The Gym: It's a Good Thing

After three years of working across the street from a 24Hour Fitness here in SF, I finally got a 10-day free pass of their web site and went to check it out. Nice facility. After hearing all the plans, they finally hit on one that was perfect for me: M/W/F/Su only, this club only, for $25 a month. Since I'm in the office only on M/W/F, that was all I needed. So I joined.

Best thing I've done for my body in years. Pretty much everyone reading this knows I play soccer regularly and am generally a pretty fit person. During the summer and fall I usually play soccer three times a week--on Tuesday lunchtime, Thursday evening, and Sunday morning.

In the past few years I've begun suffering from age--creaky joints, desperate pain in my ankles each morning, tired hamstrings and thighs. I could pretty much count on pain in some joint or other whenever I moved, especially up and down the stairs. Not any more. I thought lifting weights three times a week in addition to the soccer would make everything hurt more--and it did, for about a week. Now, there's no pain at all except the general soreness after a really hard workout or a really hot afternoon soccer game. It's all gone.

I haven't been a member of a gym since college, when it was free for students at Cal. And I think I can honestly say that I haven't been in this good shape and felt this good in at least a decade. At least, I can't remember feeling any better than this. But that may just be my memory going. The gym is good for counteracting some symptoms of aging, but apparently not all of them.