Making the Most of My Time: Going to the Gym

17 Dec 2019 at 21:12 // under Personal Making the Most of My Time

Continuing on with my series of posts on Making the Most of My Time, I have decided to review the activities I spent my time on and consider whether these activities add true value.

Today was the last Tuesday morning Gym session of the year, so today's post will look at how much value the gym session actually adds.

What is the session?

Since September 2018, my workplace has provided free gym classes at the site in an on-site gym. Two types of classes are on offer, Spin and HITT¹. Spin is a cycling class. I have attended one of these, but in general I don't see the point in attending myself. I cycle as a method of transport and get plenty of cardio exercise from it. I do not compete in races or tour, so I don't need the extra training.

As far as I am concerned, the "HITT" classes are just plain circuits - which works for me. The classes are a mixture of resistance training (sometimes with weights, others just bodyweight) and cardio exercises. I am interested in the resistance training part, because it is the one area that I don't do enough through my other activities.

How much does it cost?

Financially, it is free. The classes are put on my my employer, so in some ways it is part of my wage, it would almost be silly not to make use of them.

There are classes before work, at lunchtime and after work. I prefer to go first thing in the morning and due to the fact that I am only interested in the circuits classes, that limits me to two days a week. One of which, the rest of the family also need to go out to work or nursery, so I know that I would not be very popular if I abandoned my wife to getting the young ones out of the house without helping myself. So that limits me to Tuesday mornings.

The class itself lasts half an hour, but then I need to add on time to get warmed up, changed, showered, walking slower after the session. I think it probably costs me an hour of my time in total.

Do I actually enjoy it?

Yes. Despite the pain felt both at the time and over the next few days after a hard session, I like the feeling of gaining strength. I like being able to easily pick up things that I struggled to do a year ago. I do not like struggling again after I have not been able to make it for a couple of months as happened earlier this year.

Final thoughts

I do feel bad for abandoning my family first thing on a Tuesday morning, but it is probably the best time of the week to do it. Overall the hour is well spent.

1. High Intensity Interval Training ↩

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