Can't do the gym thing any more

"Me and my parks are one."

I may have shared this before that once turning age 65 and becoming a Medicare Man a few months ago, I got a free gym membership with my health insurance plan.  I hadn’t belonged to a gym in probably five or more years so the thought of getting something “free” caught my attention.

It wasn’t as if not belonging to a gym was compromising my middle-age man fitness.  I’m fit right now by my middle-age man historical standards.  Since quitting the gym, I had used various public parks as my training landscape.  There are about five that I regularly frequent depending on what I’m doing.   

I have a favorite park for running, a favorite park for doing pull-ups and a preferred park for doing burpees and kettlebell workouts.  I enjoy my outdoors workouts at these parks.  I’ve found little nooks and crannies at these parks where I can pitch my fitness tent and get a good workout without calling too much attention to myself.  Trees abound at these training sweet spots that have become my training oasis. 

Nonetheless, the free gym membership thing enticed me so after exploring the various gyms that I could join for free, I chose a 24 Hour Fitness gym located downtown about one mile from my office.  It’s one of their bigger gyms that they’ve coined as a super-sport gym because it’s huge and loaded with every exercise equipment you can imagine, plus it has many other amenities like a swimming pool, basketball court, you name it; it has it. 

After joining, I decided that it would be a supplement to how I was currently training because all was going well doing it that way.  Pull-ups, bar dips, kettlebell complexes, burpees and running had been doing me good and I saw no reason to change anything.  As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

I’d say during the first month of membership, I visited only four times.  This gym frequency was unlike my past when I would go to the gym five days a week.  I found that my new gym was densely populated with people exercising and it was noisy with loud music.  I also learned that, unbeknownst to me, I had become a reclusive middle-age man fitness dude from several years training in the park solo style.

I tried my best to work around this gym density and noise by reminding myself how endowed it was with every imaginable fitness exercise equipment and weights under the sun.  Still, as time passed, I was continually dodging my new gym, taking a hike, instead, to one of my favorite parks.

Then, Coronavirus struck, and all gyms closed and remain closed to this day.

It was during this gym lockdown that I decided I wouldn’t be going back.  I cancelled my free membership about a week ago.  It felt good doing this because it got a monkey off my back that I wasn’t using my free gym membership.

It was a paradigm shift – a stepping over the line in the sand to the other side – and a realization that I can’t do the gym thing anymore.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Tools in my Pierini Fitness toolbox

For many years, this middle-aged man belonged to a gym and that’s where he went to exercise and chase his fitness, health and wellness pursuits.  In June 2015, however, I made a minimalist “business decision” to end my gym membership and be a fitness vagabond, getting my workouts in at various local parks, a spare room in my office and, occasionally, at home.  For some reason, working out at home isn’t something I do well.  I need to go somewhere for best results.  The various local parks I frequent are my training landscapes of choice.

Along with this minimalist fitness lifestyle, the tools in my fitness toolbox are few in count but get my job done.  I have two categories of tools, fitness equipment tools and fitness technology tools.  Today, I’d like to share with you the few items in my minimalist fitness toolbox.

What’s the difference between being a fitness frugalist and a fitness minimalist? - click here

Fitness equipment tools

First up is my Tommy Kono-autographed “Louisville Slugger” wooden pole.

My dear departed friend, American’s greatest Olympic weightlifter, Tommy Kono made this and gave it to be about 10 years ago when I was training in the Olympic lifts.  I use it to warm up my shoulders before a workout since a lot of what I do places great demands on my shoulders.

Here’s a dated picture of me using my Tommy Kono-autographed “Louisville Slugger” wooden pole:  

Many years ago, I made a video demonstrating the shoulder dislocates and overhead squat warm-up drill I use to loosen up my shoulders.  Here it is:

Here’s the autograph:

RIP Tommy Kono.

Next up is my kettlebell (KB) tools that I use the most.  I own three “bells” – a pair of 20kg KBs and one 24kg KB.  After researching various brands, I settled on Ader.  Here are pictures like the “bells” I own: 

I own two of these

I own one 24kg KB

Here are a couple of my favorite KB workouts:

Now that I’m back on the saddle at Pierini Fitness, I hope to make and share other KB complex training videos in the future.  Wish me well in my pursuits.

Next up is a pair of 5-lb. dumbbells I own.  I don’t use them often but when I do it’s to generally do a Heavy Hands workout. 

Here’s an explanation of one workout I do when using these 5-lb. dumbbells:

A weekly date with HeavyHands

Here’s another workout I created to do at work when I’m very busy and don’t have time for a longer workout:

Next up is a 12-inch high-quality step box I purchased late last year.  I keep it at my office and use it there.  I use it for high-volume step exercise activities generally done in superset fashion along with another exercise like, for example, two-hand KB swings perform for multiple rounds.

One tool I own but don’t use is my jump rope.  I prefer to run or walk briskly because doing so is easier on my knees than the rope.  But there’s no doubt that the rope is an excellent tool that should be in most middle-aged men’s fitness tool box.  I reserve the right to take it out of storage and use it from time to time.

Finally, since I perform pull-ups and chin-ups in my training, I go to a local park that has a good pull-up station.  I owned one for many years that I used at home but a move several years ago made it necessary to get rid of it. 

Fitness technology tools

I’m a heart rate monitor junky and have been for many years.  Late last year I decided to “relapse” after being in recovery and not using my heart rate monitor for a while.  It was time to update this technology tool.  After much research, I learned that the “new kid of the block” was Garmin so I jumped ship after having been a faithful Polar user for many, many years.  I ended up buying a Garmin Forerunner 35 and am extremely pleased with my purchase.

Garmin Forerunner 35

What’s nice about Garmin is that you can create a Garmin Connect account at their website allowing the workout information captured on the watch to transfer to your account and get lots of good training performance analytics.  Since I’m an analytic guy, I really like this feature a lot.  Additionally, this Garmin Connect information automatically syncs to my MyFitnessPal account – see below.

Next up, is my iPhone app at MyFitnessPal.  I previously talked about MyFitnessPal in an earlier Pierini Fitness blogflection.  You can get a free membership by going to MyFitnessPal.com but I chose to upgrade a get a premium membership so that my visits there would be advertising-free, and I could have access to some other analytical tools.  I believe I pay about $50 a year for this premium membership and, thus far, it’s worth every cent of it.  I use this app daily.

Last technology tool in my fitness toolbox is my most recent purchase.  It’s a Withings Body+ Body Composition Wi-Fi Scale and I use it for my daily morning weigh-ins.  I understand that Nokia purchased Withings so sometimes the unit I purchased will be described as Nokia and sometimes as Withings.

Some fitness people say you shouldn’t weigh yourself daily, but this middle-aged man takes exception.  I’m an analytical fitness dude and what my data daily.  What’s neat about this scale is that the information automatically syncs to my MyFitnessPal account.

Finally, not pictured is a blood pressure home unit that I use periodically to see how I’m doing in the blood pressure department.  Thus far, my blood pressure is excellent, and I want to keep it that way.  Getting a reading from time to time is the best way to make sure all is well.

A closing comment is that everything I’ve shared with you is solely to explain what I use in my middle-aged man fitness, health and wellness journey.  Unlike some bloggers, I don’t have any affinity agreements with any of these companies to earn spending money.  I make my money practicing my profession.   Everything I share here is solely for the joy of sharing information that’s hopefully helpful to you.

My dear fellow middle-aged men fitness brothers from different mothers, these are the tools in my Pierini Fitness toolbox.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum