Starting March 17th, 2021


Gyms in Oregon have opened up again!

There wasn’t any announcements that I saw – Just one day, going for my run, I saw the lights on in the gym.

Like a barfly returning to a pub after getting kicked out, I hesitantly crept my way toward the door… the warm light calling me, and the clanking of weights beckoning from the quiet evening.

(Editors note: You can’t actually hear the clanking of weights from the first floor of Ben’s gym. I don’t know why he’s being poetic tonight, but please bear with him on his artistic license)

As I cautiously pulled open the front door, the gym staff called out an enthusiastic greeting. I returned it, and quickly learned that gyms had actually been allowed to open and this wasn’t just the imagination of someone completely sick of cardio… if you can call slow runs around my apartment complex, combined with 30min sets of dancing in the livingroom, cardio.

I started back in that very night.

I’d been thinking about what to do, once the gyms opened again, but didn’t quite have a plan laid out just yet… so instead, I lightly tested myself. I did a few reps of everything, feeling how my body reacted to the extremely light weights that I tested myself with. Bench pressing the bar, curling the lightest weights, squatting and deadlifting in the assisted machine, and even trying a few cable pulls.



Going forward, I’ll have a full plan laid out. A rotation of bench, lats, squats, and deadlifts. Bookended with cardio, to make up for the Saunas still being closed, and staggered out as best as I’m able.

Slowly, I’ll build my core back up, and hopefully (finally) fully recover from the pulled nerve that I got right at the beginning of COVID.

2021 is going to be a good year, I can feel it.