jaeleslie

As of this month Bally's (which used to be Vic Tanny) has closed their Madison gym, damn their eyes, so our memberships there were junk, and we have moved on to the locally-operated Princeton Club. Fun for the whole family, yeah. I'm just trying to transfer my whole routine to the new gym, but the machines are different, and not as well maintained, and the place is bigger, and newer, and a bit more crowded. I knew I would miss Bally's. Their little rooms encouraged a bit of camaraderie.

The last month at Bally's I had worked up to the highest weights I could, and only one set of each. Since I don't split my workout into different routines for different days but do everything, three times a week (so I have a day or two recovery), it has turned into a little more of a power event instead of sheer conditioning. Now just trying to find the machines I want is half the battle. Then I have to figure out the position to set them, and they sometimes work a different range of motion so the weights that look like the same I was lifting before may be too much or too little. It was one set of everything again today. But some of my weights were higher, and some lower. I can add back in the pull-over machine that Bally's lost a couple months ago, but the new back machine is a disaster, with a chain that badly needs lubrication and a non-adjustable seat in completely the wrong position for my particular lower back.

In Laurell Hamilton's Circus of the Damned I found a chapter that describes Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter doing power circuits at Vic Tanny's with her private investigator girlfriend. It was gratifying to find I am keeping up not only with the weenie guys at the gym but with the Vampire Hunter herself. Sixty pounds on the Hip Abductor/Adductor machine, not too much. Pull-overs with a hundred pounds. Yeah.

She runs four miles as part of her routine, so I'll have to work up my cardiovascular stuff.

But I'm not really planning on adding any target practice.