Those that have only known me in the last few years may be surprised to know, but I used to be relatively fit. I would attend the gym at least three times each week (sometimes as many as five times) and would also take twice weekly Wing-Tchun classes in Newport.

Alas, due to a lack of interest in Newport the kung fu classes were moved to Cardiff (and I didn’t drive at the time) and life decisions best left alone here resulted in me moving away to Reading and beginning the next chapter of my life, a professional career in Internet marketing.

As with most people working online, my daily exercise began and ended with the twice daily trip to the vending machine for some Frazzles, or a packet of ‘Snowflakes’ (which ruined Jon’s figure, but that’s another story). My days of going to the gym and lifting weights ‘I really I shouldn’t have been allowed to unsupervised’ were well behind me, and the middle aged paunch began to set it – aged 24.

Anyhow, ten years on and now living in Manchester, or Lancashire (depending on your understanding of the every changing counties in England) I’m finding myself yearning for the days when I used to be fairly healthy and I could take my shirt off near a swimming pool without feeling as though I had something to hide (18 inch scar on my back notwithstanding).

So, I’m looking at possibly joining a gym again, maybe doing some other form of exercise such as pilates, or even taking up Wing-Tchun once more. The only thing worrying me about the gym is that my last attempt to rejoin, while initially successful in terms of buffness (if that’s a word) it also affected my back and caused me to seriously injure myself on a rowing machine… I know, I was probably doing wrong. I’ve looked at the different types of pilates classes in Lancashire and I’ve found it, on first glance, to be a more serene form of exercise without the impact to the bones and muscles that you’d get from the gym.

Then of course there’s kung fu. While I’d love to get back into that I think I may have to get fit in order to do it, rather than do it to get fit.

Then again, is this a desperate attempt to recapture youth rather than an informed and well educated decision to regain some much needed fitness?

Darren Jamieson

Darren Jamieson, aka MrDaz, is the Technical Director and co-founder of Engage Web and has been working online in a career spanning two decades. His first website was built in 1998 and is still live today.

    

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