One Man's Torture Is Another Woman's Highlight of Her Day

Wednesday while at the gym serving my time at the abductor/adductor machine, I noticed an older woman (probably older than 50, probably not older than 65) on the hamstring curl machine beside me, noticed her wildly out of date turquoise bike shorts and "I'm trying to hide in this" oversized t-shirt of a washed-out fuschia hue. Something about her said, "I'm a newbie."

And I was right. When I went to the abs area, turquoise bike shorts lady was there doing her own abs work (full-on sit-ups--I damn near strained something trying not to shake my head in dismay that this abomination is still used by folks). She paused, smiled at me and asked how long I've been working out. Knowing what her real question was--"How long did it take you to get muscle tone like that?"--I smiled and told her eight years, but then noted that recently I'd lost a lot of weight. She kept smiling and said she'd just started and that I'd be her inspiration. I kept smiling and tried to be Confucian when I replied that getting started was often half the struggle, so she was doing good.

Heh, inspiration. Me? P'shaw!

I've written about the obesity "epidemic" for more than four years now, and I'm fascinated by how many different tactics have been used to inspire and convince people to eat less and move more. Not too many years ago, I would have been a target of those campaigns, and I doubt a single one could have swayed me. I'm a firmly believer that if you really want to make a change in your life--be it losing weight, breaking an unhealthful habit, learning something new, ending some pernicious emotional behavior pattern, etc.--you have to make the decision to change, you have to know you have hard work ahead of you, you have to be committed to putting in the hard work necessary--even when it's so very, very tempting to quit--and you have to be dedicated to making permanent that change you want to make. And no one can do these things for you. You have to find the inspiration and the commitment and the dedication within yourself.

If your aim is to move more to improve your health, finding the type of movement to help you meet this aim can be difficult. Let's face it, the typical movement opportunities presented by your typical gym--lifting weights, running or walking on a treadmill and not going anywhere, riding a bike that doesn't go anywhere, climbing stairs that don't go anywhere, dance classes made even more complicated with the kitchen step stool--aren't for everyone. Even us gym rats experience gym ennui from time to time because carrying out a routine in the same environment gets dull, and both the body and the mind need new stimuli every now and then to maintain interest, to be challenged. Unfortunately, the fear of getting bored by a routine drives many would-be movers away from gyms before they even step foot inside one, or the would-be movers come to the gym (too typically as New Year's Resolutionists) convinced they'll be bored to tears.

This latter situation, this mental roadblock, is the problem that Panio Gianopoulos, author of "Why Quit Your Gym" in July's Spirit magazine (yes, that glossy diversion Southwest puts in its seatback pockets along with the latest SkyMall catalog), suffers. He conceived his notion of what the gym experience is at the oh so knowledgeable and introspective age of 16, and he didn't seem terribly willing to let that notion be reformed when he tried to be a gym regular at the oh so knowledgeable and introspective age of 32. (Yes, this is a hypocritical statement as 32 is currently my age.)

As a gym rat for damn near eight years, I've seen enough Panio Gianopouloses in my time. I've taught them in my classes. I've seen their attitudes on their faces, in the way they move through the facility, in the way they putter about the locker room. And always I've wanted to take them by the shoulders, give them a good shake and tell them one or two things: (1) "If you're so sure this is torture, spare us from your temporary masochism and go home. You're just taking up space and equipment, and that pisses of the dedicated folks here." and (2) "If you're really going to try something different to change your life, you have to have an open enough mind about it and at least stick around long enough to give the various movement opportunities here at the gym more than the 'ol college try."

Thanks to (the now endangered) public school P.E. classes, a lot of folks associate physical activity with asinine activities that serve only to reveal to all who has been genetically gifted with physical prowess and who hasn't--and the gym in the minds of all too many people is the mecca of those asinine activities. But that's not true! Yes, there are many gyms across the country that cater to the body builders, to the grunters and groaners, to the athletic "elite" (or athletic narrow-minded, as I often think of them). But there are also many gyms that cater to different user sets (the ladies-only Gods-forbid-we-sweat facilities come to mind) and to a variety of user sets and therefore offer a variety of movement opportunities.

That said, though, some gyms could work a helluva lot harder to make those opportunities appealing to the folks who come in as firm believers that gyms are the fifth circle of Hell. Perhaps poor Mr. Gianopoulos has only been to these gyms. Maybe he even went to the one one I went to while in Chicago, the elder sister's self-professed second home. Yes, it was wonderful to get to work out while on vacation. Yes, it was kind of odd fun to take a cardio kickboxing class aves mes soeurs. But this particular location needed some serious help to make the facility appealing. I'm a dedicated gym rat, and I would have gladly gone out of my way to a different location just to avoid this bad, bad layout.

My biggest complaint? The treadmills were crammed right up against a mirrored wall. Who the hell is that narcissistic? Should you not be narcissistic and want to make use of the device mounted on each treadmill that lets you listen in to one of the channels on one of the half-dozen or so 42-inch LCDs mounted overhead, you'd only be in for a world of pain because the treadmills are crammed right under the damn LCDs. Trying to watch one of the LCDs, I felt like I was stuck in one of those cervical spine-crunching theater seats crammed inches away from the screen. No thank you!

I thought perhaps the mirrors might be useful in one way: I could distract myself by watching the reflection of the action behind me. Mmm, not so much! I could choose from the five-minute loop of a fake newscast advertising the gym, which guest-starred select members of the cast of Scrubs for some odd reason; the stair climbers and Ass-inators immediately behind me or the horrendous personal training session going on in the darkened main group fitness class room. (This poor fool of a client, at the behest of her personal trainer, was hunched over doing some kind of plyometric activity that just screamed, "I'll be needing spine surgery if I keep doing this!")

So I wound up watching myself for a while. Gads, what a completely disconcerting experience! Thanks to the control console and my black pants, I looked oddly bisected in the mirror: Yes, there were my chest, shoulders, neck and head, then there was the darkness of the console and there there was the amorphous yet moving darkness that I was pretty sure were my legs, but they didn't seem to be moving in concert with my upper body. Is that a sign that my stride is terrible? Or was it all just an optical illusion/delusion? But that wasn't the only weirdness I saw (other than the usual weirdness I see every time I look in the mirror)! My right pec was constantly engaged. I couldn't get it to relax, and I couldn't think of a good reason why it should be engaged like that. My theory is that it engages to compensate for my overly developed left rhomboid, but it winds up anteriorally rotating my right shoulder, which totally bites.

Yeah, never watch yourself run. It's just not a fun thing to do. Perhaps this was Mr. Gianopoulos' gym experience: The only means of visual stimulation, if you will, was his own reflection, and watching himself do bicep curls weirded him out. If so, I can see how it would have convinced him that gyms are evil.

I doubt, however, that Mr Gianopoulos' experience included taking the time to find a group fitness class that was right for him since he rails against the isolating nature of the gym and encourages folks to be social when getting exercise. Gym folks who are able to find a class that's right for them taught by an instructor that's right for them will tell anyone who'll listen how attending those classes are a top priority because of the social interactions they have while attending them, not just because of the endorphine high they get from taking part in the class.

Count me among them. I was very, very lucky to happen into an abs class and then a kickboxing class taught by someone who teaches in a way that motivates me. (Yes, that instructor just how happens to be the World's Greatest Spin Instructor and a really, really great friend.) And because she's a great teacher, she attracted a large group of regulars, and we regulars got to know one another and became friends. Voila! Social interaction!

Unfortunately, I've been in classes in which the movements and the choreography seem put together by complete morons, and I've been in classes taught by instructors who are idiots, who have parlayed a desire to boss people around into a group fitness instructor career or who are former cheerleaders who have no other marketable skills than moving relatively in time with pop music. Yeah, no thanks. Hey, perhaps Mr. Gianopoulos got stuck in one class taught by one former high school cheerleader and decided the gym was to be avoided at all costs.

Please don't get me wrong about Mr. Gianopoulos' central argument that the gym is not the be-all end-all of fitness and exercise and that too many people limit themselves when that's all they consider when looking for means of moving more. He's dead on with those arguments. But the gym does meet the needs--physical and social--for a number of people, and disparaging the concept of the gym the way he does serves no one ultimately. For those gym-haters, they read his article and nod and close their minds further to the possibilities gyms can offer. For nonmovers, they read his article and take it as confirmation that finding movement opportunities is too frustrating and takes too much effort and remain sedentary.

Me? I read it and had a good laugh, got to exercise my neck muscles as I shook my head in disagreement and got to exercise my brain as I thought of all the reasons why his evidence wasn't terribly sound. Hey, now that's a workout!