Six months ago I took a serious review of my weight and girth and decided to join a health club. Having spent some enjoyable weeks gathering information and feeling all good and positive, I choose West Wood in Sandymount, which is a convenient distance from where I live.

When I visited, the club appeared new and clean and offered the usual scenario of classes and gymnasium equipment, the latter, I must admit even then, leaving me with a cold feeling inside.

However, the hook that caught this fish lay in the basement of the club where hides a dreamy 25 metre heated salt water pool with poolside hydrotherapy jets, beautifully tiled Turkish bath and caldarium, and a well fitted sauna.

The Club offers a good deal for the over 55s and I signed up immediately, committing myself to monthly contributions of €45 for one year with a registration fee of €130. That is, for me, a hefty financial commitment.

A ‘One 2 One’ with a trainer helped identify my various weaknesses and needs, establish some ‘realistic goals’ and lay down the appropriate gym programme for me to attain these.
My own first ‘realistic’ goal was to learn to swim. I arranged a lesson with Esme, a wonderful teacher, who had taught my son to swim way back in another era, and who still offers her teaching skills in Marian Pool.

I had always loved being in the water but could never manage the breathing bit of the swimming and found the breast stroke torture on my body. After a single one-to-one with Esme I had garnered sufficient corrective tips about my swimming to go it alone.

Initially I enthusiastically approached the gym to follow my programme. But the original ‘cold feeling’ reappeared and would not be shifted. Over the weeks and indeed months, I tried and tried to convince myself that these sessions in the gym were ‘good’ for me, I reminded myself to ‘remember’ how it would be to lose that superfluous weight, to increase energy levels, to gain the promised strength and flexibility.

During all this period each time I went to the pool, my body did a complete turnaround. My aches and pains dissolved with the hydrotherapy, my heart raced gleefully in the new swiftness with which I tread water and all ills fell away when I lay me down in the glorious wet heat of the Turkish bath followed by the soothing dry warmth of the Caldarium where one can lie prone on the comfortingly heated tiled bench. Hours would fly by like minutes in these hedonistic pleasures.

I had a second session with a trainer to discuss my progress. I wafted lyrical about the slight weight loss and my feeling of greater well-being.

Not diverted by this, the trainer asked how my development went in the gym, I stuttered some nonsense about not having the time, and was reprimanded. “Most people,” she said “do not like going to the gym but to gain results it is necessary.” I meekly acquiesced, was given a new regime and led by the hand, as it were, to the gym where this enthusiastic and determined young lady accompanied me through the workings of my prescribed machines with instructions of great precision and deliberation.

I murmured my thanks and resolved to try again before I slunk gratefully away to the pool. After a few more tearful tries and much inner debating I eventually threw my guilt about the gym to the proverbial winds and now just go all out to enjoy my newfound relationship with water.

For those of you with better resolve, West Wood offers along with the gym routine a plethora of classes to support and enhance physical dynamism. For example, Body Balance which claims to incorporate a mix of Thai Chi, Pilates and Yoga; Box Circuit to burn away the fat; Body Pump which combines weight training with aerobic conditioning and Body Attack, the ultimate cardiovascular challenge.

You could also climb the perpendicular thirteen-metre high indoor climbing wall or pay extra to the new ‘Re:Fresh’ Spa where it is promised Thalassotherapy, salt water treatment, will work wonders for one’s overall well-being.