Iron Maiden baby...

After spending his life keeping fit with football and squash, combined with more recent attempts to do this at home with a treadmill, home gym thing and 'perfect press up' machine...my dad has bitten the bullet and joined a gym. This was news to me, as a somewhat hectic life has meant large time spans between visits home, so a lot tends to happen in my absence; gym joining being one of them!

So, rather than go for a leisurely jog round the block, I find myself tagging along to this local gym, excited about what was in store! A large warehouse jam packed with enough steel and free weights to sink a ship and lots of men....yep, that was pretty much the view on arrival. Don't get me wrong, this was my kinda gym, no frills, no faddy machines that are so efficient you don't actually do any exercise when using them and best of all, no gym bunnies! Just steel, a few bits of CV kit (clearly hidden in a back room for the elderly and big girls like me) and lots and lots of men - most of whom had the torso of Vin Diesel and the legs of Frankie Detorri!

Dad went about his mini action man programme - glad he is keeping it real and with it his body proportions and I hit the girly treadmill - good times! At the end of my solitary workout (not sure it was the CV kit or me acting as a man repellent?!)...I picked up the smallest free weights I could find and then proceeded to bust out some moves, trying not to show any signs of straining and avoiding muscle tear at the same time - I could have done smaller weights but refused to pick up the pink girly dumb bells from the box labelled 'WOMEN'!

Within 60 minutes it was all over...and what a fantastic experience it was; no gym bunnies, no fluffy machines and to top it off, I had the biggest leg muscles in the whole building...self-esteem through the roof! I vote for more gyms like this! Never again will I step back into the domain of the gym bunny - no more outfit judgement, no more panicking about sweat levels, no more feeling manly for actually wanting to use free weights! Metal, muscle and lots of men - the perfect combination for a happy workout!

The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said, 'If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it jumping up and down!' - Rita Rudner