Feel the burn!

I normally wake up at five a.m. on weekday mornings, a habit that I would have thought insane a year ago. My motivation is simple: my workouts start at the squat rack, and seeing as my gym (the World Class on Wenceslas Square) has only one squat rack, I push myself to be there at six a.m. to get that rack. Actually, it’s not much of a push – if it weren’t for the gym, I’d definitely sleep in every day and would doubtless be less productive than I am.

Jitka feels that I take my exercising too seriously, and she’s probably right. I’m usually in the gym for at least an hour per session, five mornings a week. Right now I’m taking a bit of a break, since the Wenceslas Square World Class is closed for renovations. I’m only going three days a week, mainly working with the dumbbells at the World Class at Chodov, a gym that is way too small to satisfy anybody who works almost exclusively with free weights. The lack of a squat rack really sucks as well.

I’ve been lifting weights since I was fifteen, with several long breaks during that time, the longest being the first four or so years after I moved to the Czech Republic. I remember how hard it was to start up again. I was working in advertising at the time, chain smoking, drinking bottomless cups of coffee, neutralizing all the caffeine in my system with pot and alcohol. On working days my breakfast consisted of a Mickey D’s cheeseburger and café latte. Fast Czinese, pizza, or pub fare for lunch, and pretty much the same for dinner, followed by several rounds of beer. I figured my metabolism was still working in my favor.

Man, was I wrong. One day while trying on shirts under unforgiving fluorescent lights, I saw the horrible truth: I had man boobs and a gut that suggested I was entering my second (or third?) trimester. In a state of mild shock, I returned the shirts to their racks. The next day I got myself a membership at a gym out in Opatov and began waging a never-ending war on gravity.

While I’m no fitness guru, I intend to use this space to share helpful fitness and nutrition tips. Hopefully I’ll be on the receiving end of some good advice as well.