There Will Be Sweat

Review: Metropolitan Pool & Fitness Center - Williamsburg, Brooklyn

This is the second nicest pool I’ve come across in the NYC rec centers, after Chelsea. There are only three lanes, but if you can find a time during the day when the pool isn’t crowded and the sunlight is streaming through the skylights, the Metropolitan Pool is beautiful place to swim. When it’s crowded (which is most of the time, as far as I can tell), it turns into a real shitshow.

I’ll be damned if I can figure out the proper lane etiquette here, but it feels like “every man for himself.” There will usually be a combination of slow and fast swimmers in the fast lane (most likely because the slower swimmers don’t want to deal with the abominably slow swimmers in the medium lane), making it difficult to keep a steady pace. The medium lane moves so slow that it’s tough not to pass people when I’m doing kick drills. Just forget about the beginner/slow lane - it’s clogged with so-slow-I-can’t-believe-they’re-afloat swimmers, so there’s no point in even going over there.

The weight room is small and usually crowded, like the pool. It’s got pretty much the same equipment you’ll find at any city rec center - dumbbells, benches, and some machines. While the pool is better, the weight room isn’t as good as the Tony Dapolito Rec Center, which was my home base for a few years. It’s worth noting that they’re really strict here - they won’t let you into the weight room without a towel and they won’t let you into the pool without a swim cap, so plan accordingly.

The showers and locker room are pretty terrible, which is par for the cours with city rec centers. I’m still always wary of catching bedbugs or footfoot from the dirty hipsters here.

Metropolitan Pool & Fitness Center
261 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Review: Netrition.com

Hideous, hard to use, poorly organized site with great prices for all sorts of supplements and nutritional products. So why do I keep ordering from them when interface is such an affront to taste and decency? Aside from the unbeatable prices, shipping is reliable, fast, and well packaged and I haven’t had a single problem with an order over the four years that I’ve been a customer. Of course, they haven’t made a single improvement to the web site in that time either (which is why they only get three stars).

II’ve bought all sorts of junk from them (larabars, Myoplex shakes and bars, multivitamins, etc) and haven’t seen comparable prices anywhere else. I also generally buy in bulk to save money and they usually throw in some free goodies if your order is over $100 - I have a few free t-shirts and shaker cups.

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Review: Tony Dapolito Rec Center - West Village, NYC

Decent weight room, serviceable pool, terrible staff.

The weight room here was my main gym for about 3 years and I made it work. It’s theoretically open year-round…except for the days when it’s inexplicably closed without warning, which gets very frustrating. There’s a decent amount of space, dumbbells from 5lb all the way up to 100lb, benches, and a place to do pullups. However, there’s no place to squat, no rack to allow for overhead lifting, and no good place to even set up a bar for deadlifting or any floor lifts. There are also some basketball courts, a tiny little indoor track that’s usually dotted with buckets to catch the water from the leaking roof, and a “dance room” with a mirrored wall which is great for kung fu practice, jumping rope, burpees, and all sorts of bodyweight stuff. The gym gets a bit crowded during peak hours (weekday evenings) but I was always able to find enough space to get my workout in. Then again, people tend to give me space when I’m doing turkish get ups, dumbbell snatches, burpees, and sweating like a maniac.

The indoor lap pool is open for most of the year. It’s a short pool (23 meters?) which throws off distances when doing a distance-based swim workout, but it’s generally clean and not too crowded. The lifeguards here don’t enforce the swim cap requirement, which warms my heart because I sweat like a horse when I wear a swim cap. Yes, even in the pool. They do like to close the pool early sometimes and if there’s a class going on before adult lap swim, they usually end late. I usually padded the adult swim hours by 15 minutes or so and tried to plan my swims accordingly. In the summer, they drain the indoor pool and force the lap swimmers outside to the neighborhood pool that all the little kiddies piss in. They still maintain adult lap swimming hours in the summer months (morning and evening), but the distance is even shorter (20m?) and it gets so crowded that it’s impossible to swim at times.

The shower situation here is also worth mentioning because it sucks. I used to swim in the mornings before work and apparently a lot of homeless people also use these showers in the morning. Let’s just say that it’s not the most hygienic showering situation (I’ve never even seen anyone cleaning the showers or locker room) so I would usually go home to shower. Hey, I only lived a couple of blocks away.

Despite its shortcomings, I would have given the facility four stars if not for the horrible staff. They close all the time without warning, which in all fairness is not up to the staff, but I got the distinct impression that they enjoyed turning people away when the gym was closed. Maybe that’s why they never posted signs ahead of time? I guess you can’t really complain too much considering the yearly membership costs only $75. That membership also gives you access to ALL city rec centers. I’ve also been to the ones in Williamsburg and Chelsea.

Tony Dapolito Rec Center
7 Carmine St
New York, NY 10014

Review: APT Professional Grade Dip Belt Dipping Belt

I used this belt for weighted dips and weighted pullups for about a year and a half (the stylish black model, which doesn’t seem to be available anymore). It’s a serviceable belt when you’re working with lighter weights (under 100lbs) but traumatized my tender little hips whenever I approached my 1RM for weighted pullups (at about 155lbs). Under the heavy weight, the leather part of the belt would get pretty painful on my hips and leave deep welts/bruises for a few days. Having said that, I really do like the way the belt loads and it’s very easy to load and unload weighted plates. I also like the way the chain crosses over in the front before going through the weight – it feels very stable. I recently upgraded to the Ironmind De Rigeur Dipping Belt, which is way better for going heavy.

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Review: Minetta Playground - Greenwich Village, NYC

This tiny park behind the McDonalds on West 3rd Street has a great little playground for doing pullups, muscle-ups, and all sorts of ups. Of course there’s ample space for other bodyweight exercises, jumping rope, and even an old shed that I used to do handstand pushups on. There’s a lot of foot traffic on this corner, so I generally tried to squeeze my workouts in this park in the early morning because I don’t need a bunch of Belgian tourists gawking at me while I sweat.

Minetta Playground
Entrance on 6th Ave & Minetta Ln
New York, NY 10014

Review: GNC Triple Strength Fish Oil

Most well-informed athletes and trainers recommend supplementing with fish oil, “the most important supplement ever.” I’m supposed to take 9.25g of EPA/DHA per day based on Robb Wolf’s suggested dosage of 1/2g  per 10 lbs of bodyweight (18.5 * .5 = 9.25). With the 900mg in each one of these triple strength capsules, that comes out to about 10 caps a day, much fewer than with most fish oil pills. I’ve been taking 4 with breakfast and 4 before bed since I eat a lot of nuts and  omega-3 eggs and that’s really all I can bear to take.

Since I upped my dose (I used to take 1 pill a day, thinking it was enough!), I’ve had a few unpleasant fishburps. If these continue, I may have to look for another solution to get my omega-3s.

Always check GNC.com before buying these because there’s always some kind of discount or deal going on. I recently bought 2 bottles of 120 pills (which turns out to be a 30 day supply at 8 pills/day) for around $40, substantially less than ‘list price.’

Update: I made the switch to The Very Finest Fish Oil (lemon flavor) from Carlson Labs and I definitely prefer it. Taking a shot of liquid every day is much easier than downing 8 big pills every day.

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Review: Good Calories, Bad Calories

by Gary Taubes

An exhaustive (466 pages) compendium of pretty much all of the major research ever done on diet as it relates to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and the full suite of Western diseases plaguing the modern world. The message is simple – refined carbohydrates and sugars wreak havoc with insulin levels and cause metabolic syndrome and pretty much every physical ailment known to modern man.

If you’re interested in the particulars of what refined carbohydrates do to your body or why the medical profession continues to disregard the facts and continues to prescribe carbohydrates as the foundation of a healthy diet, read up. If you’re just looking for dietary advice, you’d be better served by reading the back cover and maybe the introduction and not buying the book.

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