Didn’t get the usual New Year’s rush at the gym this year. Perhaps people have wised up and just gone straight from the Christmas/NY seasonal binge to the early February revenge binge without passing through the gym for an expensive and ultimately pointless detour in January.
I’m cool with that. I do most of my workouts at home now, or at least my big compound lifts. Even on a normal day at the gym you’ll be lucky to get a rack if you want to do some long heavy squats or bench or whatever. Easier to just suck up the heat and humidity and do them at home. I save the gym for stuff I can’t do in my own space.
This morning, for instance, for the first time ever, I decided to try the stair machine. I’ve always thought this to be one of the silliest pieces of equipment in any gym, but I read an article yesterday about its brutal effectiveness in burning calories and improving cardio fitness.
I’ve pretty much given up on using exercise to burn calories. I just use it to get fit or strong these days and sit in a calorie deficit if I need to lose weight. But after a couple of weeks off for that skin cancer surgery late last year, and then the usual Christmas indulgence, my cardio fitness needed some tweaking, so I thought, why not.
Jesus Christ.
I was only on there nine minutes, for a very gentle session after some overhead dumbbell presses and lat pull downs and this was the result…
Normally I don’t get out of the bottom two zones even when I’m pushing it on the treadmill or elliptical.
So I guess I better not enter any highrise fire escape races soon.