I signed up for a gym membership last month, not due to self-improvement journeys or New Year’s resolutions, and certainly not due to any life-coach nonsense. Beyond optimistic, my doctor told me I needed to “start incorporating more movement” into my life. So here I am, ready to do the splits.
My favorite “pessimist” doctor once told me, “The effort would be appreciated by your body,” to which I remember he had given me that particular disapproving look while looking at my chart. That is how, along with my disbelief, I walked into what I can only describe, after years of skipping the gym, as the center stage for humanity’s peculiarity: the modern gym. It is quite surreal just how much noise greets you the moment you set foot inside a gym.
Not only the buzz of the machines and the clinking of the weights, but the music—or, rather, the beat, a whacking, pulsating rhythm that is either meant to propel you forward or give you a migraine—and nothing in between. It is as if someone decided that pain is not enough without music that resembles robots arguing and flailing about. On my first day, I was simply stunned for a minute like I was walking into a recital for law and order, and the employees shocked me with microphones as press was simply skiing in a stock boat.
The above was explicit in its definition. Cardiovascular exercises is, without a doubt, on the opposite side of the boundary. In our gym, cardio was through this way a very close to ourselves thing.
It is a well known fact that I love it. The truth behind this is that I relished the idea of cardio as a secret hum, that goes underappreciated and unnoticed. Further, it had dawned to me, on average anyone to my likeness does not have a long life span.
Otherwise, when I try to look forward and imagine the years to come, it is refreshingly easier, especially compared to when I look behind and secretly dread it, now is the time. To put it simply, I am compelled to do something that was bound to lose, revealed I am bound to hit the treadmill.
I, personally, chose the treadmill, that hollow promise of a motorized strip of flooring which transforms into machina powered walking in place; all for the sake of “exercise.” The treadmill is good because there is no thinking required; it simply moves your legs in a manner that almost resembles running. There is no progress, but your body thinks otherwise.
You might even actually be going somewhere really fast. To my surprise, operating the treadmill proved to be no simpler than launching a space shuttle. The controls had more buttons than what I considered reasonable for a machine whose primary function is to spin a belt around in circles.
There also appeared to be an array of speed options, heart and calorie rate functions, as well as pulse and distance trackers. And let’s not even get started on a setting labeled “Nordic Track.” For all I know that could be cross countries skiing chased by a Viking. After a few failed attempts to set the appropriate settings, one of which I am certain was “escape velocity,” I had to slow down to what most would define as “walk.” I quickly found out that while scanning the room, I made the ultimate beginner-always look around the treadmill-and-see what’s-not-in-front-of-you-first mistake.
Scan the area of a gym and you altar the unwritten rule. Blatantly, the folks you are at the gym with have honed it to perfection. The ladies two machines down are not simply engaged in a cardio or strength workout, but are carefully navigating through their day as to not cross the masquerade threshold of too much makeup.
And the gentleman beside me, whom I can partially see, is not merely jogging, but appears to be some devotee of an esoteric exercise religion which places him on a treadmill, surrounded by what I swear is a briefcase full of legal documents, and a suit sans tie. I returned my gaze to the control panel and directed my full focus on the handlebars watching my feet carefully for balance. My worst case scenario would be an embarrassing fall on the treadmill.
On my third trip, I encountered what I comprehend now to be a gym archetype—The Treadmill Dancer. This subclass of an individual does not regard the cardio machinery as exercise equipment, but rather as a stage where one could carry out characteristically archetypal moves that may be dancing, interpretative exercising, or both. As I plodded along in my average pace (which is somewhere between “not very fast” and “I might be slower than my normal walking speed”), the person adjacent to me commenced what can only be characterized as a performance.
Now, if you thought the treadmill deservingly loses any excuse of merit within allegorical portrayals of such nature (as I personally did), you can rest assured knowing that the peer adjacent to me was however, clearly enjoying herself. So much so that I am now almost certain I, too, was somewhere around captivated. Unlike my previous experiences with a treadmill, where one would feel good about completing a certain distance within a set duration on what is humorously dubbed “The Cozy Giant” or “The Alternating Milk Carton,” I 예W
It all began with the hips…then came waving of the arms, and I believe they were doing something resembling dancing, if not structured, then at least too rhythmical for any normal jogger to keep pace with. Their ponytails twirled with precision as though on a metronome while they performed maneuvers that would have me spinning into the emergency shut-off cord. I tried very hard not to stare, and yet, I was watching what looked like a terrible automobile accident, all I could think was why is my vision being pulled so strongly to this.
The outlandish dance was done to what I can only describe as blaring techno music and was bizarre to the point where I cannot comprehend why weight lifting has its known social structure and I now have delegates who I have to appease if I want to do this activity in peace. Sculpting reality into art or turning art into madness is a thin line, and I am still veering between those two in describing this situation.
Walking into this section is something I have been putting off for a while, but on my fifth visit, I don’t know what came over me; I just couldn’t get rid of this feeling that made me think with absolute certainty I would be respected. However, I also instantly realized that these non verbal rules are what I must abide to get the acceptance I seek. As I have noted, there is eye contact and gait contact I learned is a profound no go zone.
I remember people telling me to return gym equipment to its designated area after using them, else I would incur the fury of a voiceless, glaring fitness enthusiast, and subdued wrath would get me sideways glanced at from barbarians in the gym. I have also been told the unforgivable sin in the gym is standing in front of the mirror when someone who is your designated alpha, executive overlord, and superior gym zealot is vainly enhancing their bicep admiration routine and would have the audacity to gaze upon their impressive, majestic biceps.
My friends wouldn’t stop telling me to select the dumbbell that seemed to be the right challenge, so I pulled at the most isolated dumbbell until I figured out how to perform what looked like the easiest bicep exercises from YouTube. Upon completing the three sets, I realized my arms had the elegance of disco floor dancers mid performance, arms quaking uncontrollably.
I remember wondering if “The Crane” or “The Anvil” would win the contest of looking less sad when my arms were unable to lift weights and my torso would dangle limply and give the illusion of freely admitting defeat. Suddenly, The Grunter came into view and all my ideas shattered into oblivion.
His head looked like it rested on the torso of a giant, and he was raising what I think is a small automobile and mdgrossing, It seemed as if the grunt Grazing could provide the voice in a nature film. Every lift seemed accompanied by a sound which might mean great pain or trouble. I gathered the gym communicates in its own manner.
Weights being returned to their racks produce a particular sound that is not quite a deafening crash, but not entirely hushed either. While no one seems to control their breathing, trainers generate sounds which are not quite sober in every way essential attire.
With these revolutions in sound, we have the problem of personal area, a notion which disappears completely within a gym’s four walls. What other situation would there be in life in which a complete stranger could stand that close to you where you’d want to (and really need to) deem it an infringement of privacy. Given how exercising is one of the most exposing activities one can do, one would expect that regard for personal boundaries is incredibly important.
But at a gym, observance of personal space means that an individual does not intend to share any piece of equipment with anyone for an extended period of time. My second week, I decided to make the intricately timed blunder of attending what I now understand is termed “peak hours.” The gym was busy in a sense that it was not just busy, but a full on scrum of spandex and sweat, as I was forging my way through what felt far more dense than water molecules. The air was saturated with the smell of sweat, and something that was probably determination but could very easily, scented candle style, be delabeled as demiscent desperation—scented candle style determin- scent.
I spent this much time that should be far too long waiting to get my coveted water, and really wanted an imaginary someone to start the “breakthrough” music so I could justify my almost too labored to be real level increase to girlfriend style altitude amid still water stratospheres. I stumbled upon what has and still is to this day the most baffling personality type at the gym, the Space Invader.
This individual operates under the questionable assumption that the 6 inches around your exercise mat is considered shared space. As I was attempting what my phone app described as “stretches for beginners,” which in my case meant medieval torture positions, a man placed his own mat to close to mine and we could probably touch if we wanted to. When I adjusted my mat for additional space, he copied my movements, as if some strange anatomy of fitness-ing magnetism was at work.
Normal? Probably. Another one of those unspoken gym etiquette rules being that during a personal best everyone should ideally remain in their chosen conversational zone.
Or maybe not. The only thing I’m absolutely positive that if he had two left feet and was spinning like a death spiral, I would not be certain that he was behind me. I did, somehow, manage to settle into what I would refer to with some leniency, as a routine, during week three.
Moreso, I had captured the quieter times, learned which machines would not be the center of my mortification, and even took a step or two towards the borders of gym friendships — enough that the people working there could probably tell what my name was if they were asked. I began, or at least intended, to work in more ways than one, which all further complicated things in that I was, at least sometimes, actually present. Not to be a mere phantom of some person who possesses a gym membership, but finally me, alert and mobile.
Now, during this period of almost no work-loaded stress, I achieved my greatest gym discovery: to actually use the almost entirely forgotten art of navigating locker rooms. There is a kind of dance that one does when they take off and put on clothes in the presence of ‘the other’ gender which allows for the person and those surrounding to maintain and save face. For some, this is easy, and they silently walk out like confident seasoned bendy people, but for myself, it appears as though I am rushing to flee, all in the name of modesty.
Yet, in spite of the absurdity, such as the said machines which we assume are only human because of some most basic understanding of anatomy, the crazed zealot devotees of protein shakes who fervently discuss amino acids with the enthusiasm of a religious cult, and the ichthyotic need to work out some part of the body like sitting on an exercise bike while looking at one’s phone for ten minutes straight and calling it a workout— I still return. Perhaps, it’s the recognition that beyond the peculiar systems, the strange wonder of peculiar where everyone is in the same place with the sole goal of bettering themselves, however misguided, plagues bellow the surface.
Or perhaps, my physician was right for once, and taking stock of my body parts more regularly than necessary isn’t the craziest idea after all. It would never hurt. I still draw the line, however, at classes that have a lot of people in them.
For utterly no reason at all, there is a limit to how far I will go in growing as a person. In this ever-growing society where self-improvement is fast becoming the standard, army style drills while encouianging soldiers to clap along is simply illogical, let alone stomping while doing lunges as led by a drill sergeant.
