Gold's Gym, Bandra

Time to get into shape!

In the past, I used to work out on a fairly regular frequency.   In high school, I was on the power lifting team.  Yes, with my scrawny little arms!  In undergrad, I was playing various sports 3-4 times per week.   My friend AEI and I would go to Gold’s in Battle Creek and lift weights on a regular basis.   Then came grad school.  I definitely started slacking off.  For a year or two, I stuck to mostly running and workout videos.  Then the hip pain came, and, having never been a fan of upper body work, I worked out less and less consistently.   Eventually the hip pain diminished, only to be replaced by back and shoulder pain. I am fairly certain the back and shoulder pain is the result of bad posture in front of a computer.  Regardless, it still exists today. My back is pathetically weak. 

My husband and I decide to join Gold’s gym in India.  I’ve gone running a couple of times, then decided to actually take advantage of the two free hours of personal training.  I had fancied myself an expert on all of the machines, but it has been a long time, and I figured I could use some re-training on my form.   I especially wanted help on how to properly strengthen my back, since I always end up in pain when lifting. 

Wow.    That is all I can say.  Having a personal trainer is AMAZING.  I was sweating bullets my first session.  In my second, I couldn’t get my legs to stop shaking.   I’m sure some people are much better at motivating themselves than me, but having a trainer made me work so much harder.  I guess it is easier to quit your shoulder workout when no one is watching. But with the trainer, when my arms started to shake, and I would have quit, he just grabbed the bar and helped a bit and made me finish the reps. 

Not only did I work out harder, I think I worked out better.  When I have been working my shoulders in the past, I would always get a sharp throbbing pain in the left side, and quit.  I haven’t been doing push-ups for years because of it.   But with my PT, and just tiny adjustments, or a poke in the back to remember to work certain muscles- I’m absurdly sore, but not in a painful way.   

Now, despite my last post, which detailed the ridiculously expensive ($13 Cinnamon Toast Crunch, for example) things in India, many things are in fact cheap.  Mainly, things that involve labor. That is why people can afford to have a maid, a cook, and a driver.  There are 14 million plus people in the city.  Labor is cheap.  Yesterday, my teacher friend told me that hiring a hitman is only 10,000 to 20,000 rupees here ($225-$450).  A more innocuous example would be free delivery on anything.  You want one scoop of ice cream? (Who would want only one scoop is beyond me)   You can have it delivered for free.   Less than a buck total in price.  As I said, labor is cheap. 

Which brings me to the price of a personal trainer.   In the US, we certainly can’t afford it.  I don’t think I know anyone who can afford it.  Here, it is still expensive.    But only about $8.00 per session, which is (relatively) amazingly cheap.    Even the price of our gym, for a full year, was less than $35 per month.  And we are in a huge, expensive city  (well, real-estate-wise.  Our rent here is much more than our rent in Chicago). 

So, I decided it is now or never.  I will never again be able to afford a personal trainer.  So this is the year.    My first real session was today!

So, what is a Gold’s Gym like in Mumbai?   Pretty much the same as it is in the States, I feel like.  Granted, it has been a few years since I’ve been to the Gold’s BC gym, but it even has some of the same designs. It is missing the superman hues of Gold’s BC.  It only uses silver and red, plus a sort of dull tan/orange color. It has a lot of silver paint on all of the beams and support posts, open ceilings, and big pieces of decorative red stuff sticking out in various places (I think this description only makes sense if you have seen a Gold’s gym).  It has two floors, even, though not divided into a ‘women’s only section like the BC gym.

It has changing rooms, a spin room full of cycles, a sauna, and a massage room.  I get my free massage (for signing up) tomorrow.  It has a juice bar, too.  As far as I can tell, it doesn’t have the clothing to sell. The lower floor has the weight machines (and a rock climbing wall, but it seems to be unused), and the upper floor has treadmills.    The floor itself is a nice light hardwood.  It isn’t too hot inside, thank goodness!  Everything is a bit smaller than in BC, but, like I said, real estate is pretty expensive in this city, so that doesn’t surprise me. 

The equipment- it certainly has less equipment than the BC gym, due to the space constraint, but it is nice and well-maintained.  Probably much better maintained, since labor is cheap, you can get it fixed right away. It is much more clean, too.   There are five or six people walking around, just to constantly clean the machines, mats, and floors.  Occasionally, I’ve seen a manager walk behind them, checking their work.

The music- very loud.  It is a great beat for running, certainly.  But very difficult to hear my PT talking.  At night, it takes on a club-like experience, playing the latest songs from Lady Gaga, etc.  I believe it is mostly American music, or music with a good beat and no words, but today I heard Sheila Ki Jawani, which is this incredibly popular song in India right now.  Half the words are in English, so I’ve caught on to that song, at least.  I of course, am the master at brutally messing up the words of songs, so rather than singing along the name Sheila, I sing ‘She-Ra’, which makes me smile each time I hear the song (probably 4 times a day). 

One difference is certainly the people.  There are extremely buff men walking around, just like any Gold’s gym.   Something that at first really amused me was that some men were wearing winter stocking caps.  But I THINK these must be men who are religious and must cover their hair.  I’ll ask at some point. I guess the knit hat stays on better when working out.  The men seem like they are in pretty good shape.   Even so, you still don’t see too many men running.  For the most part, you see people on the treadmills walking.   Walking, and talking on their cell phone at the same time. 

The women, for the most part, are not as physically fit LOOKING as they are at a Gold’s in the States.  There are some super fit, super strong, awesome at kickboxing women, but you don’t see such skinny, pure muscle women like you’d see at a Gold's in the US.  Of course, I’ve only been to the gym a handful of times.  Again, I haven’t really seen any women running.  Most are walking on the treadmills. They are walking, with their waist length hair swaying back and forth, because very few women seem to tie their hair up here.  There is a spin room, for cycling, so I’d guess people work out quite hard in there, but I haven’t seen it in action.  You also, occasionally, see a woman working out in her salwar kameez. 

But overall, it looks very much like a Gold’s in the US. The people seem really nice and polite inside, too. Much more so than out in the general world.  I guess it is true that working out makes you happy.  So the atmosphere in Gold’s India feels very much the same.  The biggest difference is just the number of employees walking around, wanting to help you.  There are at least 10-15 trainers walking around.  They will correct your form, encourage you, etc.   So that is quite nice.

So how did my session go? 

It was great!  I started with a 10-minute walk to warm up.  We went into working my back, arms, shoulders, and chest.  He makes me sporadically do jumping jacks, run stairs (those kill), and jump rope, too.  Which is good, because usually I never get my heart rate up!   We did lower back and sit-ups.  He stretches you, rather than you stretching yourself, which is wonderful. Amazingly wonderful. They also sort of crack your back each time, which I love.  I feel like I’m in less pain already with my back, after only a week.    Then I did an elliptical-like machine for 15 minutes.  In total, I guess I was working out for nearly 1 hour, 45 minutes, rather than the 1-hour the session is supposed to be.  I’m sweated like a pig and loved it!  

My PT did tell me to lay off the buttered chicken leftovers that I’ve been eating, though!  

My PT seems really nice, I like him.  He is the same age as me, been training/working out professionally since he was 16, is married (his wife is a teacher, too) and he has pet fish and birds.  He also only sleeps 4 hours per night.  So he is the 3^rd or 4^th Indian to tell me that.  I’m starting to REALLY believe we have the sleep thing wrong in the States…  

I have a tendency to grimace when working out.  If it is hard to do the rep, I clench my teeth; sort of growl- you know the drill.   But my PT told me that it is really bad.  He said that when women do that, they get square faces.  Now, personally, I always thought female bodybuilders have square faces because they were on steroids.  So if anyone else has an opinion on that matter, I’d like to hear it.  It was just the first time I’d ever heard it….   So I am supposed to smile throughout the workout.  That is ridiculously hard to do.   But I snuck a peek around at the other women, and they were indeed smiling.  So it must be a common thing to do here.  That, or just everyone loves being at the gym!