At least six times a week, i drag my cellulite-encrusted thighs to the fitness facility at work. It is not cushy. No fancy classrooms, state-of-the-art fat eradication gizmos. It used to be a warehouse, that was re-fitted to encourage a larded workforce to stop filing so many health insurance claims get fit.
It’s most important feature, however, is that it’s free. Second most important? i can go on my lunch hour. Third? It’s free.
Patrons of this facility cut a wide swath through the employed masses. From the doughy, middle-aged folks* fighting fat so they can have just one more breakfast muffin at the next meeting, to the aggressive and disgustingly hard-bodied youth who throw weights around like they’re quarters, we have it all.
i do not like being there. It is necessary. i do not like making the machines move repeatedly. Three sets of twelve reps here, six sets of ten reps there. It simply blows. But i need to do it, it’s an hour of my day, and did i mention? It’s free.
My mind wanders as i count. i look at the other patrons. They look back, usually with the same glassy-eyed resignation. We have gotten to know each other on sight. “That’s the guy who grunts.” “She’s the one who waits a full two minutes between sets and ties up the machine”. “She sweats a lot.”*
Today, as i worked the machine that is the mechanical equivalent of “We Must, We Must, We Must Increase Our Bust”**, something caught my attention. Resting between sets, i looked at the “Dip Rack”***, and there was a guy doing tricep dips – with about a 20 pound weight hanging off a weight belt.
Definite spit-take, as i had to look twice to see the belt.
workout buddy (sitting on the next machine): Did you see that?
daisyfae: Ummm…. yeah. Whoa. That’s badass. Bet it gives him penile extension.
workout buddy: Unbelievable!
daisyfae: Would probably give him more penile extension if he were hanging that weight from somewhere else…
Which is exactly where it seemed to be swinging from when i first looked…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* C’est moi.
** Grade school chant. “We must, we must, we must increase our bust. The bigger the better the tighter the sweater, the boys will look at us.” Seriously. No wonder girls grow up with body image issues…
*** No, not like that. You climb up, hold the cross bars – which are parallel at the level of your hips – then do triceps dips with your knees bent.
Trailer Park Refugee 
I spent a year lifting weights three times a week. Faithfully. It was a chore. At first. But, eventually, it became routine. Never fun, though. I think the most “I’m impressed with me” moment occurred when I put on my (only) suit (purchased for new grad engineer job interviews about five years previously), flexed my arms and came up short because the jacket was too tight.
I’ve since lapsed back into semi-“doughy” and may attempt a comeback. Or not.
can’t relate to this post as i dont work out however i do ride my one speed (hear muscle abuser) beach cruiser to the beach everyday– well until i hurt my back riding it last weekend. oh and i broke a nail which really sucks… working out is so dangerous, i should be more careful
*wondering if i can pay someone to do it for me…*
damn it! i’m broke too! aargh!!
my dad taught me the “we must” chant when i was about 8. it went to school with me, along with all the dirty limericks he taught me. I infected the entire student body of my tiny school with what my milk-man dad thought was age-appropriate fun. I take pride in the fact that it’s still hard for most to make me blush….
Six times a week! That is impressive. I don’t do anything that regularly, except drink!
Ah the Gym. “She sweats a lot” eww, funny they seem to be at all the gyms. I don’t miss going, I was just thinking that today. I hurt my back a few weeks ago. I think at the Gym. So now I have guilt free no work out zone at least for another week or so. Then it will be trying to figure out the next sure thing some infomercial or something. Hard to pass up free,great deal. We had a deal at our gym 20 dollars for two months how could we not try. sigh 6 times a week is impressive it’s almost easier that way once you start taking days off a month can go by in a blink.
I worried when we moved to the arse-end of nowhere in a country that regards gyms as some sort of Anglo-Saxon madness that I might lose my careful honed, manly, physique (ahem).
As it turned out, the seven or so years of hard labour have actually done me quite a lot of good. And French grandmothers in Lycra is not an image I’d like to conjure with anyway.
Once upon a time, long long ago, I used to bounce out of bed at 5am to go to a gym before work. That was then. This is now. The End.
Aha! a new contender for the Mr Lifto spot!
Dolce: I sweat like a blind lesbian in a fish and chip show
Grandmother: No no darling, girls don’t perspire, they glow!
Dolce: I glow like a blind lesbian in a fish and chip shop
*sigh*
One day I’ll have a hard body all of my own. The day I give up pasta. And wine. And die.
Are you at work six days a week…wow! I am with you though, I walk three or four times a week and stay reasonably fit.
rob – so you almost did an ‘Incredible Hulk” suit-bursting maneuver? cool… i’m still semi-doughy in spots, and expect that will never change. i do 30 min interval cardio, then 30 min weights (alternate upper/lower body days). doubt i’ll get too muscled with that, but i need to keep doing it…
lynn – bike riding is my favorite way to exercise. instead of staying in one place, i actually feel like i’m going somewhere, doing something. even though it’s just in a big circle, or going ‘there and back’…
jenuine – that’s a riot! your DAD? these days, someone probably would have complained… it is a miserable little ditty, but times were what they were.
rubytwoshoes – really have to do this… hate it. i have a work out buddy, and we push each other (and guilt each other, and pull each other) or i’d never be able to do it…
starla – i’m a ‘sweater’. but hey, i bring a towel, and always wipe down the equipment. doubt i’d go to a gym if i had to pay. i have weights and whatnot downstairs, but i like the nautilus machines. harder to screw something up with those…
jon – if i didn’t sit on my tail at a desk all day, i might not need to waste my lunch break on this silliness… better to come by it naturally in the course of your day. my son just got a summer job bagging up ice, and loading it on trucks. he says it’s like being paid to work out all day…
syncopated eyeball – i still hate it. always will i’m afraid. but i could never, NEVER, bounce out of bed at 5am for ANY reason, let alone going to the gym. that is the worst for me. morning is for coffee and scratching.
nursemyra – it was impressive. many of the guys there will put giant weights on racks and do a lot of grunting and whatnot. but this guy won…
dolce – i’ll never have a hard body. i’m going for ‘sculpted dough’. it’s all the rage… partly because i do not wish to live a life of food and nummy deprivation.
FJ – no, i actually go to work on saturday mornings JUST to hit the gym. we go to the gym (never all that early), then hit the local farmers market. makes it a treat…
Eyes above the waist, daisyfae.
I found a gym here in NJ that’s only $19.95 a month! Even a semi-employed schlub like me can afford that! I hate the gym. It’s boring, it’s time consuming and it hurts. But what’s the alternative?
Yep, I get you. I’m there. I’m always there, every stinking day, working out. Fortunately at my gym, there’s almost nobody there. The newspaper across the street shut down, and now it’s practically vacant during the day. I used to see all the overweight editors in there, but now it’s like a mausoleum. And, frankly, I like it that way. No waiting!
I was once doing a 15 second rest between reps and this big mean man was tapping his foot in frustration because I was taking to long…fucker!
6 times a week is impressive. I’m sure in my travels I pass by a gym of some sort, at least 6 times a week.
Gym? I don’t know anyone called Gym – – –
Exercise doesn’t make you live longer – just seems that it does (it’s the corollary to “time flies when you’re having fun” expression).
I am impressed nonetheless, because the only way I’ll ever have a hard body is if they freeze me in carbonite.
i just stay fat. and when I think about exercising I get some more coffee and cheeto’s and the thought just goes away.
I would be afraid to tie a 20 pound weight to the downstairs neighbor; I’d be afriad he’s snap off.
I wish I had a gym where I worked. Then again, I think I’m lucky there’s even a bathroom where I work.
eeeeeek…..
chris – but sometimes they get their private parts directly in the line of sight when i’m doing that 1,000 yard stare thing… i can’t help it!
unbearable banishment – $20/month isn’t bad. but since i have access to the free one, i feel compelled to use it… what a drag it is getting old.
writerdood – do you hang weights from a belt and do those tricep dips? that was some mad-scary shizzle…. guy had triceps that would break bricks.
carlae – i get irritated if someone is really camped out on something that i want to
camp out onuse. but i generally give them the courtesy of a little time before i start glaring and sighing and looking at my watch…archie – Gym Sox. He’s kinda puny and pale, and smells gamey, but not a bad dude…
kyknoord – what is this carbonite stuff of which you speak? that sounds easier…
hisqueen – that’s how my body wants to go. but my brain yells at it and i can’t get a good rest… aggravating.
uncle keith – from the original angle? he had his legs forward blocking the strap that the weight was attached to. swear it looked that way… probably some sites on the internet devoted to that particular fetish. i’m not going to look…
renal failure – it’s convenient. i can scoot for a workout at lunch, snag a smoothie on the way out, and i’m done with the sweaty stuff before i go home… glad they provide you with toilets…
manuel – my thoughts exactly!
I worked out once in 1998. It was super lame.
rassles – this week? i’ve been drinking instead of going to the gym. i like it far better than throwing weights around…