I wasn’t particularly interested in joining a new gym; the fitness center in my co-op is convenient and cheap. But, it’s also quite limited and not really suited to doing olympic lifts, so when a friend mentioned that Vida at Gallery Place had an olympic platform and bumper plates I thought I’d check it out. When I found out it had a couple of endless pools I decided to try it out for a few months.
It’s kind of cool. The cardio and machines seem to be quite state of the art (I scrolled through the channels on the treadmill until I found SciFi).
The free weights section is good and a pretty large space. Not a chalk and chains kind of place, but no one had kittens when I was practicing snatches or even when I was bouncing my deadlifts off the floor (although some of the staff/management were definitely watching), so that bodes well. There was also a guy there doing overhead squats.
Only two things to make you say hmmm. A friend I was working out w/ pulled the bar out of the cage and weighted it for me to do deadlifts - so I never hefted the unloaded bar. But, then when we re-weighted it for me to do push presses, I noticed there was no way it was 45 lbs. It looked like an olympic bar, but lighter. Strange.
The other thing was perhaps predictable. As I mentioned, there was a guy who was doing OHS (he was going heavier, but I go deeper). Since I hadn’t done them in a while, I decided to do them, too. I did 5, no problem, on the platform and then decided to try out doing them in the cage.
I ended up dumping the bar on my first one. I think I may have psyched myself out a little, because I’d been talking to my friend about Mistress Krista’s advice to practice dumping the bar so you know you can if you have to, but mostly I think it was just a weird kind of claustrophobia about having stuff around me.
Anyway, I took a minute, got set and did a perfect one, all the way down (and back up). At that point, the guy who’d been OHSing before, came over to tell me that my problem was that my toes were pointing out. I’m a woman; a somewhat wider, toed out stance just works better for me.
And, I failed on one lift which I then repeated w/o a problem. Phaugh! I just smiled and thanked him. I wanted to point out that maybe if he tried a different stance he too might be able to get below parallel, but I didn’t because 1. I’m too polite or 2. because I think he might be a trainer there (pick one).
I guess that’s to be expected for a woman doing something other than the typically girly lifts.
During my rests, I did notice one of the trainers working w/ a woman client. The woman looked fit - she had some visible muscle definition in her arm - but he was putting her through the lamest, most undemanding workout I can even imagine. My friend, who is more charitable than I am, suggested that perhaps she was rehabbing an injury. One can only hope.
Overall I had a great workout and I’m stiff in all the right places (it’s been a while since my traps have ached), so I think this might be a good step up for me.
Martha