Bruce Apar’s Blog

Here’s the thing. If you’re not a morning person, like I am not, the mere thought of bounding on to a treadmill within minutes of slumping out of bed is enough to make you want to crawl right back in bed. Hard to slim down and tone up that way.

The alternative is to slouch into a fitness complex like Club Fit after work, which is what I’ve been trying to do with some regularity, not very successfully. I should be going three to four times a week, but lately, it’s been about half that frequency.

When I am there, I enjoy it, as much for the social ambience as for the adrenaline-pumping workout regimen. Invariably, I’ll run into two or more acquaintances and gab a while, always a surefire way to avoid the pain of muscle gain. The exercises are invigorating, to be sure, and if they are done according to protocol, you shouldn’t pause more than 30 to 60 seconds in between sets on a piece of equipment, and shouldn’t dally too much between exercises on different pieces of equipment. That’s in theory. In practice is another story that we don’t have time to tell right now.

Lately, I’ve been adding weight to the leg and upper body exercises in my prescribed workout circuit. If you don’t strain, and grunt, and hurt for the last couple or three reps of a set, you might as well be doing leg lifts in bed, or building biceps by brushing your teeth.

By going heavier on the weight, I’m not exactly following the expertise of personal trainer Erick Omondi, who advised me to add a third set rather than add more weight for two sets. It’s partly a time managment thing. Three sets on each of eight exercises is eight additional sets versus two sets per machine. There’s also the tedium factor inherent in three sets. I’d rather work my way up the weight ladder before pulling off a trifecta on each exercise.

I also added, on my very own, dear (that’s for my wife’s benefit), the abdomen machine, also known informally as The Cruncher, at least by me. But I have a very long way to go to lose my gut. Besides, I’m not a beer drinker, so it stands to reason I won’t be seeing any six packs in the near future, either in my fridge or in my stomach.

Another improvisation I’ve taken to the last couple of times at Club Fit in Jefferson Valley is using dumbbells instead of a machine to work those biceps. In fact, I rarely see anyone on that machine but always see members bring them bells.

The other day I ran into a male friend of my daughter’s who works at the club. He very generously — and inaccurately — complimented me on my dumbbell-lifting prowess, saying he saw me the previous time hoisting 50-pound weights, which I don’t expect to ever be using for a single arm in this lifetime. He’s a good kid and I figured he was just trying to make me feel good by grossly overstating the reality of my extremely modest ability. Even so, I couldn’t imagine where he got the idea that I would or could lift a 50-pound weight for a single-bicep exercise.

When I got to the bicep exercise, which is nearly the last one I do, I picked up my more typical 20-pound dumbbells for each hand and took my position in front of the mirror, the customary way to make sure your arms stay pressed close to your torso for maximum effect.

It was only then I solved the mystery of why the young man was so impressed with the old man’s heavy-lifting prowess: in the reverse image of the mirror, where he must have glimpsed me, the digits 20 handwritten in white marker on the barbells appeared as — you guessed it –50. At least it’s not only in my dreams that I can lift 50 pound dumbbells. Now I also can do it in my reflection.