Gym Wisdoms

Not that I am fussy about indoor exercising, but I‘ve always had a difficult relationship with gyms in general. The odor inside, the equipment, the cleanliness and yes, the mirrors. Are there a lot of mirrors and a trace of Coco Chanel, I stood off. 

And then there are the people. Come in at 6:30 PM on a week day and if you see a lot of well dressed yuppies reading gossip rags, ladies hard on pedals not exceeding 60 RPM at level 3 on stationary bikes, this is definitely not the place you want to to work out. I like somewhat trashy places of no franchise.

As I was working in Düsseldorf, I had such a shelter for the cold winter days. The Gym “Mensch“ consists of a huge gloomy hall with 3 beachvolley courts and huge climbing hall with a nice portion of old school mechanical fitness equipment. Beachvolley means sand, sand means dirt and dirt keeps the frustrated housewives away. Hardcore workouts for fitness pundits, all out of the box.

As we moved our office to the suburbs last summer, and especially after my knee OP last october, I really didn‘t have the time to go to the gym. I rode my bike daily in the proximity and spent all my leisure time outside. Jumping into the car to drive the half an hour to the gym to work out for an hour seemed way too wearying to undertake after 8 hours of work. So I chose to slack off.

Not long. The shortened days grew darker, the weather outside colder and wetter. With the first snow flakes soon after, it was over with the great outside world. To slow down the acceleration of my belly growth, I was forced to act right away. Following my companion‘s advice, I went to a nearby gym, where she had worked out for a while, in order to possibly spend some quality time together. We were there on a sunday afternoon, a week before christmas and after a short briefing on the enrollment options, I finally signed up for two years.

I was offered the option to pay 4 months of membership fees in advance and test the whole thing in this period, at the end of which I could quit without any cancellation fees. But I, or rather the bloody William Wallace in me chose to go for the burn. Now, we, yes Mr Wallace and I, we‘re both fucked up.

This place is a nightmare. 

Every beefy bonehead, who can‘t get enough of himself on the mirror, is on exhibition, as well as every woman, who can even solve million pages of weekly Sudokus on the fly riding the stationary. I don‘t think, these ladies have ever read so much stuff in their whole school life, cu-mu-la-ted. 

We collectively enjoy a ubiquitous Niketown atmosphere all together, with teenage girls demonstrating the newest collections on the catwalk.

I am constantly surrounded by „personal trainers“, who conspicuously interrupt rats like me, for example in the middle of high intensity interval-training, reminding us not to let our sweat drop on the saddle or on the stationary, best not to sweat at all, as we obviously evoke general discomfort among the Paris Hiltons.

No offense, I truly agree that everybody has the right to work out where ever they please. Even Ms Paris. But how the hell did I land exactly on the flip side of what I was looking for? Doomed I am, I have to stick to this bullshit for two years.

I am telling you this, because I made this weighty decision, not to test-drive the gym, before signing a long-term contract. It proved to be stupid and costly.

The bottom line is, if you‘re going to spend some of your hard earned money, almost 150 days of your year, up to 8 hours of your week, and first and foremost, the most precious hours of your day (which you reserved for yourself only) in a gym, then this is a decision which must be examined thoroughly.

Everything else would only contribute to your frustration, which is the last thing we‘ll need when we‘re working out.

Comments

[dan]

i like KIESER a lot in Düsseldorf, but of course its KIESER. people love it or hate it :-)