I joined Planet Fitness. In September I was driving on the freeway and I was behind a car with a Planet Fitness sticker (the "thumbs up"). I had been thinking about joining the gym but was feeling broke from auto repairs and gas for my long work commute.
I was behind this car for ten minutes or so, and I found myself feeling surprisingly resentful toward the unseen driver of the Planet Fitness adorned vehicle. A few weeks later, riding a long with a friend on some errands. I found myself in front of a Planet Fitness.
When I walked in there was that sort of immediate click I usually feel only during magickal/spiritual/romantic events. I also had the urge to run around the whole gym and hop on every machine for a few seconds!
I took a mini-tour, but I had already decided to sign up. During the tour I kept trying to convince myself to act sensibly. It was Mercury "Retrograde", number one. Don't sign any contracts! I hadn't looked at any other gyms lately, in comparison, and Planet Fitness has no sauna or steamroom. (They have tanning but I can't do that to my skin.) And I wasn't sure I had the $10 or $20 a month.
When the nice young lady that worked there- and the whole staff is friendly and helpful- showed me the black card spa chairs and told me it came with unlimited guest privileges I signed up on the spot.
I am pretty out of shape, so my current goal has been a minimum of three days a week, I alternate upper and lower body on the weight machines, doing low weight and high reps. Next month I will increase my workouts, and probably add some free weights.
Planet Fitness has a great range of cardio machines- treadmills, recumbent and upright stationary bikes, two kinds of eliptical machines (I can't use these because of my knock knees), and a stair climber. They have a 30 minute circuit fitness room, and a contraption called Planet Fitness 360, I think. I'll give those a try when I am bored of the weights. That could be a while.
I love the feeling of pushing myself past my comfort levels. And I love that the gym, weights in particular, are about nothing more than me and my body. I do get exercise from gardening and housecleaning and my daily constitutional. And I love dance and yoga.
Lifting weights in gym has a kind of secular purity. There is nothing else in it but you and your body. Strengthening your body. No other reason for it, no other result. You are creating the strength to do the dance or the gardening better, with less effort and greater endurance.
And there is a high from lifting weights that comes the next day and lasts all day. (There is also the feeling of your limbs having become as heavy as lead, lol, when you are out of shape! But that passes and becomes less intense with each workout.) And there is no better way to reduce mental and emotional stress. In fact, for me, I work out harder when I am stressed or angry. And I always feel better afterwards.
I learn about my body every time I work out. It's the library for the muscles in my body. Right now, due to my current fitness level, my support muscles have to assist when I do many of the exercises (especially in my upper body). When I work my back I feel my arms and chest, when I work my chest I feel my arms and back.
But I know that eventually I will be able to feel each muscle individually when I work out. I will be able to communicate and interact with the strip of cells that make up my tricep, or my glutes, or my calf muscles.
I think a gym membership should be required with health insurance. Everyone should have access to a gym.
About Planet Fitness, there is only one caveat for me, and it is not big enough to override 24 hour access nationwide, the massage chairs and unlimited guest privileges (these come only with the $20 a month plan, but it is well worth the extra $10). That is their stretching area. The mats are against the wall, the room has ab and leg machines in it, and there are no mirrors. One of their promotional ads has a negative slant towards yoga, too, although it is meant to be humorous.
They are so clean, so big, have so many machines, plenty of staff, and as a I said before, always friendly and helpful. I can do yoga at home or take the occasional class. And I have enjoyed using their stretching contraptions- one is a little chair and the other is a metal frame with bars of vary heights.
I always try to make a fresh start every Samhain, and this year it is the Body Temple.
Blessings peeps!
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