The Dumbbells

It's not unusual for me to push myself beyond the limits. That's usually a good thing......it's how I learned to play guitar and how I approach creativity in general.

Going full tilt isn't always a good thing, however. Pushing myself full blast was how I hurt my shoulder recently, while weight training. The situation had gotten to the point where the pain was getting too much and I had no other choice than to stop lifting weights for a bit and let my shoulder recuperate. I didn't give up exercising completely, of course. My son and I still went out 6 mornings a week for a daily walk. After letting my shoulder rest, I was able to continue the yoga sun salutation asanas before my walk.

Now that my shoulder feels back to normal, I've decided that, rather than return to the gym, I'd buy dumbbells to do the weight training at home.

I had been looking at a set of dumbbells in the sporting dept. at Lee's Plaza. In the U.S. the dumbbells would be sold boxed up; here, the dumbbell bar is loaded with assorted plates, put together unboxed. That would work fine for me. There would be plenty of plates to allow me to adjust the weight how I liked. Each dumbbell bar came with 8 plates - 4 plates on each side. I purchased two sets in order to balance my weight training. Some exercises can be done with only one dumbbell, but there are some which work better with two dumbbells, one for each hand.

Rather than carry the two dumbbell sets to my car, I had two (younger) Lee's Plaza employees to help. One young man took the sets apart and boxed the two sets. It was when I arrived home and unboxed the sets that I noticed something odd.

One set included the following plates 2@ 2.5 kg each. 2@ 2kg each, 2@1.25kg each and 2@1kg each. Total weight: 13.5 kilos (29.76241 lbs).
Strangely enough, the other set was slightly different. 2@ 2.5 kg each. 2@ 2kg each, 2@1.5kg each and 2@0.75kg each. Total weight: 13.5 kilos (29.76241 lbs).

The total weight for each dumbbell set was the same, but the plates were not. I suppose that actually works out better because of the added flexibility in loading the dumbbells, but it strikes me as odd that it turned out that way.