After reading this amazing blog post, I came to the unfortunate realization that I could not return to the gym when they reopened May 18, 2020. The risk is way too high for me as I regularly spend 90-120 minutes there when I go, and I usually go at least 6 days each week. That’s a lot of shared time and space with other people who are breathing hard, coughing, sneezing and spreading their viral droplets around for the air conditioning to pick up and spray around the gym. I appreciate everything they’re doing at Crunch Fitness to prepare to reopen, with their increased cleaning and so forth, but the sad truth is, the cleaning isn’t the issue; the people are the issue. The decision made, I emailed the management to cancel my membership.
I’m not, and never will be a competitive bodybuilder, powerlifter or weightlifter. I lift weights primarily because it’s the only form of exercise for me that has stood the test of time. I first picked up a barbell in 1986 and have lifted on and off ever since, with brief forays into other exercise realms, but always returning to the iron. I’m no stranger to training at home as I built a full gym in my garage and trained there for years when I got tired of the weird looks I got in the commercial gym I lifted in when I first started doing powerlifting specific training. It’s much more common now, but the first time I brought my 4-board into the gym, stuffed it under my shirt and did close grip board presses, I did not enjoy being the object of everyone’s attention when I sat up. See this post to understand.
So training at home is not a negative for me; far from it. However, I no longer live in a large home with a 2-car garage. I live in a tiny space on the third floor so putting a power rack, barbell and plates in here isn’t going to happen. I have gone so far as to price the needed equipment to set up a bare bones home gym, and the cost to rent a storage space to set it up in, and time will tell if it comes to that, but in the meantime, I patiently await my BodyBoss to take my band training up a notch.
As I continue to try to entertain myself in isolation every day, I shot some footage of today’s training and created a little video montage of a sampling just for shits and giggles.
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