One of the things I keep hearing about is that I should incorporate more weight training in my exercise routine.

To be fair, exercise is something I’ve been doing most of my life but most of the time I’m half hearted about it, in that, I’m not obsessed by it.

It is what it is.

If I miss a day or two, I’m not going to lose sleep over it. If I miss a week, I’ll feel like shit but I know I’ll get back into it in some way with some physical activity.

In my earlier years, I had to keep relatively fit because of annual physical fitness tests and medical and health scans – part and parcel with working in the Navy. I think a part of my health is also due to growing up with great meals prepared by my mum with lots of salads, proteins, greens, olive oil and dairy. A Mediterranean diet which I have still continued to this day.

I have over the years, been a gym member of countless gyms, swum countless laps in local swimming pools and even tried alternative classes like dance classes, Tai Chi, Yoga, Meditation, Combat and Pump. The ones I enjoyed the most were anything that resembled martial arts which I loved. All that kicking and punching was a great stress relief for me.

Dancing? Well, I was just plain unco.

Besides, you had to do these swirly moves with your hips and and seriously, that is NOT me.

Why twirl your hips when you can pretend to punch someone between the eyes? Or side kick them to the chest? Besides I know what I’d like to do when I’m being accosted by some creepy man behind me in the street. It’s not going to be a samba move. (Although the way I do it would frighten them off).

(The swing classes were not included in this though. Swing classes were the BEST – all that jiving, lindy hops, charleston – the BEST! Pity there weren’t many of theses classes in the gym but nights out doing this were a spectacular sight. I always used to think that I had stepped in through the doors of the club and gone back in time to 1942 with all the young people dressed of the time, being thrown up in the air, twirled by their partners – and the music – loved the music. I never continued with it because I couldn’t find a partner – and now that I have a husband who was an ex-dancer, I never dance. Go figure).

Anyway, I digress.

The other classes I enjoyed was Meditation and Tai Chi. The first one because you could lie down and fall asleep (which is what happened a few times). Tai Chi was graceful, serene but at times, I felt the moves were too difficult as I tried to concentrate on my own movement as well as follow others. In the end, that too, didn’t continue but I found Qigong instead which I love now.

Yoga? Yoga was okay but it never really did much for me mainly because it always felt I was an interloper in a room of nimble, sinewy people who raved about it like a cult. Holding poses for so long hurt my shoulders and in all honesty, I used to leave yoga feeling a little deflated as if I hadn’t really got anything out of it except pain in my shoulders. I always felt I was missing something with yoga. It was good not having to wear shoes though.

What I really loved the most was Aqua Aerobics.

Aqua aerobics for some reason is now what senior citizens seem to do. I remember doing a lot of these sessions at the local pool being the only young one surrounded by people 50+ years older than me. I loved it. It was fun. I even bought those swimming pool shoes so that I didn’t slip and slide and when the moves were active enough, there’d be a lot of splashes and laughter.

What I also liked about it is that the people there knew each other and they TALKED to each other and shared snippets of how their day or week was before they all spied the instructor heading our way and yelling out “Good Morning!” before gently lowering themselves in the pool (meanwhile I’d jump in and cause a splash and then be told off as something like, “ah the youth is wasted on the young!”)

However one thing I’d never gotten into is – pumping weights which is something I need to do more of now.

Sure I’ve used the different weight equipment over the years and had programs made. One time, I even had a coach. However, I found pumping weights UTTERLY BORING. The repetitions. Looking at your form in the mirror – the LAST place you’d want to look at in the gym. Having to be in the area with other men looking at you. (When I was younger, I was self-conscious about this. Not now. Now, I couldn’t give a shit about this being more outspoken and glaring at them when they don’t have a towel and they’re dripping sweat everywhere. Besides, most of them are on their phones. I have been known to point out their sweat drops and put up my hands as a ‘what the hell?’ gesture and roll my eyes)… ah the freedom of being a 53 yo woman now.

Anyway, weights. Nope. Not for me.

Now, people (mainly my doctor and YouTube Influencers) are telling me that I must pump weight because I’m a “woman of a certain age”. Forget trying to run 5k or 10 kms (which I recently achieved to test out if I could still do it) or cardio exercise but I should be upping the weight training and building muscle which will burn calories.

Argh. Cardio just makes me feel good with those endorphins.

So this is what has been on my mind a lot and I’ve been exploring GumTree and even got back on Facebook Marketplace to see if I can score myself a set of second hand dumbbells (do you know how expensive they are?!).

I’ve been trying to find a decent app that includes some workouts to follow and I have found WorkOut for Women on iTunes which is fantastic. The free version allows you 3 workouts every day and I’ve been doing those for the last few days in the evenings. They work up a bit of a sweat and they all vary in length so you can incorporate it into your day anytime.

Of course, I also have a couple of parks and the excellent outdoor gym (I recently wrote about that here) that I can use to do some weight work although I will need to look at buying those dumbbells sometime.

Another person I follow on YouTube and do her workouts (although they are HARD and she incorporates callisthenics) is Claudia Girvan. She’s amazing. I followed her ever since she started on YouTube just before the pandemic and her following ballooned out to the millions in a short time. It seems there’s a new video every day (Frankly, I don’t know how she fits in exercise and editing every day).

If I get my dumbbells, I’m going to just do her programs and see how I go.

This morning, it was grey, wet and dark outside so instead, I did a couple of workouts from the WorkOut Women app that got me sweating and afterwords, a qigong session to calm down and prepare myself for a day of work.

So let’s see how it goes being my own ‘free agent’ when it comes to exercise. There’s such a variety of things to do, people to follow, apps to download and basically create any program under the sun that you want to create.

We live in a time with so many choices – all available at our fingertips and all easily accessible.