As I Was Saying
My Gym, My Rules
By Alan Williamson
Another year, another push to get fit. “I’m hitting the 21 Circle Gym,” I announce to my wife, a bottle of water in one hand, a towel in the other.
“Have a good workout,” Sherry says cheerfully, graciously ignoring the fact that we live on a street named 21 Circle and that the “gym” is really a spare room in our house. After hearing this tired little joke on and off for the past eight years, she deserves an award for still playing along. Or a free gym membership.
When I first thought of joining a gym – a real gym – I made a list of pros and cons.
Pros
- Wide variety of equipment.
- Training support and guidance.
- Social stimulation.
- Daily incentive to follow through on financial investment.
Cons
- Wide variety of equipment.
- Training support and guidance.
- Social stimulation.
- Daily incentive to follow through on financial investment.
At the risk of sounding schizophrenic, the more I looked at each of my “pros” for joining a gym, the more they looked like “cons.”
Wide variety of equipment. Show me a gym full of gleaming, cutting-edge equipment and I’ll show you a gym full of people constantly using that gleaming, cutting-edge equipment. What good is a lat pulldown machine or a pec deck if every time you go to use them someone else is grunting away on them? My dumbbells at home may not be as sleek and sophisticated as a multi-station weight stack unit with high, mid and low cable pulleys for the ultimate upper body workout, but when I’m ready to grab a pair of my dumbbells I don’t have to wait for Hans or Franz to finish clanging them together over their undulating torsos like over-sized symbols in a steroid-powered marching band.
Training support and guidance. Here’s the closely-guarded secret that personal trainers don’t want you to know about working out: it’s pretty basic stuff. Read a couple of issues of Men’s Health and instant expert status is within your iron-fisted grasp. Handy tip: If you’re lifting weights, make them heavy enough to challenge your muscles, but not so heavy that you get pinned under them for hours at a time and have to wait for help to arrive.
Social stimulation. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been very good at doing two things at once. Even when I try to read and watch TV, I wind up stuck on the same page of my book for half an hour trying to simultaneous figure out if the TV program I was half watching ended and was replaced by another program or if a whole new set of characters – including some from my book – were introduced halfway through. My point is, if I’m working out, I need to be 100% focused on working out, and if I’m debating with my friend Andy about who’s the best Saturday Night Live guest host of all time – Alec Baldwin or Steve Martin – I need to be 100% focused on that. (Alec Baldwin, by the way. I’m just saying.)
Incentive to follow through on financial investment. I’ve heard all the stories about gym memberships that go unused after the first three months with hundreds or thousands of nonrefundable dollars down the drain. No doubt many of those well-intentioned no-shows thought that spending some serious money on a membership would fortify their commitment to stick to a regular fitness regimen. Guess again buns-of-steel boy. Invest all you want, but when making that drive to the gym becomes just one more tedious chore in your jam-packed life, you’re better off with a short, 12-foot commute to the chin-up bar in the doorway of your spare bedroom. And don’t forget to drop and give your imaginary personal trainer 40 pushups before you hit the showers.
“Did you have a good workout?” my wife asks after the last grunt, clang and thud gives way to a sweaty, self-satisfied silence.
“I always have a great workout at the 21 Circle Gym,” I assert, inexplicably lapsing into an Austrian accent. “The only thing that would make it even better is a nice post-workout veggie and cheese omelet and a fresh fruit, whey protein smoothie.”
“Sounds like you should talk to the 21 Circle chef,” Sherry says noncommittally, heading in an opposite direction.
Hmmmm . . . that girl’s got spunk I think, still maintaining an Austrian accent in my mind’s ear as I check my chiseled physique in the mirror. Maybe when I’m done with this last set of dumbbell hammer curls I’ll see about nailing her a free gym membership.
Alan Williamson is an award-winning writer with 27 years in the field of true fiction (advertising). A practical man who knows that writing for a living is risky going, he has taken steps to pursue a second, more stable career as a leggy super model. Alan can be reached at [email protected]. © 2014 Alan Williamson.