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Hey, 반갑슴니다! I hope you had a great Christmas
I'm trying to do this video with the last little bit natural sunlight
coming through my window but looks like it's a fleeting moment
but if any of you have looked at my YouTube channel you'll see that I have a big
interest in the sport of judo
and about five months ago I really got hurt. I fell on my arm during practice
my left arm and I suffered a complete dislocation
at my elbow -- type thing where my knuckles were
touching my tricep if that gives you any type of
visual there but I was out of it for a long time and I lost a lot of weight
you know I was just trying to nurse it back to to health where I coould use it again sometime
in the future without it being a problem
and I'm still not back
in the dojo yet or the "do-jang"
as they say in Korea, but I started hitting the gym maybe a couple months
ago I started
sorta back to gain some weight and things like that one thing I noticed
about gyms in Korea there they are...a gym is a gym...
but gyms are definitely different here than they are
back home. First of all, Korea is a small country so
space is limited and you're not gonna see any those major
mega gyms and chains like a
Bally's or Gold's or LA Fitness or anything like that
you will see a good range of gyms
from low-end to really high-end places they're just not the Mega places and they're not
any chains. Now maybe if you're in Seoul
maybe have some more there but it's definitely not be anything like back
home especially for me
in Florida -- Fort Lauderdale/Miami area you're gonna see a LA Fitness and Bally's and
all those Gold's
on every corner and they're huge. And even though the gyms are a little smaller
and they're not as easily
found you know they're not on every corner like back home, they are still a little
bit more pricey than what we would be accustomed to back home so
LA Fitness you can go there for like $35 or $40 a month
at least in Florida unless things have changed drastically in the past few years
are here they're going to vary from well over $100 to
you know you're low-end places are going to be a lot cheaper. Now the gym that I
go to is more
like what I would call a
like a community center where they have things like
a room for aerobics, they do dance classes in there you know you see the
ajummas and the ajushis in there
doing salsa, getting there get their groove on
you have Olympic size pool for swimming
you got a tennis court I'm sorry not a tennis court, but
a basketball court that they use for badminton. Badminton is really really
popular here in Korea and everybody plays its a
it's a great workout. Then you've got the the fitness center and that's the
cardio, the weights,
the machine circuit they got a small circuit set up in there and that's
pretty much what what I use. Now you pay separately for each of the things. If you want to
use the pool it's an extra fee or what not
but I just use the fitness center it's about $45 a month which
is a pretty killer deal
and I can walk five minute walk up to this place
okay so here's here's a big etiquette difference
with gyms in Korea versus gyms in America and it was really a shocker
for me and I've been at a couple gym so it's not like a one-off occurrence or
anything like that
in America, in most
in most gyms if you're doing a set on a machine or a bench or something like that,
you get up to shake off the set
and somebody wants to use a machine, they might just say, "hey, do you mind if I use
if I work in with you" something like that it's like "yeah, no big deal"
or vice versa if you like "ah, geez you know this guy just got started I want to
use the
the fly machine" you just say "hey, do you mind if I work in there with you?" not a big
deal switch off
Korea, from what I've experienced
if you get up off your machine and you go to shake it off or you just
walk it off or something like that and somebody b-lines it to your machine and gets on the machine
chances are you will probably have lost that machine
for the entirety of their
workout on that exercise. They will do their set and theystay on the
machine and they sit on the machine
and they do all their sets until they're done. If you don't speak the language you're not gonna be able
to say to them,
"I was working on that, or can we work together"
so that's a big thing so I've learned how to keep my hands on a
machine or sit on the machine which is for me a big deal because I like to
stretch a little bit between sets and just kinda move around shake it off
especially if you're doing a heavy movement, a compound movement
so just keep that in mind when you get into gyms here.
One other big thing that I've noticed here and I hope
I'm gonna get some comments on this and i hope i do somebody can
clarify this for me. I see a disproportionate amount of
the techniques that they use here a lot of
half or even quarter movements range of motion on
especially things like compound movements like your bench press
your squats or you're dead lifts or things like that. A lot of people
lot of these guys mostly
girls are usually on the cardio machines; doing like half movement things and
a lot I mean I know that they do that back home to a certain degree
but I see a lot here and I'm wondering like what is this guy doing I mean I
know it allows you to put a lot more weight on the bar
but I'm just wondering if thats some type of
unique lifting strategy in Korea
or what it might be. So maybe if you can tell me but
it's one thing you're gonna see and your gonna kinda shake your head at
like "what are ya doing?" The last thing, if you're a big lifter or
you're into fitness or something like that, and you want the supplements
when you come to Korea it's going to be a little difficult to find supplements
they're not going to have these huge health food stores where you can get protein powders
like 15 different
different types or anything like that there's no GNC here
if there are they are few and far between again like I said maybe in Seoul
they help they have GNC products but
I've seen them at Lotte which is a huge Macy's like department store
now GNC if you get a five pound tub of protein powder it's probably going to cost
around $40 bucks
something like that. But they usually have
a deal going on with all their powers
when you go in there you buy one get one free buy two get one free
if you have a GNC card it's even better
I've seen GNC products at Lotte and they are
I've seen it over 80,000 won
for a five-pound tub that's
that's almost $80 so I just kinda laughed to myself turned around and walked out
What do I do? I go to a site called iHerb
spelled like a sounds i-h-e-r-b.com
it's the mecca of
health food if your health food all natural product type person
this is probably known to you but otherwise the benefit of it in Korea is
when you order from there I think they're located in California so
because of that shipping to Korea takes like maybe three to five business days
at the most
to get the stuff to you which is really fast by any standard but to get it
here in Korea
and Ihave my stuff shipped to my school -- perfect!
so that's one site to checkout
if you know of others my
my camera was just a funny thing so
I forgot where I left off but I go iHerb and I also go to Costco
for my vitamins and things like that I get omega acids and I get
a multi-vitamin
Anyway, that's it. If you know of other sites please let me know I am running out of light here
but thanks for watchin I'll see you next time
until I'm back in th dojo peace
Do-jang...