Exercise: these new-fangled bicycle thingies

So I've only been living in this new apartment complex since--what? mid-February? And I had yet to darken the door of the on-site exercise room, even though that was one of the features that made this place so attractive to me. Well, I finally got over whatever it was that was holding me back, and went down there. And I had a pretty decent workout--plus a little entertainment value too.

You see, this nice little room has a small but impressive collection of high-tech computerized exercise equipment, all of which will probably seem like old hat to health club regulars, but since I haven't darkened the door of any of those joints either in a very long time, it's all pretty new to me. There's a treadmill, a Stairmaster, an eliptical trainer, and two fancy-shmancy bicycles. I was glad to see the bikes were more of the recumbent style that I had used in physical therapy last summer. But those bikes in the PT department were simple mechanical models, without the whole dashboard control panel that these high-tech puppies sported.

It took me a good ten to fifteen minutes just to figure out that damn control panel. One could set a variety of resistance programs, supposedly optimized for fat-burning or maximum aerobic effect, and simulating courses of varying degrees of hilly-ness. One can also enter one's age, weight, target heart rate, and any number of other healthful bits of data, which the bike's silicon brain would then use to customize your exercise routine.

One could also get the thing to beep and flash at you like an enraged electric eel, which I managed to make it do several different times. All I could think of was the old "blinkenlights" warning posters that used to turn up in every computer room back in the old days when computers were room-sized collections of boxes covered with the flashy things. Nope, this bicycle definitely did not take kindly to my "gefingerpoken und mittengrabben" ... but then it was also marvelously inscrutable as to how to avoid riling it so.

Finally, however, I succeeded in entering some data that the poor confused thing could fathom, and we were off and pedaling. While one pedals, the control panel nicely displays a bar-chart representation of the course you're following, with the bars indicating relative amount of effort for each segment. This was all very nice, but I think they're missing a step here--if they got that little screen to run Ms. Pacman or something, I bet we'd lick the national lack-of-fitness problem in six months flat.

This exercise room also sports some more old-fashioned equipment: a set of free weights (left lying all over by some previous user) with an inclined bench, plus a variant of the old Universal Gym type pulleys-and-levers gizmo (a little dog-eared from long use). Oh yeah, and there's a pool table, plus a wall-mounted TV for your biking-and-videoing pleasure. And nice big picture windows looking out at the swimming pool (which I do intend to make use of also, once I finish getting over my fear of appearing in public in a bathing suit, however well-camoflaged by teeshirts and etc.)

My actual time spent doing uninterrupted pedaling (as opposed to stopping and starting to re-adjust seat positioning and fight with that damn control panel some more) was maybe only twenty minutes or so. But now that I've (mostly) cracked the code on that control panel, I hope to be making my subsequent rides more frequent--and more rewarding. The important thing was getting in that room in the first place. Knowing myself, now that I've gotten over that hurdle the rest will be a good bit easier.

Comments

[howie]

Hi, Mizducky!

It's Howie from Kirk's dinner. It's great to hear you're making such great progress. Congratulations!

As someone who spent the first 25 years of his life completely sedentary, it was really hard for me to work exercise into my routine. The strange thing now is that even though I'm not religious about it, if I stop exercising, I start feeling bad within a few days. It's like I've become addicted to it.

Well, I hope your routine continues to go well!

[mizducky]

Thanks, Howie--and welcome to my blog!

I've got a ways to go before the addiction-to-exercise thing sets in, but I'm already noticing a little post-exercise positive reinforcement going on in terms of feeling better physically. Not to mention the "wow, I'm finally doing this!" psychological boost. So hopefully I'll have a king-hell addiction going pretty soon now! :-)