Everything in the gym was alien to me. There were weights, kettle balls(weights with handles), squishy balls, hard balls, straps, ropes, bars, pulleys and a variety of adjustable swing arm pulleys. There were also machines that looked fairly understandable because they had instructive pictures printed on them. Paul said to ignore the machines. He said they didn’t allow a free range of motion and didn’t promote “functional” fitness. The equipment we were going to use had no instructions printed on them. Paul was going to teach me how to use them.

We would have two different routines–A and B. Each would take about 50 minutes. Each would begin with foam rolling. Say what?

The bad news is that the web site for foam rollers says, “what is foam rolling and why does it hurt?” This was not an auspicious start for my poor tight muscles. But it was a beginning nonetheless.