This is a hard one to answer.  Over the last 6 months I have been intensely working out at home, heck I started working out at home when I was 14 or 15 years old.  Way back when, my parents had this crazy home gym they bought from sears.  I think it had 120lbs of weight attached to a bunch of pulleys and cables.  You could bench,  curl, and do lat pull downs, and I used that thing until I outgrew it.   Then I was introduced to the gym at my school.  Always full of high schools football players and wrestlers, can you say testosterone fest?  That was not for me, so my parents got us a membership at Gene Weisse Racquet Time, and this was it!  Great equipment, a good about of space, FREE WEIGHTS!  I was there as often as I could be working out, tanning (yes, I know), and of course playing racquet ball.  (This is where I learned the “killer sit-ups from hell!”)

From that point on I loved the gym, felt at home in one.  There is a certain scent that all gyms acquire, a feel of the Olympic bars, the old weights, maybe I am weird, but I loved it.  (Maybe still do)  Don’t get me wrong, I never wanted to spend all my time in the gym, but I did look forward to going.  Even through college I frequented the gym.  I had great friends/work out partners to crush routines with, and it showed.  Many times when I was in class, I would of much rather been in the gym.  (go figure)

After college I was introduced to the really commercial gyms, and thus the shine began to dull.  There is nothing more annoying for a gym rat than having to wait for equipment.  Especially when you have now gotten a misguided sense of elitism because you “know what the hell you are doing and they are just going to hurt themselves.”  (Me conceited at times?  No f’en way)  So the number of people was annoying, but the chicks who were wearing make up to the gym, that was the end of it for me.  I could not take it anymore, and I was back to looking for small local gyms.

So, it is years and many gyms later (and I should mention that I have weights and a Soloflex at home as well) and even going to a local gym was a pain.  When I was working at NetApp and the gym was a 30 second walk from the office it was great to use, but if I had to drive anywhere, well that got old quick.  When I moved to “The City” (Not a Tick reference, I mean San Francisco) I joined a gym that is 16 blocks away from my house.  I liked the gym, it is old, and sparsely populated with people, but it is to far to walk, I didn’t want to ride my bike, parking in that area sucked, and I found myself going less and less.  Finally I got rid of my membership.

This led to me losing even my usually fit self.  (damn gym!)  A year went by, then almost 1.5 where I was working out at home, but my intensity was dropping almost weekly.  The Soloflex is good, even great for some exercises, but I was missing the self motivation that I had at the gym.  Maybe it was all the muscle heads that inspired me, or just the atmosphere, I don’t know.  But I had lost it.

Oddly this is where my current fitness program begins, and it started out on shaky ground.  You have all seen the P90X infomercials on TV.  90 days to a ripped and healthy you!  (Yeah, right I thought)  Who the hell does Tony Horton think he is?  He doesn’t know more than me about working out.  Fuck that guy, I can put a program together just as good for myself.  So I did.  A 90 day workout routine which I followed for maybe 35-40 days before it fizzled away.  (And I did see good improvements!)  So, what good would P90X be?  What did it really have to offer?

Strangely, the one thing I have been losing for years.  Something to motivate me, something to help me kick my own ass.  This is what Tony Horton, P90X and the Beach Body Team could give me that I didn’t have in myself.  And, it just happened to be a KICK ASS program.  I am motivated by old school lifting, stretching, and hard training, this had all of it.

So, now I am working out at home 6 days a week, and though I do miss some aspects of the gym, I find I like showering at home a bazillion times more than in any scungy gym shower.  (especially the communal showers which creep me the fuck out)

So do I miss the gym?  Not as much as I thought I would.

-Rob