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Friday, February 28, 2025

Gym time, fun time?

by

20120529

Af­ter work­ing out at the Long Cir­cu­lar Club Health and Fit­ness, Long Cir­cu­lar Mall, St James, on Sun­day, I felt strange. Why? Be­cause I ac­tu­al­ly had some fun. I don't like the gym. I find it very bor­ing. The fact that you of­ten have to wait for sweaty, some­times smelly peo­ple to fin­ish us­ing a par­tic­u­lar piece of equip­ment is al­so ex­treme­ly un­set­tling. How­ev­er, fit­ness train­er Nyekenge Gran­di­son was very help­ful, lead­ing me through the var­i­ous ex­er­cis­es and giv­ing me es­sen­tial health tips along the way. I start­ed off my hour-long rou­tine by warm­ing up on the el­lip­ti­cal ma­chine. Gran­di­son, 33, in­struct­ed me to walk briskly to get my heart rate el­e­vat­ed-I was able to con­trol my work­out in­ten­si­ty thanks to the ma­chine's heart-rate mon­i­tor­ing de­vice. Gran­di­son was friend­ly... but I could tell he meant busi­ness. He led me through var­i­ous re­sis­tance-train­ing ex­er­cis­es, in­clud­ing the ly­ing leg curls which strength­en the ham­string mus­cles, the leg ex­ten­sion ma­chine which tar­gets the quadri­ceps mus­cle in the legs, and the squat press ma­chine which de­fines mus­cles in the quadri­ceps, ham­strings and glu­teus max­imus (butt).

For each ma­chine, I did three sets of 20 rep­e­ti­tions with Gran­di­son hov­er­ing over me like a cor­beau to en­sure that I did not cheat. "Come on, you could do it," he en­cour­aged me. He showed ab­solute­ly no mer­cy, im­me­di­ate­ly telling me to do three sets of 15 rep­e­ti­tions on the out­er and in­ner thigh ma­chines, which as their names sug­gests, strength­en the mus­cles of the out­er and in­ner thighs. I felt the burn through­out each work­out and Gran­di­son as­sured, "That's how you know it's work­ing." But it didn't stop there. To put the ic­ing on the cake, I al­so did some ab­dom­i­nal ex­er­cis­es, which he said was es­sen­tial for strength­en­ing the stom­ach mus­cles. I al­ways want­ed a six-pack, so I didn't com­plain too much. When it was fi­nal­ly over, Gran­di­son warned me that the stretch­ing ex­er­cis­es, though nec­es­sary to en­sure my mus­cles didn't "cramp up," might be painful. He was right. They were un­com­fort­able, too, since he had to stretch my legs in all sorts of un­usu­al po­si­tions. Nicole, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, didn't make it any eas­i­er, snap­ping mer­ri­ly away at my ex­pense. But I re­mind­ed my­self that it was all for a good cause-to get fit and to have a health­i­er life. Speak­ing of get­ting fit, Gran­di­son, who trains about 25 clients, rang­ing from teenagers to peo­ple in their 60s, said one should work out at least three times per week to see pos­i­tive re­sults. "It's al­so im­por­tant to rest the mus­cles, so you should space out your train­ing," he ad­vised. "For in­stance, you should train Mon­days, Wednes­days and Sat­ur­days so that you can rest the days in be­tween."

The ben­e­fits of ex­er­cise, he as­sured, are many. It in­creas­es one's chances of liv­ing a longer, more ful­fill­ing life, de­creas­es the risk of dis­eases such as di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion and keeps one look­ing and feel­ing younger-who doesn't want that? "Ex­er­cise pro­grammes should be im­ple­ment­ed in all schools," said Gran­di­son."It is so im­por­tant. Too many peo­ple get­ting fat." No time for ex­er­cise, you say? Gran­di­son said that's no ex­cuse. "If you don't make the time now, I guar­an­tee that you'll pay for it lat­er," he said blunt­ly. An in­te­gral part of stay­ing healthy is eat­ing a bal­anced di­et. But those who know me well know that food is my first love, so I wasn't too keen on hear­ing that I should de­sist from eat­ing what I want when I want­ed. "Healthy eat­ing is a lifestyle," he ad­vised. "Peo­ple need to cut out all the fried foods and bar­be­cued meats with plen­ty sauces. You should have more steamed, boiled and grilled foods. Imag­ine, I see peo­ple in their 50s and 60s eat­ing a big plate ah rice. That is mad­ness!" Over­all, my gym ex­pe­ri­ence was a good one (mi­nus the aches and pains I feel now). I will rec­om­mend those who have nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced the gym to give it a try. Good health is of­ten tak­en for grant­ed, but as the adage says, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone."

Want to join the gym?

Mon­days to Fri­days: 4 am – 11 pm.

Sat­ur­days: 6.30 am – 9 pm.

Sun­days/Pub­lic hol­i­days: 9 am – 2 pm.

Fun: 7/10

Ease: 7/10

Ex­pense: $300 (month­ly), $125 (week­ly) and $40 a day.

Skills need­ed: dis­ci­pline, flex­i­bil­i­ty, must be able to take or­ders.

Con­ve­nience: Gym is open every day to ac­com­mo­date just about any­one.


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