I returned from a vacation in Martinique recently, back to the uncertainties around the Coronavirus crisis.
Earlier in the week I was back at my gym, Jubilee Hall Covent Garden, for the first time since March.
It was something of a learning exercise on several levels to be back on the gym floor after five months; what with the new health and safety guidelines, social distancing and the atmosphere of uncertainty that continues to pervade London, all of which took a certain amount of time to acclimatise to.
I also made that classic rookie error on my return, throwing myself into full-body workouts on three successive days. Eagerness and drive trumps experience and common sense. But, like many people who adapted to the closure of the gyms over the past few months, my enthusiasm to at last be able to use challenging equipment and heavy weights was impossible to contain.
The result of which was a taste of the kind of exhaustion I spend a lot of my time advising those I train (and train with) to avoid at all costs. That exhaustion, coupled with jet lag after a nine-hour westward flight, taught me the value of listening to my own advice!
So, welcome the opening of the gyms, adapt to the strictures in place as much as possible, and look forward to a better and freer future when the world is back fully on its axis.
But control the enthusiasm if you do return to the gym after months being away.
Otherwise, it will punish you!