I'm Doing the Fly

 

At the rear delt/fly machine -- my accomplishment for 2023 

At the moment this picture was taken I wasn't actually doing the fly, and I'd finished my sets for both the day and 2023. But while I was using the rear delt/fly machine I realized that this may be perhaps my single best accomplishment of the year. 

I've been doing strength training for the last nine years. I took some breaks with a broken shoulder in 2017, hip replacement in 2019, during the pandemic when the Y was closed and in the fall of 2022 when I overdid the leg press and had a stress fracture in my knee. But this winter after finishing physical therapy for cervical stenosis, I returned to strength training, with tremendous encouragement from my beloved physical therapist, Sally. 

I started with lower weight and less repetitions and with familiar machines. But as the year went by I increased I slowly -- didn't want to risk the stress fracture again -- I added weight and numbers. I also started looking around the gym for different machines to try for a more interesting workout. My eye always found the rear delt/fly, which works the shoulders and upper back.

    

The machine may have caught my eye, but my mind kept saying no. I didn't see any other women using the machine and generally the guys using it were younger and in great shape. It didn't seem to be the machine for senior citizen women. But it kept calling my name and one day in the summer, I asked one of the staff how to use it. He showed me and encouraged me and I started to use it when no one else was around, generally resetting the weight from 100 pounds (and more) to twenty pounds. 

I'm still at twenty pounds, though I'm thinking it's time to move to twenty-five pounds next visit. I don't see any definition in my back, despite what the articles I've been reading promise. But all that said I've claimed the machine and I'm no longer trying to do it "secretly," i.e., when no one else is in the weight room. I'm proudly doing the fly.  

It may be a small accomplishment, but I'll take it. It's my accomplishment for 2023. As I've written before I was always one of the last picked in elementary school gym classes for years. I've never excelled in any sport and until I retired and joined the Y I never thought I would be a gym regular. But I happily am. Do I always enjoy going? Definitely not, but I always enjoy having been there. It never fails to amaze me that this is one of my favorite activities of my senior years. 

Has anyone else taken on new activities in the last few years? Are you now a Pilates regular, learning a new language or painting? 

I'll be back tomorrow with New Year's wishes, and in the interim enjoy the last day of 2023.

As ever, thanks for visiting and take good care.