Trigger warning. This post about about the “E” word (exercise). 🙂

I went back to the gym yesterday for the first time in a long time. It’s only an 18 minute walk from my house. They were also having a sports events for the holiday – we’re in the middle of Golden Week.

Last year I had sort of an accident with Pao when he pulled super extra hard and I fell down. My arm was killing me. I went to two doctors. It was initially diagnosed as a rotator cuff tear and I was advised to not overly exert it. It wasn’t getting better and I went to a larger hospital and they determined it was osteoarthritis of the shoulder. That doctor actually advised more motion, which corresponds to my own experience.

It hurt for a long time, and I stopped going to to the gym, but I noticed the last few months it rarely hurts at all. I was feeling like “getting something done” yesterday so I said goodbye to Pao after a short walk (it’s gotten warmer so he doesn’t like very long afternoon walks), put my gym stuff together and walked over to the ward sports center.

Yesterday was Greenery Day (today is Children’s Day, and Tuesday will be an extra Greenery Day holiday since it fell on the weekend) and there were all sorts of events going on.

Everybody at the gym was friendly as usual and I worked out on 4 machines. Plus I used the treadmill for a while.

I did three reps of 10 on each one. The only weird problem I had was with one machine where you push up on weights, lifting them over your head. For some reason I could do it with my right arm. And my left arm. But I couldn’t do them both at the same time. I just didn’t have the strength. A staff person tried to help me and (for him) easily brought them over my head but gently lowered them when I couldn’t sustain them at that height. Yet one at a time there was no problem. So I’m going to continue reps on that one and build up some missing strength there.

Mentally it was refreshing to get out of the house, take an extra walk, and actually move!

Here are some photos from the visit.

Before going out I took Pao for a walk. My neighbors were at the corner chatting and said hello. It has gotten warmer, so Pao only wanted to stay out for about 30 minutes. Kogita-san (left) is the owner of one of Pao’s sisters (Komachi) and Yoshida-san (sitting, on the right) owns another of Pao’s sisters (Anchiru). Masuda-san, in the middle, lives next door to me. At 96 years of age she’s amazingly active.

When I arrived at the sports center I could see a festival of some sort was going on.

Me at one of the exercise machines in the training room inside.

The stadium was full of people cheering on some sort of sporting event.