Thursday, 29 December 2016

Beating Old Gym Records: Result!

A photo posted by Matt Tuckey (@matttuckey) on


A month ago I set myself a gym challenge- to beat 10 of my longest-standing personal bests at the gym. A lot of these records dated back to the summer of 2012, on movements that I'd since neglected- either through not trying at all after the initial attempt, or failing on so much that I gave up and moved onto other movements.

A month has passed, I've put in the graft (until the Christmas period, of course, where I've eaten so much I've probably undone all the improvements) and I've set some new PBs. What are they?

Wide grip chinups- 1 more
10 minute walk- 0.1km/ph faster
10 minute reverse cross trainer- 0.04km further
1 hour on cross trainer- 0.33km further

So a few minor improvements, but not as many as I'd been hoping for. The wide grip chin-ups was my oldest-standing record, from June 2012, so it's great to finally bash through that one. I realised, through doing this, that Oldham Community Leisure's new central gym- that has been open over a year- doesn't have a pec deck, so I was only attempting 9 out of 10 of the movements.

I'm not sure how much I weighed in 2012. I remember being 68kg when I moved out in 2010, and I ballooned upwards over the years to 80kg a few months ago. I'm now down to 72kg (or I was on the 23rd. Dreading getting back on the scales.) I can lift a lot more these days, so some of it will be muscle, but I never got my 6-pack back after leaving the parents' gaff.

Let's see what happens in the new year. I have another month-long gym project in the pipeline that you might want to give a shot yourself.

No comments: