My First Gym in Latin America

About 18 days ago, I joined my very first gym ever in Latin America.

Now, to be fair, you could change the title from “first gym in Latin America” to “first gym ever.”

Granted, I did go to the gym in college because they had some gym available that any student could attend without paying anything (outside of insane tuition prices, right?).

Anyway, ever since I finished college and began living in Mexico, I never really did the gym at all.

However, there did come a moment where I missed doing something physical and did buy some gym weights to have laying around.

However, if I’m being honest, I grew past them pretty quick.

One was a simple 50 pound barbell for basic weight lifting and another 20 pound dumbbell that I used often for doing the farmers walk up and down the stairs.

Something you can see here.

Anyway, doing exercises at home kept me from ever getting fat thankfully despite my heavy liquor consumption over the last year.

If I had mixed my liquor with soda shit like coca cola or whatever on the regular, I’m sure I’d be fat as shit.

Thankfully, my parents raised me on black tea and so that was the natural mix for my liquor over the last year.

Therefore, I didn’t gain any real weight despite drinking a SHIT TON over the last year.

I like to think that part of my luck there also was because I always had a few gym weights at home to do shit with to not gain too many pounds.

Still, there’s only so much you can do with a 50 pound barbell and 25 pound dumbbell.

Not much muscle development.

More effective for doing exercises to sweat and not gain unwanted weight.

So I joined my first gym ever in Latin America about 18 days ago.

Let’s get to it.

The Gym in Pedregal de Santo Domingo

 As I wrote here, I decided to take the last month to focus less on writing and more on getting shit done to improve my life.

Which is ironic because I am posting this article along with more than a dozen more at the same time.

Still, what I wanted to get done was done and I didn’t feel as much pressure to post something after a few days of not updating my website.

And so one of those things that I always wanted to get around to doing was finally sign up to some local gym in Mexico City where I live now.

Funny enough, the gym I signed up to is now on the opposite end of Mexico City.

Where it happens to be located in an area of Mexico City on the far south side called Pedregal de Santo Domingo.

About 4 or 5 days ago, I moved to the far north side to an area called Lindavista.

So not proper timing there, huh?

Still, there’s two gyms I know about that are about 15 minutes walking distance from me.

On top of that, I paid for that month at the gym in Pedregal at the beginning of September.

I got another 12 days of membership left there until I’d have to pay for another month.

So I’m using it, damn it!

And I am.

Yesterday, I made sure to travel from Lindavista to Pedregal to go to that gym.

I don’t waste pennies.

It’s about 40 minutes on the metro away but I don’t have to change metro lines to get there.

So it’s not that big of a pain in the ass to get to.

Anyway, what’s the gym like?

My Experience in the Pedregal Gym

Well, it only costs about 20 bucks more or less per month.

Fairly cheap.

Here’s a photo of it as you can see here.

And here’s a photo of what the inside of the gym looks like.

So my observations?

First, the gym plays pretty good music.

They either use classical rock normally to reggaeton viejo.

Not the new shit usually but older shit.

Which I like!

Songs like these played there not too uncommon.

Second, they have some tech that checks my finger prints to be allowed inside.

When I saw they had that, I thought that’s kinda progressive, no?

Enough time in Latin America has left me impressed anytime I see better tech used that I wouldn’t expect down here.

Especially in the neighborhood where this gym is at as it’s not the nicest neighborhood of Mexico City.

Third, is it motivational?

A friend of mine named Blayde has gone to the gym much longer than I have.

And he remarked to me how “it motivates you to keep at it” at the gym versus working out at home.

I have to agree.

For some reason, I find myself “more in the motion” to keep at it while at the gym versus working out at home.

Plus, I’ve seen more Latinas with nicer asses at the gym than I’ve seen typically in the broader population of Mexico City over the last month.

For some reason, the women ain’t bad at this gym!

That does motivate me quite a bit – “shit, if I can lift this, maybe she’ll call me papi!”

Fourth, is the equipment good?

I thought so!

Granted, keep in mind that I’m not the biggest gym expert.

On my first day there, I was a little bit confused as to how certain machines worked initially.

But it became easy to get in a quick second.

Either way, I’m happy with the machines they got as someone who is trying new shit out.

Fifth, are loud noises OK?

I’m not a gym expert but I’ve heard some gyms don’t like it when you make loud noises when working out.

It’s been my experience here that the gym doesn’t seem to give a shit what type of exercises you do or how loud you are.

Sixth, any results?

Well, I’ve only been at this for the last 18 days.

So I’m not ready to fight Apollo Creed just yet.

Still, perhaps because of the TRT or whatever, I have noticed some minor changes in my arms.

But obviously not anything major.

Still, I’ll keep at it.

Soon enough, I’ll probably be checking out gyms in the area near me so I don’t have to travel 40 minutes one way to get to the gym.

As I said, there’s a few.

When I walked out of this gym not too long ago, I bought a chicken sandwich near the metro and took some photos of the neighborhood.

Here they are for people not familiar with Pedregal.

Overall, I’ve felt working out has been a good start so far.

I’ve been doing it at the same time that I’ve cut down significantly on my liquor intake.

And so far it’s going good.

Anyway, that’s all I got to say.

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And thanks for reading.

Best regards,

Matt