Movin' on back

I’m usually not one to make New Year’s Resolutions. I figure if it’s important enough to do, I shouldn’t wait until some arbitrary date to start doing it. On the other hand, I understand the motivation of a fresh flip of the calendar to try to get things in gear. And so today, after eating breakfast for the 14th morning in a row, I found myself at a new gym.

I have been a gym member ever since my prescription for physical therapy ran out. I have gone through cycles of impressive dedication and prolonged absences. I have made friends with fellow regulars and then subsequently been greeted with “WOW, I haven’t seen you in ages!” by those same regulars. Since moving the Land of Many Rains, I have found my gym attendance is inversely related to the appearance of the sun. If it’s sunny outside, I ain’t hanging out in some gym. So I usually disappear sometime about the Fourth of July and wander back in when the pumpkins show up.

But this year has been a bit different. I just couldn’t get myself to go to the gym after the summer. My back has been in an extended cranky phase and that just made me less motivated to do much of anything physical. It’s a hugely detrimental little cycle of “my back hurts so I don’t want to move” followed closely by “I’m not moving much therefore my back hurts.” Several months of this, plus the holiday activity and travel and, well, my back has been a-screamin’ at me for several straight weeks. Coupled with an intensely frustrating inability to get more than 4 hours of sleep at night, I finally hit rock-bottom this week and admitted that I need move more.

With my membership at my old, over-crowded, insufficiently treadmilled gym about to expire, I decided to follow my former gym buddy to the other gym in town. She managed to convince her husband to join the new gym last fall and she has been more dedicated than I have ever seen her. Apparently her husband is less willing than I was to accept “There’s a great sale at Fred Meyer” as a reasonable excuse to skip a workout. He’s a task master, that Bob.

And so today, I found myself sitting across a desk from a young body builder named Jeff whose Popeye arms were only incredibly distracting. It was all I could do not to try to work spinach into the conversation. After we chatted about my surgical history and fitness goals (“Less pain, more sleep.”) and scheduled three training sessions to get my work-out life worked out, I ambled over to the treadmill. Since I hadn’t been on one in months, I wasn’t sure how my back was going to handle it. 22 minutes and 1.24 miles later, I got the biggest boost of motivation possible. My back felt better. In fact, for about 15 minutes, my back didn’t hurt at all. I can’t tell you the last time I had 15 minutes of freedom. Glory to the Treadmill Gods!

And so now the world looks entirely different. With the highly unusual gift of immediate results from a gym visit, I now have a renewed enthusiasm, desire, and commitment to keep on moving. Instead of dragging myself there with some long-distance goal of looking different someday or prolonging my life expectancy, I finally truly know that being a gym rat is good for me right now, lickety split. So I will be there again tomorrow…and 3-4 times per week...and maybe even when the sun comes out again.