I joined the gym because my back hurt. I stayed for twenty years because three people changed my life.
After leaving a long career at Boston Scientific, what I find myself missing most isn't the meetings or the milestones—it's the gym. Believe it or not. The basement facility where I showed up, day after day, for almost twenty years. That place, and the people in it, shaped more than my health. They helped shape my life.
I had been a longtime member of the Y, which was great. But when Guidant opened a gym, I decided to join for the convenience. On site, shower facilities, and great equipment setup. It wasn't perfect, but I didn't care. I got on the treadmill and slugged it out for 40 minutes every other day. That served me fine.
But, I had some recurring back pain and I figured a trainer might be able to help me strengthen my back.
Enter trainer one:
During my introductory session, I told her that I just needed to strengthen my back, I didn't need to mess with "all the other stuff."
She didn't mince words on that request: "Nope, that is not how we do it. We will do full body exercises." OK, I figured, I just need a few sessions and tune up and I'll be fine. But for some strange reason, I kept going.
She wasn't interested in shortcuts or quick fixes. "Your back doesn't exist in isolation," she told me during our third session, while I was struggling through a set of planks that made my arms shake. She taught me that stability comes from building a complete foundation. When she moved south a few years later, I realized something unexpected—I wasn't relieved to be done with training; I was worried about losing momentum.
Enter trainer two:
Trainer two took over the gym and my training regimen. I ended up working with her, until she left full time work, for 8 years. Twice, sometimes three times a week. With some of the hardest workouts I've ever endured. I learned "you can't out-run your fork." I learned the art of training, which I keep to this day. I learned breathing, pace, and how much burpees really suck.
When I complained about a plateau—weight not dropping, strength stalling—she handed advised me to use a food journal. That simple directive revealed more about my habits than years of casual attention ever had.
The most valuable thing she gave me wasn't physical—it was mental resilience. During a particularly grueling circuit of mountain climbers and kettlebell swings, I muttered that I was too old for this. "You're not too old," she said, "you're just having a conversation with yourself about being too old. Have a different conversation." That reframing stuck with me far beyond the gym walls. I still keep in contact with her today - and sometimes still train with her.
Enter trainer three:
Trainer three took over my training and I worked with her until I left Boston Scientific. We had an informal agreement. She'd put up with my complaining if I put up with the TRX. She loved the TRX! And boy, I hated it—until I didn't. I actually own one now! I saw a t-shirt recently that said "My trainer can't count." I laughed and thought of Jen. I know she could count, but she could also sense when a few extra reps were going to help.
By the time she became my trainer, I was firmly in my fifties. Recovery took longer. Some movements that once came easily now required modifications. she never made this feel like failure. "We adapt," she would say. When I tore my achilles and needed to rehab both the leg and my mental attitude - she was there for me. I don't know how many workouts we accumulated - hundreds, but they came to be a weekly ritual that I couldn't miss. I moved meetings, came to the gym on vacation days. These sessions were my mental clock.
I'm not a gym bro—or even in that good of shape! But as a podcast junkie, sooner or later you run into Huberman Labs and the like, and you realize that as you get older, it's about the muscle mass. Not just the cardio. This wisdom, delivered through patient instruction over two decades by three remarkable trainers, has been my armor against time.
The magic of the BSC gym wasn't just in the training. It was in the familiar nods from the regulars. The maintenance worker who knew everyone's name and kept everything running. We were a community—all equal under the weight of gravity.
As I clean out my desk at Boston Scientific, I think about what I learned most in that gym: it's the capacity to endure. To show up when it's inconvenient. To trust a process longer than a quarterly cycle.
I belong to a different gym now. It's not the same, but the lessons travel well. When I'm training myself, I hear the voice in my head: shoulders out of your ears, breathe. Breathe.....