As a young man growing up in a small Victorian country town, I had never heard of a gym. In those days we walked or rode push bikes everywhere, we climbed trees and mountains, we chased our dogs around the property, we frequently went out rabbiting, or just went for walks in the bush. We got plenty of exercise.

During the decades that have rolled away since then, I have observed the proliferation of gyms spreading like cancers all around every city I have been to. I observed them, but took no notice of them.

Funny places!  People running like hell but getting nowhere, some rowing mechanical boats with nary a drop of water in sight, others contorting themselves into the most peculiar positions into a seeming myriad of enormous shiny machines with cables and weights and pulleys and levers and repeating movements over and over and over and over and … – well, if you have ever peered through the window of a gym, you’ll get the general idea. Funny places!

Some time ago my adult children who are not blessed with drivers’ licences started going to gyms and Dad had to drive them there. So I actually entered the doors of our local gym.

But it was very definitely for the kids; not for Dad!

In September last year I had a stroke.  This meant that I could no longer continue in the parcel delivery job that had me going up and down the front stairs of dozens of Queenslander style houses every day of the week carrying parcels ranging in weight from one to 40 kg. Instead, I was limited to sorting the said parcels in the early hours of every morning so the drivers of the vans could start loading by 05:00 am. The upshot of this change in occupation was that I was getting almost no exercise at all.

I could feel my body getting less and less fit.

Therefore, on Monday this week I had my first thirty-minute session with a personal trainer at the gym.  There was, getting myself into and out of various space-age looking machines and exercising my legs in this one, my arms in the next one, my chest in the next one, and so on.  At one stage as I sat back on a machine where some lifting of weights was involved, there was a giant floor-to-ceiling mirror right in front of me; there I received a real shock when I could plainly see how very large my belly had grown in the months since my stroke. That reflection reminded me how much I needed to continue exercising.  While I could certainly feel that each set of muscles was working hard, I did not feel any pain at all and in no time my half-hour session was over.

During the next few days, I could feel a sensation in my muscles that reminded me they had been working much harder than normal, but I still felt no real pain.  Wednesday morning I awoke with a simultaneous cramp in the quadriceps muscles of both legs.   That was the only actual pain I had.

My second session was yesterday, Friday 8th May 2015, and this time the weights in all the machines had been adjusted to heavier settings and I was expected to do more of each exercise.  Some of the activities were stretching me so far that I had to pause in the middle of the series to rest whichever muscle-group was involved. This time, too, I had my first go at one of those dry land rowing boats; well, not really a boat, but a machine that simulates rowing one. Again, the session seemed to be over in no time – I seemed to have hardly started when my PT said, “Time’s up!”

Today, Saturday, I again feel that sensation that my muscles have been working harder than normal, but still no real pain.

I reckon I shall continue with this gym business and gradually get a much fitter and stronger body.