I distinctly remember, oh so long ago, having legs. Definitely. I can picture them now, dangling beneath me and providing a crude form of propulsion.

That time seems so long ago now. At the moment, instead of legs, I possess a pair of almost completely useless - and rather achy - limbs. While they are the shape of legs, they are certainly not functionally the same.

Today, as it happens, was the first time I used the gym at work. Over a year and a half after starting at my job - a job that included access to an extremely well equipped gym in the building - I’ve finally made it in to the gym for a resistance session.

I put off going to the gym for a while, preferring to start my road to fitness by stopping smoking, drinking smarter, sleeping better, improving my diet, playing more squash and racketball and following a basic running plan. It’s been a busy past year, but I’ve still got a long way to go before I’d consider myself in decent shape.

Going to the gym is certainly a good way to get some highly specific and targeted exercise, and it’s even better when it’s free, so I’d always planned to use it in some way, but really didn’t (and still don’t) know what I want from it. I have no ambition to pack on mountains of muscle, but a little wouldn’t hurt. I certainly want to shed some fat and improve my fitness.

I think I’ll just go with the flow for the first few weeks and then look at creating (or having created) a fitness plan that targets those specific things, rather than drift aimlessly.

So today we did some strength training - and it was all about legs. The machines look rather like devices of torture, but so far have been simple enough to use. They can all be used to target different areas, and I can vouch for the effectiveness of that - there’s no muscle group in my legs that doesn’t hurt.

Three things that will prove interesting …

1. I’m told that the real pain won’t kick in until tomorrow or maybe friday. I can’t wait.

2. I joined the league at my local squash club and am now into month 2 of that. My next game is … tomorrow. I hope I’m in a state to have a decent game, but right now it does not look hopeful.

3. Friday is my next session, and rumour has it that could be an arms and chest strength session. If it’s anything like today’s session, I’ve probably got a weekend of being unable to perform simple tasks to look forward to. Blog posts may be thin on the ground!