Where we live in Lakewood there are several Rec. Centers within a few miles, and through Kaiser’s Silver Sneakers program membership to all of them, including 24 Hour Fitness, is free.
So I have a stack of membership cards of which I was quite proud until Betsy the physical fitness freak explained patiently to me one day that the cards themselves in fact do very little to improve my fitness.
I have to go to these godawful places.
And worse than that, I have to stay there. For an hour, two, or even three.
And still worse, I have to do unspeakable things while I’m there.
Ah well, I suspect The Gym and I are simply natural enemies in the way of the fabled snake and mongoose. I will never learn to love it, but if I could simply leave my body there to get on with it and send my mind off elsewhere it wouldn’t really be too bad.
However, much as The Gym is the epitome of mindless activity, there are pitfalls associated with excusing my brain from attendance.
I find it necessary to count and/or time my activities, or else I cheat; 100 of this repetition, 50 of that, ten minutes on this machine, fifteen on that.
I would so much prefer not to think of any of it and free my mind to write about our current week’s topic or listen to a book on CD, but alas I’ve found that when I try this, my workout is miraculously curtailed. Twenty minutes and I’m done!
Well I thought I did at least 100 leg lifts, and surely I sweated on that machine for half an hour?
No, I’m not to be trusted, so my mind must remain in the dreaded gym with my body at all times.
By it’s very nature, the Gym is an unlovely place.
But those who are in charge seem to go out of their way to add to the awfulness in all possible ways.
Walls of mirrors, for God’s sake! What’s that about? Whatever nasty activity I’m performing I’m forced to see myself at it from ten different angles with no place to go to get away from myself.
Now perhaps some of those young svelte creatures, bodies apparently not yet affected by the pull of gravity and clearly created without sweat glands, like nothing better than watching themselves in fluid effortless motion.
And, I have to admit, why not? Their brightly colored form-fitting Spandex clings to every perfect curve without even a hint of one ounce of excess fat.
I on the other hand am in little danger of engendering narcissism as I catch glances, no matter how hard I try not to, of this lumbering old body draped in ragged sweats, huffing and puffing amidst rolls of misplaced misshapen flabby flesh.
It really should be confined to the privacy of it’s on home.
So, yes, I try not to look at the mirrors which grace every wall, but what other choices are there?
I can of course simply gaze with longing upon the aforementioned nubile young things, but I’m forced to confess that palls after only a few minutes.
At my age it’s a bit like a dog chasing a car. Whatever would I do if I caught one??
What does that leave? Oh God forbid, the TV. Banks of them, high up on the wall beyond the reach of prying hands hoping to change channels.
Oh no! You will watch what they, whoever they may be, want you to watch or whatever they have decided you should want to watch. That means half a dozen sets tuned to ESPN and the rest of them showing FOX News. The latter is definitely not on my agenda so that leaves endless replays of Sunday’s NFL games or, no, wait a minute, there’s live football...oh, but it’s two local high school teams and the score is 73 to 3 - and it’s still the first half.
The best, perhaps the only entertainment provided by the TV is the automated translation of the spoken word into printed words on the screen, as of course all the sets are muted.
The computer programs which perform this function work much better than they did not so long ago but they still fall into frequent misinterpretation.
President Obama undressed Congress. Now there’s an ugly vision.
Dozens of thinks roll down the streets of Lybia. In fact a few thinks might be more beneficial than tanks....but..
Well at least it’s good for a laugh, which is something not widely on offer at the Gym. This is a serious place.
And that’s just one more reason I don’t like it, and I suspect it doesn’t particularly care for me. I don’t greatly enhance its image after all.
But, like that snake and mongoose or the wolf and the moose or many other of nature’s natural enemies, The Gym and I need each other and so our fraught relationship continues.
As it will, with luck, for many years to come.
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