Saturday 22 August 2015

Face Up Fitness: A Gym With a View and Saying Goodbye to Training Holidays

   
Getting back into training after a break is painful – literally! Just a week off from the gym always has my body complaining bitterly when I’m next pressing those dumbbells, walking those lunges and working those push-ups. And I know I’m not alone!

It’s in my quads where I always feel it the most – walking down stairs with downward pressure into the muscle is particularly killing. It’s partly why I don’t like to take a break from training unless I can help it. I say partly because the other ‘half’ of the reason is that I’m *healthily* obsessed with the gym, and usually only miss a session when I’m ill in bed!

But my last enforced break came a few weeks back while in Spain. If you read my last Face Up Fitness post (the one on motivation here), you’ll know that I lost my training mojo during my Summer hols this year after a leg injury prevented me from doing my usual morning run. The presence of a swimming pool, yoga mat, training diary and good pre-holiday intentions to exercise in the apartment did little to help my frame of mind!

Then, as I was writing the aforementioned motivational post, I decided to take a piece of my own advice and check out the local gym (above). Said gym belongs to a rather posh yachting club, Real Club Nautica, and I’d always previously assumed that walk-in trainers wouldn’t be welcome there. How wrong I was!

Real Club Nautica in Denia is all geared up to accepting day members. A few cents over 7 Euros bought me a day pass and access to a very well appointed gym with a vast array of cardio equipment, resistance machines and free weights. The changing/showering facilities were perfunctory, it has to be said, but not a deal breaker.

But what really sold this gym to me was the setting. Just look at that view! The cardio equipment was set before a large plain glass window overlooking the marina. Wow! Now that is something I don’t get back home!

I’ve used cardio equipment before with screens you can programme to simulate a mountain pass ride or a trek through beautiful English countryside, but this was the real deal – I saw actual sailing yachts coming into dock as I passed the 5 minute mark on my bike, then the 10 minute, 15, 20… ok, slight exaggeration – but only slight!  

Which brings me on to why I decided to write this post. If you’re about to go on hols and getting all worked up about an enforced ‘training holiday’, then don’t be! In all likelihood there’s a gym around the corner from your villa that would welcome you with open arms just like the Real Club Nautica did with me.

Five Other Ways to Avoid a Training Holiday:
-    Take an early morning or early evening run  
-    Swim if access to a pool
-    Hire a bike if the roads aren’t too dangerous
-    Use the hotel gym if it has one
-    Hill walk (check first for difficulty level and ensure you take plenty of water with you!)    
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