There I am

Introducing the Pierini DIET here

For the last year, I’ve trained at Bodytribe, an eclectic gym off the beaten path a stone’s throw from where I live in midtown Sacramento. Peer into its dimly lit storefront location on any random weeknight and you’ll see paintings hanging on the walls, plants surrounding a sofa in the corner, and rock music playing on the stereo.

A handful of midtown characters, many of whom are musicians and artists, will be inside, but they won’t be drinking coffee or chatting. Instead, you’ll see them lifting heavy things and carrying them around the room. Bodytribe prides itself on its no mirrors of the wall, no cardio machines and no pink dumbbells fitness training atmosphere; instead it offers a selection of clubbells, kettlebells and other outside-the-box training apparatus to kick a tough guy’s fitness butt big time.

I’ve met great training friends at Bodytribe and challenged myself in ways that are different. Earlier this week, however, I reluctantly moved on to a different gym.

I switched to The Capitol Athletic Club, perhaps the premier fitness club in Sacramento, a stone’s throw from the California State Capitol and a longer stone’s throw from where I live. It’s a 52,000 square feet fitness compound offering state-of-the-art equipment and many personal amenities. While they have lots of stuff I won’t be using, I’ll definitely take advantage of the free shoe shine service from time to time.

My wife asked me to join with her so that we could go to the gym together. She’s not Bodytribe material. She’s had health problems and wants to incorporate more fitness training in her health and wellness journey and The Capitol Athletic Club is the best place for her.

This place has a cardio training room that reminds me of a new car dealer’s showroom. Drop in during prime time and it looks like Friday afternoon rush hour commute traffic on a southern California freeway. What matters to me is that they have an Olympic lifting platform, rubber plates and a drop environment plus kettlebells, the training tools that I’ve been using as of late.

Writing and sending an e-mail to Chip Conrad, the owner of Bodytribe, was gut-wrenching because I’ve really enjoyed my stay there and all my Bodytribe fitness brothers and sisters. But in the final analysis, I love my wife more than I like Bodytribe so I honored her request.

Deep down inside, I'm a loyalist and resist change but, by the same token, resilient.

Wednesday was my first day training at my new club and I did a combo of back squats, front squats, pull-ups and chin-ups for six rounds. Not a whole lot different than what I did a week earlier at Bodytribe. You could have blindfolded me during this workout and I wouldn’t noticed any difference except for the pink dumbells that were winking at me for attention while I was looking at myself in the gym mirror.

Life goes on. The more things change the more they seem the same. Wherever I go, there I am.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum