The Brooklyn Papers / Greg Mango

Coach Bravo: Personal trainer Jason Bravo (right) helps the author maintain proper form as he progresses through the free weight portion of his workout.

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It’s not getting to the gym, it’s getting back to the gym.

That’s the difficulty I’ve always faced in my feeble attempts to workout on a regular basis. The test I put myself through is always simple: workout every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning for one hour without fail. The problem is, I never pass.

"That’s called the all-or-nothing mentality, and it’s typical," said Jason Bravo, my personal trainer for the week courtesy of Eastern Athletic. "Monday always hurts, so you try to find a way out of it. So you say to yourself, ’I’ll do it on Tuesday,’ but you can’t, because Tuesday is all booked already. So then you figure you’ll do it Wednesday, but do it twice as hard to make up for the lost time on Monday.

"But that just makes you afraid to go to the gym Wednesday, because you know it’s going to hurt," said Bravo, a 26 year old in tip-top condition. "So you put it off and put it off until finally you’re sleeping. Thursday comes, and you figure it’s too late in the week to start now, I’ll start fresh on Monday."

In short, an endless cycle of no workouts, and your gym dues down the toilet.

So how do you defeat it?

"You have to have an ’all or something’ mentality," Bravo, the corporate director of sports conditioning (or head personal trainer) at Eastern Athletic, told me. "You have to have a realistic routine that backs off the two-hour commitment. You need something you can do consistently, everyday. When you set up a gameplan you can win, you’ll have positive results."

Last Tuesday, Bravo and I attempted to set up my game plan.

But first, we had to look at the cold, hard facts.

Apparently, and unbeknownst to me, sitting at a desk all day and staring at a computer screen is not considered sufficient exercise - even if you type a couple of stories in the process.

Seven years of this sedentary lifestyle ends up taking its toll - even after cutting out the soda and candy. So let’s just say I wasn’t in the best shape of my life.

"No problem," said Bravo, "we’ll start you slow and get you eating right."

My first workout - on Tuesday morning at 8 am, inside Eastern’s gym at the Brooklyn Marriott - went quickly, six minutes on the treadmill at six miles per hour, followed by back-to-back crunches and pushups.

"We want to keep your heart rate up," Bravo would tell me while I gasped for air on my second pushup. "That way, you can have an aerobic workout without staying on the treadmill for a half-hour."

We then worked on some weight machines, switching off between my legs and back again, rather quickly, to keep the heart pumping while working separate muscles.

Through it all, Bravo kept giving me hints on how to do the exercises properly while never telling me exactly how many reps I had to do. This was a big revelation for me - I never knew when the last push (or pull) was coming, until he said, "OK, that’s enough." I guess it’s easier to finish your reps when you can’t see the finish line.

On the second day of my journey to physical fitness, Bravo had me sit down with Eastern’s head nutritionist, Cara Hogue. Hogue - a practitioner of the Zone diet - stressed the importance of eating three square meals a day as well as at least 64 ounces of water. She also recommended: I never go five hours without eating a meal; I limit or eliminate caffeine from my drinks; I cut out every juice and soft drink; and I ingest 1,500 milligrams of fish oil supplements per day (which contain elusive Omega-3s), as I never eat fish.

Beyond keeping me healthy, Bravo added that by sticking to the diet, I would keep the idea of staying fit in mind all day. This would help me look forward to my trip to the gym the following day.

Of course, help like this doesn’t come for free. A sit down with a nutritionist costs $150 for Eastern members and $175 for non-members, while prices for personal trainers range from $52.50 to $125 per session.

As the days wore on (I met with Bravo every weekday except Friday), instead of dreading my workout - which is what normally happens when I go to a gym - I began to look forward to it. And even on the weekend, when we didn’t meet, I did my pushup and crunch routine that Bravo ordered me to do every day.

"You have to do something," he told me. "Even if it’s just pushups. Working out isn’t a three-day a week thing. It’s something you have to do every day."

What I realized during the course of the week was just how important a personal trainer had become to my workout. Bravo did all the things I would never have figured out on my own - including what machines I should use, how much weight should be used, how many reps I should do, and when I should go get a drink of water.

After our week was up, Bravo recommended a 35- to 40-minute workout at the gym four times a week, preferably on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On the other days, I should just do my 10- to 15-minute home routine.

And my reward, after my last workout (besides feeling great about myself) was a massage at Eastern’s Shibumi Spa, located in its Clark Street location. There, massage therapist Becca Nichols wrung the ache out of every sore muscle I had, for a full hour. The next day, my body felt better than ever.

If that doesn’t get me back to the gym again, nothing will.

Eastern Athletic Club has three Brooklyn locations: 43 Clark St., between Henry and Hicks streets in Brooklyn Heights; 17 Eastern Parkway near Plaza Street in Prospect Heights; and at 333 Adams St. in Downtown Brooklyn, inside the Marriott hotel. Membership is $625 for seven months. A one-hour massage at Shibumi Spa in the Clark Street location is $80 for non-members, $70 for members. Call (718) 625-0500 for details.

©2004 Community Newspaper Group