First day at the gym

I went to the gym for the first time on Thursday evening.  Signed my paperwork, got my pass.

One of the trainers took me around and showed me some of the equipment.  I got a rundown of how to use the different cardio equipment (hey, we’re starting at the basics, here!).  Treadmill, elliptical, stair stepper, stationery bike, and, as I like to call it, “like an elliptical, but not an elliptical”.  (my coworker who goes there knew exactly what I was talking about, but couldn’t name it either!  I’ll ask next time what it’s called.  It’s across between an elliptical and a Nordic Track)  I did a few minutes on each piece of equipment, just to know how it works.  He also explained how I should have ~2 minutes warm up and cool down to let my heart rate adjust.  Most of the equipment have handles that read your pulse, which I think is pretty cool.

After he showed me how to use the different cardio equipment, he let me just go and use it.  So I went on the “not-elliptical” (circular?  haha!) on an interval setting for about 20 minutes.  Maybe a bit more.  My heart rate got pretty high.  It read out at 180 bpm at one point!  I’m not sure if that’s dangerous or not.  The instructor told me that it’s okay to go that high as long as you don’t feel dizzy or anything like that.

I then went on a quick tour of the strength training equipment in the XpressLine.  It’s a bunch of different machines that help you to work on different muscle groups.  I tried each of them just once, and was pretty worn out by the end!

Then I went for a quick ~10 minute jog on the treadmill.

So, that’s that for my first trip to the gym.  I haven’t been there since, but I intend to go on Monday!

I have to say, I felt pretty good after my workout.  I guess that’s what I’ve heard about for a while:  it makes you feel better, releases endorphins, etc.  So I’m psyched to go again!