YMCA

They're building a new YMCA not far from me, and I've been looking forward to joining when it's done. They'll have a brand new pool and a bunch of other facilities, and membership is supposedly free to Social Security recipients.

But I just realized I can't join.

Not unless they change the name to OMAA.

I joined YMCA and swam at the new Everett Y for a year, until they fired their maintenance company and let the place get gross: milky water, bandaids and hair in the pool, etc.  Hot tub, suit spinner, steam room all out of order for months at a time. Inexcusable.

I changed over to the Mukilteo Y, which is closer to me but an older facility. Luckily they're pretty well maintained.  The people are nice too.

So after swimming daily for about a year, especially after getting Covid, my endurance wasn't getting any better.  I was doing half the laps I did at Everett.

Decided to look into other facilities at the Y.  They have a very extensive weight room, including a series of 14 machines new in 2019 called
eGYM*. These machines remember your height and weight, and adjust themselves automatically when you swipe your badge. They tailor a workout to your strength tests, and remember previous workouts. There are at least four different levels you can exercise at, starting at basic and working up to advanced. They work all the main muscle groups, 20 reps on each machine, which takes about a half hour and is not boring (unlike swimming laps or running on a treadmill or using an elliptical). You can adjust the weights you're presented with, or the number of reps you perform, at any time, and the machines remember your settings. Believe me, you FEEL the workout the next day.

Afterward, it feels good to drop in the pool and swim nice easy laps to stretch out. I don't even feel guilty anymore if I don't make all 40 laps.

Supposedly all this data is collected and you can view it on your phone in the Y app.  I'm having some difficulty getting this to work, but it's not important.  The main thing is I'm exercising a lot more muscle groups now. Even though swimming is probably the BEST  overall exercise for working multiple muscle groups (without straining the joints), it's still repetitive exercise and boring as hell.

Unless some young ladies are in the pool.  Which they generally aren't.


* - the only eGYM facility in Washington State, according to the new December schedule they just published.