Wednesday, February 11, 2009

This week has been a flurry of activity so far for Ben and I. We did two things this week and are going to do a third tomorrow that we always talk about doing but never do. Monday we went to lane swim at our local pool. Tuesday we went skating at the local skating rink - which would have been more fun if there were less children (is there such a thing as adult skate?) and tomorrow we're taking a spinning class at our local bike shop. I spin already but at my gym that Ben isn't a member of, so I'm excited to take him to his first class. It could go well or horribly wrong, since Ben doesn't really like people telling him to push himself harder and make himself hurt. I'll have to pass on the secret of putting your hand on the spin resistance wheel but not turning it up when you're just too maxxed out to go any further. I feel that it's up to you to take control of your workout and often I push too hard at the beginning and have nothing left - it's all I can do to keep up the resistance I have, that being said, I still put my hand on the wheel to fake it. It must be my fear of disappointing the instructor!

It's been fun to do so many things together but expensive! The gym is essentially free for me because I pay one lump sum at the beginning of the year and then forget about it until the next September. We get a corporate rate at Goo*Lif* through my med school which is very reasonable. Hopefully there will be some deal through residency next year too. I'm too cheap to pay the full thing. I really like group exercise classes so it works really well for me. If we were going to swim a lot, I'd probably get a membership to the pool because shelling out 6 bucks each time feels steep. Skating was cheaper but still 3 bucks each or something. I wish you could just get a rec membership for the city that let you into everything. Hey, maybe you can and I just don't know about it. Since I don't actually live here, it wouldn't be worth it for me this year, but next year when Ben and I are in the same place we should look into things like this. It's nice to do things together.

4 comments:

XE said...

It's totally possible to get a membership for all the recreation possibilities in the city, at least here. I think you can even get it for the whole family, and it covers everything except for specific exercise classes. (I think you get a massive discount on the individual classes too though).

Amy said...

Vancouver has discounted passes for all its facilities if you show limited income. I think other cities do too. But with Ben's income (since you two will be hitched) you'd probably be over the limit.

They have stationary bikes at the bike shop?? That's cool. We have to lug our trainers and bikes to the shop ourselves for our team practises. And then there's Coach Alan wondering around as Coach Andrew is leading. He makes sure we are working hard enough. So you can't really slack off.

medstudentitis said...

Our local shop has 17 bikes and then sets up trainers for people who come with their own bike - so you don't even need to bring a trainer if you want to use your own bike - pretty sweet! There's a difference I think between slacking off and still being able to move your legs/stay with the music/do what you're supposed to and just not taking that little bit of resistance on. As I said, you're responsible for your own workout. I personally like having someone leading pushing me but I hate it when someone individually pesters me - I'm pretty good at pushing myself and knowing my limits (usually about 5 heart beats/min away from vomiting). I hate being in a yoga class where they push on you to stretch you - I am very inflexible and I'm usually pretty close to my tolerance already. But I know that some people love that so it's great that different options are out there.

Pistols And Popcorn said...

Oh man you're a better person than me. Swimming skating and spinning? That's like the S-Trifecta of fitness. Well done.