do in the morning.

So I surrendered. Skipped the gym.

I have been getting up at 3AM more or less for eons.

Not today.

I am happy that I neither punished myself mentally about it or just blew it off. I didn't like doing it but it is not the end of the world.

After all, I do not work with an alarm. I haven't for many years. So the natural timer wanted to stay there for 40 more minutes.

I even went to bed a little early. Not early enough.

I will make a mental note. I do "sleep in" on Saturday and Sunday and do not go to the gym at all. So I will have three days.

Like last weekend when the gym was not open early enough.

I suppose that I could go in tomorrow, a Saturday, but I will not. I am not that upset.

A trend?

No. I would set the alarm first.

Labels: gym, life

BOYCOTT

Well, not really. But yes. I am going to quit wearing New Balance.

I have been a loyal buyer over a number of years but, it turns out, they are now owned by a right wing christian bigot and that is all it takes for me to bolt.

I originally went to NB for a "cause". They were one of the few, the only perhaps, manufacturers that still made athletic shoes in the USA. Union.

That is no longer the case.

I have been thinking about the shift for awhile, but a son has made the switch and mentioned it and that was my tipping point. Thanks Tom.

I am going back to an old favorite. Asics.

I ran with Asics for years.

Now I will walk. In a few days I will be getting my first pair. The ASICS Men's GEL-Tech Walker Neo Walking Shoe

Labels: gym, sports

CLOSE CALL

Johny, the guy at the gym, asked if I had a new id number because it showed me "inactive" this morning.

Look, given my new accelerated bike program (full half hour at the machine's max effort) I am anything but inactive. So I freaked when I realized that I had not paid up on the 7th of May due date.

Why is this important?

Because when John and I moved to Palm Springs, the Golds, then a franchise, was in trouble. They had overbuilt the facility and there was a bad economy again. We look back to bad economies in the way that people look back at a city they are leaving. There are so many that looking into the future is just a mote in the sun.

Anyway, we went to a movie and there was an ad for Golds, we had been going someplace else. They were offering a lifetime membership for 99 dollars a year. All you had to do was buy two years NOW.

I had been going to Golds for quite a while before we moved here. All the way back to the old location out in the desert. In a Mall.

So we went and joined up.

Today the annual membership costs about 450 dollars. Bang!

So I went out today in person to re-up and hope I wouldn't have lost my privileged fee.

As it turns out I have thirty days after the expire date.

Then the high fee kicks in. Over the years it involves a lot of money.

My surprise was over the fact that I missed the date.

Because of the money advantage and the belief on the part of the dwindling number of people who have the 99 deal and the paranoia we have about the gym being out to take it away from us on a technicality, I have worried my way along with it.

Always on my calendar. Why not this time?

Shit. Maybe it is because I am feebing out. But then, the woman who took me in told me she was shocked to see my birth date, I look so good.

Ahhhhh.

Labels: aging, gym

WHEELS

For two days we have been surrounded by wheels.

Tons of bikes riding past our house. In the back.

It is the Tour d' Palm Springs

They look like nice people as they sail by.

Jocks. Nice. Good legs.

It makes me think of my own bike riding days, now over. Never of the Tour d'X variety. Mine a classic Schwinn with a coaster brake.

But I "raced" nonetheless on a ten mile track down valley and back.

I finally gave it up because of safety reasons. Either my attention was not as focused as it should be or I was just not as agile. Or both.

Some falls, an ice spill and the last, a near collision with a car behind me coming on into the left turn lane. I remember a headlight appearing inches from my right hip, she stopped in time.

My heart went up to my throat. A critical injury (mental) which I did not want to repeat.

So those days are over for me. I am OK with it. It is the running that I miss both but I am not around anything like that. No marathons here that I see. No 10Ks. There is the ride up the hill to the Tramway that people run, fall down and puke but that is not for me. Never would have been.

The legs have seen better times and better days. But that is OK. The bike at the gym works great and I still do 30 minutes a day at the top setting.

Good enough for now.

Labels: bicycle, gym

SOFT SHOULDERS

In the Bill Withers film, Withers talks about aging and laments the disappearance of his shoulders.

I have just been going through this over the past few months.

There is nothing to do about it. Well, maybe pads.

First, the appearance of moobs (man-boobs), then the pot.

All those lead to the illusion of narrower shoulders or, to put it another way, if you are getting moobs and a pot, wider shoulders will counterbalance them.

But, sooner or later, the shoulders go too.

Well. I am almost 75. 74.5.

I still go to the gym and do the cardio and enough weight training to keep things strong. But strong is not muscle mass. Muscle mass is down the drain after a certain age.

Labels: aging, gym

INUNDATED

Last week, suddenly, new people started to appear at the early gym hours.

At 4:30 AM, we usually have Joe and Dan on the first floor and Youseff, Gene and another guy we don't talk to on the second ceevee floor.

Plus a few stragglers now and then. Twice a week the fan people, a couple who insist on fans for their workouts. A long battle over this ended with their turning the fans down on themselves and turning them off when they left the floor.

We have settled many turf disputes and have an uneasy truce.

Then, last week, these new people showed up. Both floors. What gives?

Word had already come to us that the 24 Hour Fitness in Cathedral City, a few miles away, had closed.

We never grasped the implications for our PS Golds. New people.

New people who don't know the "rules". Whose bike is whose. What time the changeovers occur. The fans! Are any of them fan obsessed?

Then guys on the first floor who come later reported the same tide moving in on them.

There was a guy in bare feet and sandals. Jesus God.

People had to wait to use some equipment.

The word is that during the day, the gym is "insane".

We even saw one newbie with a Trainer this morning at five. There are no trainers at five. Were. There are now.

I have to admit that the new crowd is rather timid. They must have a tight management at 24 Hours. Not enough to save the business, perhaps, but tight enough to keep the crowd in its place.

This morning I asked John, the desk guy, if Golds "bought" these people's memberships. He said "no, but they are selling 3 months for $20/month and that has sucked all these people towards us. I think that is half price but I don't know.

I have a life time membership that we got when we moved here. Times were hard for Golds so they had a deal. Sign up for two, maybe three, years for 99.00/year and you could keep that rate for life. We kept it. The rates have skyrocketed since then for everyone else.

Some few of us left from those days would do anything to preserve that rate. Even near death, I would have someone ferry me over to renew on May 15th.

So that is the story.

Change. A constant.

There is one benefit. The tide that has come up the beach and stranded all these 24 hour people also brought a bona-fide ten. A guy who is so beautiful that I can hardly stand straight. He arrives almost exactly at the time that I do and does a prolonged change from street to gym clothes which look as though they might have been designed just for him.

Now that is some change that I can go along with.

This won't last long, either.

People flow in with the sales and then flow out when they are over. There are two other gyms to go to. But none are of the 24 hour variety as their closed gym and our Golds are.

This is the early crowd. They might actually stick.

Labels: gym

INTERNAL ALARM

I woke up on time this morning.

2:55.

And I was awake. All the way.

So I went to the gym.

Yesterday, when I slept late, I thought a sign that I should take the week off.

And I am glad that I did not take time out. I got quite enough guff for being out one day from my friends.

And I saw an old friend, Chuck. Just a minute or two there but that was enough to reconnect well.

It felt good to be back after all of three days out. The normal two day weekend plus Monday.

I don't work that hard. The idea of getting a rest is ludicrous.

I would gain three pounds and be unhappy every morning and a lot of the day.

The other thing is that I read on the bike and would miss my latest, I am really liking it, Your Republic is Calling You which is about a North Korean mole living in South Korea who, after twenty years, has gotten notice that he must come back and to rendezvous in 24 hours.

He has a wife and a life, a history. He has not been an active spy for a very long time since his minder and the string he was on was purged.

It is a mild thriller and is full of interesting shit on spy craft as well as Korean culture in the north and south.

It takes place in 24 hours with many flashbacks as well as the concurrent activities of his wife, daughter and a hapless SoKo intelligence guy who has finally traced our hero down.

Very good. Tasty.

Young-Ha Kim. An up and coming South Korean writer who, while writing in Korean, has a very contemporary American voice. And why not. South Korean is very westernized.

Labels: books, gym

LOSING IT

I do not use an alarm clock.

I wake up at 3 AM pretty much automatically.

Until the last week, that is.

All week, I was up late for the gym which needs a drive out at 4:17 AM. Yes. I am that exact.

I made it every day I woke up late it is hectic to do so. A push.

Today, a week after DST started, I woke up an hour late at 4 AM.

I just threw in the towel. No gym.

I am not going through the wrench of slamming everything into 20 minutes and I am not going to get there late.

I am just going to relax, accept the inevitable and have a nice start to the day.

Well, I did that. But I still missed a half hour of bike.

I can handle it.

Maybe I also need a gym vacation. I used to take one, as prescribed by a trainer I paid, every ten weeks. Necessary for the body to catch up with itself.

I realize that I have not had a gym break since last August when I went to San Diego for four days. that was seven months ago.

Maybe this is the week to just drop the gym, sit in my shorts and have a leisurely morning and rest. Get back to the action next Monday.

I will meditate about this.

I am happy that I didn't get on my own case about this. In the past, I would have done so. Good.

Labels: daylight, gym, life

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

Yesterday, at the gym, I passed one of the young guys who work out as early as I do.

I said "hey, how are you?". He said "Wonderful! I'm at the gym".

I knew instantly what he meant. I feel the same way.

I like to work out, to ride the bike and get my wind up. I like the limited work with weights that I do now.

And on top of that, for the first time, really, I have a few friends that I can say hello to quickly with a bit of "story" and move along to the next thing.

I look forward to seeing them and they seem pleased to see me.

I have never been a chatter in the gym. I want to work out and focus and do what I came to do. All my friends do the same. But they do allow little bursts, a mutual agreement. "

"We are not going to get into anything too deeply but here I am, there you are and it is nice to have it that way."

It is amazing how, over time, every day a minute or two, you can enlarge understanding and build a relationship. Bit by bit.

Every once in awhile it spills over into too much. But not often and that is manageable.

It is a wonderful way to start the day. I have been doing it for nigh onto 25 years.

Labels: friends, gym

GYM GAMES

This morning more on the gym music wars.

John, the guy on the desk Tuesday through Thursday, is also a locksmith.

He has been able to breach security on the way over loud, ear plugs required sound system.

Today it was off when I arrived.

Good.

Sooner or later he has to turn it back on. Today when he hit the button it was right at the cue-up of The Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler.

Applause broke out on the cardio floor. I did a prize fighters pose.

A new battle rages now. The battle of the fans.

There is a right old bastard who has begun to use the elliptical. He is a bullet headed guy with a loud gravelly voice who relies on non-verbal intimidation to get through his day.

He and "the wife" turn on all the fans in the place. It is like a fucking wind tunnel.

No one, including me, wants to just go turn them off. It has been discussed. Three of us get up and go flip the switch simultaneously. We do, two of us, go turn them off the second they get off the equipment. They cannot miss that we are up to it. The guy sits on the benches at the top of the stairs, takes his shirt off (prohibited and in his case a real danger) and cools off. To less air. The wife just sits.

Another game to while away the time.

Labels: fun. music, gym

TV WORK OUT

I have given up in the videos in the gym.

The sets keep conking out and I finally realized that I was taking all too much energy worrying about "missing" a news show.

I go there to work out, actually, not watch the television.

This is an old complaint. It keeps coming up.

So, I have quit the teevee entirely. I have moved to the center of the stationary bike ranks where there are no television sets and I am reading a book.

As it turns out, this is far more time-melting than the televisions were. I am making good progress, now, on a novel that I enjoy very much. I do not have to fret about whether or not the set will be working and, if it is, what idiocy is pouring out of it at any particular time.

Labels: gym, reading