The Gym
I recently signed up at a
gym. A co-worker works out there and
told me about it. It sounded like the
perfect fit – as in cheap, and close to where I live and work. And,
if I signed up by a certain time – I would save about $40.00 due to a special $1.00
sign up deal. Said co-worker had me meet
her one day and showed me around the place.
It had fancy sinks in the bathroom (which was way more of a selling point
than it should have been) and lots of work-out machines. The basic monthly cost was a measly
$10.OO. However, for $20.00 you could
get the fancy package which included not only the use of the fancy sinks, but
any classes you might want to take (such as Death Rip 800, Dance Hysteria or
Flab-Be-Gone-Calorie-Destroyer), as well as the dark room of happiness…A mini-theatre
filled with a screen and about twenty tread mill and elliptical machines. Minus the popcorn. This room alone was worth the extra $10.00,
as it would be a cave where I could work out and not have anyone see me to
judge my jiggling thunder thighs. I was
totally sold.
So, two days after I signed
up - the people at the shiny counter were just as shiny, and of course looked
pretty and good in spandex - I get a call from Jake. “Hey there!
It’s Jake!!! From Fitness
Evolution! How do you like the gym so
far????!!!!!!” What the hell? Are you on crank? It’s been mere hours since I signed the
contract binding me to your company until the unlikely event of my death. I almost feel bad for not having a decent
excuse for the 48 hours which I have obviously been watching Netflix and
drinking cheap wine instead of toning my atrophied muscles. I tell Jake!!! that I haven’t had a chance to
make it in yet (see last sentence), but looked forward to doing so. Jake!!! then asked if I knew that with the
fancy package I signed up for, I was entitled to one free hour with a
trainer. I told him that I did not in
fact know this, but that this sounded good.
“Great!!!” said Jake!!!. “So, is
this something you’d be interested in?”
Me trying to wrap my startled peri-menopausal brain around such an
energetic phone conversation, of course said, “Yes!” How could I not add an exclamation point to
that one word response in replying to Jake!!! (?). I somehow ended up with an appointment with
Jake!!! 48 hours into the future; I was actually kind of excited about this; The
words “personal trainer” and “Deborah” had never actually shared a sentence
before, and they made me feel extra fancy.
As Tuesday awaited me, I felt
a mix of excitement, pride and apprehension.
I mostly just wondered what Jake!!! looked like, and what I should wear
to optimize my athletic appearance. The
“Day of the Gym” had finally arrived.
When I pulled into the parking lot, I made sure to park as far away from
the entrance as possible – because I was too embarrassed to park my old
vehicle, which sounded like a thug’s street ride due to a partially missing
muffler – near the slicker, work-out-people cars which seem to find parking
spaces near the front entrance. And when
I say “work out people,” I mean anyone who makes over the poverty level (as I
do) and can afford a car from this century as well as a fancy $20.00 gym
membership. I walked in with my work-out
looking-ish work-out pants and a black tank top. My work out pants only had two small holes –
one below my right knee, and the other in my nether-regions where most likely
nobody would see, and a pull or two from where my cats had kneaded my thighs
while they sat on the couch as I watched Netflix and drank cheap wine. I asked for Jake!!!. Jake came to the counter and introduced
himself. He was as peppy in person as he
sounded over the phone, with maybe a few more exclamation points. He looked like a cross between Arnold Schwartzenegger
and Bambi. I found out that he was 19
and had done more with his life than I had done in my 43 years – except give
birth. Which I’m sure he would have done
if he’d been born with a vagina.
After Jake!!! interviewed me
more thoroughly than Oprah would have (which included figuring out my body-fat
index (I now know that I will have to live off Grapenuts and sunflower seeds
for a few weeks to get myself within the range I should be in), he took me on a
tour of the gym. He also worked my ass
off. “O.K.!” “So what we’re going to do first, is to have
you warm up with about 10 minutes of cardio.”
He then put me on an elliptical machine, explaining the basics of which
things I could adjust, and sent me on my way with the understanding that he’d
come back for me in a few minutes. I was
totally determined to make it look like I could handle more than a “0” incline,
and that I could get my heart rate above 25 B.P.M.’s. When he came back, he said, “Great!” and
proceeded to take me on a full circuit of work out machinery - a.k.a. a modern
day torture-device gauntlet. But this is
what I had signed up for, and so I was going to suck it up. That said, I did not expect my “free
one-hour-trial-with-a-personal-trainer” to actually involve the training part of the whole deal. After a 45 second plank pose, stairs,
medicine-ball-up–the-wall-while-coordinating-squats, spider-man-like pulley
device thingy, lunges, plunges and other embarrassing poses, I was now allowed
to go sit down and discuss more paper work with Jake!!!. I knew my face was a shade of magenta usually
only seen on saris or some variety of dahlias, and so I hoped that my future
soul-mate hadn’t seen me as I slinked towards one of their shiny counters. After Jake!!! went over several pages of
paperwork and more questions involving what a well-rounded diet and fitness
program looked like, he opened his binder to pages which had lots of dollar
signs on them. I was confused. What had happened to my “Greatest
Loser”-esque inspirational diagrams and pie charts? I was being asked if the “Forget About
Feeding Your 17 yr.Old” package was a good fit for me. ‘Didn’t I think that what I’d just gone over
for the last 15 minutes sounded like a beneficial way for me to improve my
life?’ I told Jake!!! that I had a pile
of medical bills the size of the Obama Care Bill. He then offered me the less expensive
packages, which basically trickled down to, ‘You are a loser because you signed
up at our cheap gym and can’t afford a personal trainer even though we just
gave you a free hour with a personal trainer because you paid the extra $10 a
month for the fancy package’ plan. I
then lied and told him that I might be able to do the “Pathetic Package” once I
paid off some of my bills. I knew I was
full of shit, but was too embarrassed to just tell him to go screw himself and
his flashy, toned-jaw-line smile.
On my first, independent
visit to the gym, I was asked to take a photo for my picture i.d.. Having been sick for the last two weeks, I
poo-poo-ed that idea, and blamed it mostly on my hair and that I looked like
one of the “Before” pictures on an anti-aging ad. I then headed directly to the dark room of
happiness. As my eyes adjusted, I was
finally able to discern which machines were the ellipticals, and which were the
treadmills. I could choose from either a
single elliptical at the very back of the room, or one from the front row, or the
‘create-slipped disks-at-your-C3-C4-vertebrae-because-of-the-angle-which-you’d-have-to-hold-your-neck-in-order-to-
watch-the-ridiculously-loud-movie-on-the-big-screen.’ I chose the machine in
the back. I stepped onto it. No blinking lights. What the hell? Maybe this one was out of commission. So of course I go to one of the ones in the
front row of neck injury. Step on. Nothing.
Push the “Go” button which I can hardly make out even though I have
bat-like vision (oh, damn, bats don’t have vision…and I use that analogy all
the time.). Nothing. Pretty pony tail girl – the only other human
stupid enough to be in this room– is moving along gracefully on her fully
functioning treadmill, and has headphones in which are obviously keeping her
from losing her hearing due to the excessively loud surround-sound mini-theatre
movie. I hate her. I crawl, chagrinned, to the front desk and
ask for help, explaining that I can’t get any of their expensive machines to
work; I think that they probably have a short somewhere and are too cheap to
fix it because they only charge $20 for their fancy packages and only the
people with fancy cars can afford personal trainers, which would bring in more
revenue for the company. Pretty,
well-toned employee, who probably has his eye-balls stuck in roll-back position
because he’s so sick of dealing with machine-challenged morons like myself,
follows me to one of the many elliptical I’ve tried to make work. It takes him about three nano-seconds to make
the flashing lights come on, and explains that ‘you just have to get it going
for a few (nano-seconds) in order for it to turn itself on. Really???
I look back at pony-tail girl to see if she’s noticed this whole
unfolding, but I think she is too mesmerized by her ability to get her machine
to work and run her half marathon to some Nirvana album, to notice me and my
patheticness.
My goal is to cardio my way
through ten minutes of the movie. The
movie has Nicole Kidman in it, and is obviously scary because it is set in a
dark mansion and she makes lots of horrified, anxious facial expressions. When one of the doors in the room she’s in
slams shut, it is so loud that I am not only doomed to have premature hearing
loss, but to lose the perfect rhythm of which I’ve gotten myself in for the
last minute. I am finally able to adjust
to a level 3 setting, which I had to Helen Keller my way for several seconds on
the keypad before figuring out how to adjust said setting. I look over my left shoulder and realize I am
about five feet from the surround sound speaker. Crap.
I decide to try my luck at the elliptical at the very back of the
theatre. I get it working. No speaker
five feet from my left ear. Much
better. I continue the rest of my work
out at a slightly less jarring sound level.
It is now time to venture out into the light, as not only do my thighs
feel gelatinous, but I have completed the cardio part of my work out according
to the recommendation that Jake!!! gave me during my free, one hour work out
session with him. I am totally trying to
psyche myself up. Part of me wants to
run out the large glass front doors to my old car, and the other half knows
that I need to get my ass in shape, and use the $20 fancy-package membership
gym that I signed up for.
It’s a large space. There is a lot of metal. To my far left I see the medicine ball that
Jake!!! had me use, lying on the floor, but I can’t remember quite what to do
with it so I nix it. I look at the
stairs but realize that I just worked the crap out of my quads, so that
wouldn’t be a good fit. What else did
Jake!!! show me? I can’t use the Spidey
contraption because you have to have a trainer with you. I can do the plank pose. I think how weird I must look doing the plank
pose without a trainer timing me or a Yoga instructor sending me good vibes…at
this point I don’t give a crap; I’ll be
low to the ground, and hardly visible to the rest of the gym population. I then scour the room for anything
familiar. I see the machines with the
bar thingys hanging from them.
Excellent. I remember those from
the days (and I literally mean days) that I used them as part of my work out
regiment when I went to WWU. However,
when I arrive at said machine, I’m not sure I actually remember how to use it
correctly. I try not to look too moronic
as I read the directions which are barely visible on the back part of the
machine. There are four steps – one
involves adjusting the knee-resistance pad (I totally don’t remember this part.). I finally figure out which direction I’m
supposed to sit, how to adjust the seat, and how far to pull the bar down. I also, after several attempts, figure out
that I can pull 50lbs. I am not sure if
this is totally wimpy, but by this time I don’t care – I am just relieved that
I have figured out how to use the machinery.
Twenty reps. I will do twenty
reps, and I will try to do this without looking like I am in child birth.
After leaving the gym, I feel
pretty pleased with myself. I will text
my friend and let her know that I bought the fancy package and worked out…though
I did not purchase any private sessions with Jake!!! the personal trainer. Once at home, I heat and iced my shoulders
which are starting to feel like Nicole Kidman looked in the movie when she
found the piano opened after she’d just closed it just a few minutes
before. The pain from working out makes
me feel proud and buff, and I look forward to going to the gym again.
Day two of scheduled gym
time: This time I have thought ahead and
brought my work out clothes to work. I
decide that my tight, grey yoga pants will probably not look too slutty or like
I’m looking for my future husband or a one night stand, if I wear a long tank
top with them; I have modeled this outfit several times in front of two mirrors
in my hallway before coming to this justified conclusion. I realize that I can scrunch the tank top up around
my middle region to hide my muffin top.
After getting dressed, I remember to go to Fred Meyer to buy myself a
lock for the locker room. I am giving
myself major kudos by this point, and have already began planning my work out regiment;
I will once again avoid any attempts of the shiny people at the front desk to
take my picture. I will then head directly to the bat cave of happiness for my
private and effective cardio work out - where I will now know how to start my
elliptical, which will then be followed by the three things I know how to do
out in the gauntlet of intimidation, ending with more cardio.
When I get inside the theatre
room, I am happy that the noise level is not that of an ACDC concert this time,
and that I have gotten “my” machine and I am able to start it without the aid
of a pretty, well-toned employee. I use
my bat vision-not-really-bat-vision to locate the GO button and set the machine
to my now standard “3” resistance level.
I will do a full 10 minutes.
There are several pony-hair girls in the mini-theatre this time. Since I have chosen “my” elliptical (the one
in the back), I have the perfect vantage point of everyone in front of me. I begin comparing myself to them. How long have they been on their
machines? Damn them – they are on those
treadmill thingys. They are moving at a
rate of speed which my car goes in 2nd gear. I hate them.
They are also, I realize, on machines which not only move 10x faster than
mine, but they are not holding onto anything.
I ponder myself on one, and know that I would be an instant candidate
for “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” I really
do hate them. I can see that one girl in
front of me had been on her machine for three minutes less than me, and had
burned 20 calories more. I especially
hate her. I hope she falls off. Damn all inventors of machines that have
timers and calorie counters displayed in bright neon lights. Every time I look down from the completely
crappy movie that I am forcing myself to watch, I am amazed at the time-sucking
vortex which is apparently created in an exercise environment. I am determined to do at least seven minutes
of cardio to round out my work out. At
about minute three, I am already having to psyche myself into getting another
minute in. If it weren’t for my
competitive nature, I don’t think I would have stayed on another sixty
seconds. However, I had a couple of
things running through my mind: 1) I bet
ponytail girls would go way longer than seven minutes. And, 2) I wonder how
many calories are in a glass of wine, and if I’ve burned enough calories in the
three minutes I’d been on the elliptical to counteract the effects of a glass
of wine. I of course would need to
double that number because one glass of wine would not be enough for me
tonight. So, I try to focus on the
crappy movie. It has a talking cat,
three witches and three obnoxious kids in it.
I find myself rooting for the witches to get the kids, which is really
disturbing since I work with children. I
keep looking down at the neon numbers. I
have now passed another mind-numbing minute.
I realize that I’m a total over-achiever for setting a seven minute
goal. I will be lucky if I reach five
minutes, which I have decided is my new goal.
I look down approximately every twenty seven seconds, and judge myself
and silently curse the movie and ponytail girls. When I finally make it to the five minute
mark, I slow down as fast as possible. I do not need the aid of the “Cool Down”
button because at that point I am practically jumping off the elliptical pedal
things.
I will now go home and
immediately call one of my best friends, Stephanie. Not only will she congratulate me on working
out, but will know how many calories are in a glass of wine; she works out and drinks
a lot of wine. Unfortunately, after
talking to her, I conclude that I will probably drink as many calories as I
burned off during my entire work out at the gym. Although this is slightly discouraging, I can
justify it to some degree knowing that I had also created some lean muscle,
which Jake!!! said helps burn more calories.
This makes me like Jake!!! a bit more, and further motivates me to go to
the gym on a regular basis. I’m pretty
sure that I will always hate the ponytail girls in the bat cave, but have hope
that I will one day be able to master the medicine-ball-up–the-wall-while-coordinating-squats.
The End
posted by ramblinredhed @ 7:25 PM
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