For decades, and with no guilt whatsoever, I was able to walk past the bar bells and weights at the gym. My detour around the weight room was my own personal program of resistance training. I resisted it.

Frankly, I never got the whole grunting and preening business that I associated with strength training. What's with all the mirrors? I surely didn't want to personally watch the spectacle I knew would be me lifting weights. Also persistent was the fear that some rippled young lady at the next station might be bench pressing 3-times my weight while I sweated bullets on the equivalent of a broom handle.

But, back then, my time at the gym was pretty unproductive. I had no clue how to use the seemingly random collection of equipment. There was everything from high tech cardio stuff to stationary bikes that rattled and wheezed. None of it came with instructions.

Regular users of the gym I go to have a well practiced, eyes averting routine of selfreliance. They all enter the exercise area wearing earphones in place. The earphones give them immunity from questions which their dumber neighbors, ie: me, might pose.

Had anyone been available for questions, my first one might have concerned the treadmill. I'm used to treadmills that are basically a fast moving belt upon which you huff it. But the newer treadmills do not come with off/on capacity. They must be programmed. For some reason my solo attempts at the treadmill always wound up involving mountain climbing. I'd start off without problem. Then suddenly, the equivalent of Mount Everest would appear on the screen before me. Up the treadmill surface would tilt and I'd be on the ascent of an experience way more involved then I intended.

All this confusion was pre- Jerry.

Jerry is the personal trainer that works with people at this particular gym. He gives classes and individual instruction. He also gives a session on how to use the equipment. That's how I met Jerry.

When someone asks me how I can pay to have someone exercise with me - I respect the question. I respect it because I ask it of myself on a regular basis. The simple answer is that a session with Jerry is much cheaper than a day missed at work over a bad back. And frankly, now I get "it."

I understand the machines, I see the value of weight training. Jerry has been my educator on really simple stuff like stretching, posture and breathing - stuff I managed to avoid in Life 101.

Recently the gym where Jerry and I met was shut down for renovation. This has left the two of us kind of rambling around looking for areas to use for work out sessions. We've done Pilates in the park - dew and dogs can be a challenge. We've done push ups on the patio - keep that chin up or you'll regret it.

To stay with the resistance training, Jerry has purchased a new contraption invented by parachute troops stationed out in the desert. It seems that these folks had a lot of time on their hands. They used that time to invent exercise routines out of pieces of their parachutes.

So Friday morning, there Jerry and I are in the kids' park with the equivalent of the world's largest rubber band. Jerry has looped this rubber band around bars of the juggle gym - somehow, he has also looped the rubber band around me.

Small inquisitive children appear from nowhere to witness what may be a space launch of...me.

Suffice it to say that folks stuck in the desert with only parachute for amusementwell they need to carry a paperback book along for some diversion. I was wound and sprung and unwound, as well as launched.

At the end of the session Jerry said I might "feel it" the next day. And he was correct.

It made climbing a mountain via a treadmill seem appealing.