My pad's a weight room

A plumber came by my pad to fix my tub and he told me that I live in a prison weight room. Okay, he didn't say "prison" but it was all in the tone. It's true.

Chez Weight Room

In my little eighth floor studio apartment, I have a Concept2 rowing machine, a LifeSpan treadmill desk, a dip bar, a simple bench, a Swiss ball, a Bosu ball, a giant duffle sandbag, resistance cables, TRX straps, a pull up bar, push up bars, an ab roller, a set of 12kg and 24kg kettlebells, 16kg, 32kg, 8kg, and 40kg single kettlebells, two light medicine balls, and a bicycle. I think that's it.

Weight Rooms Vs Gyms

I was gabbing with my buddy Mark and we were talking about college crew and high school sports. For me, these years were between 1986-1991.

Weight Rooms

My high school had a weight room and my college, GWU, had a weight room for the crew team.

What's a weight room versus a gym, to me? To me, the most sophisticated equipment I've ever seen in a weight room is a Smith Machine.

Mostly, it's free weights, racks, benches, ab machines, cables, back hyperextension machines, a lat pulldown machine, a pull-up bar, and loads of barbells, plates, dumbbells, and kettlebells.

They also often have stationary bikes, like Schwinns with the heavy flywheels, and, of course, rowing machines. Colleges these days have amazing gyms, not weight rooms.

I Was A Teenage Aerobicizer

Before and after wrestling and crew, I only did calisthenics and worked out at the YMCA of Honolulu, which was really close to where I lived downtown as a kid for a while between the ages of 12 and maybe 15 or so (my parents allowed me to take actual aerobics classes at the Y) and the Y rocked a gym.

I also did a lot of swimming, freediving, and body boarding, but that's different.

That's play, not training. After I was injured in a devastating single leg takedown injury, wrestling was over for me for a while.

And then I started going to a gym again. Seventeen and eighteen, until I went off to college. And then after. I also took up running, but that's another story.

More Weight Room

So, here I am in this little apartment full of Russian prison weight room exercise equipment. I actually quite like it. It's fun. Hard to explain to guests, but I prefer to meet at a café or restaurant.

The only thing, to me, that's missing is the stationary bike. It'll either be a used Schwinn spin bike like they used over at Biker Barre, or it'll be a financed Peloton bike.

Enough Is Enough

Then I think I'll be done. I don't think I'll be needing very many more kettlebells, though maybe I might, at some point, want mates for 16kg and 32kg bells. I don't think I can fit anything else, to be honest, after the bike.

So, that's how I live. Now, back to the weights. I'm on the bench at the moment doing flys.