Exercise THIS

  

So many of us..deconditioned Americans are headed for The Gym :  the bike, the steps, the elliptical, the Pilates, the ab crunches the core workout boot camps.  Slobs in sweats are a dime a dozen.  We have mats and resistance bands and weights and water bottles and sunglasses and towels.  Most don't want to look great, necessarily.  Most just want to live.  Just a little bit longer.      I see all of these planet-mates "getting back into shape" - but the only ones who have made it there seem to be the uber-toned and, therefore, smug instructors.  Yeah - so I can bounce a Kennedy half dollar off your butt, so what ?  I guess I only intermittently want to stay alive.  Otherwise, I'd look like you.  Bitch.  I come in looking janky - leave looking even worse.  My rastiest t-shirts, funkiest sweats.   A bucket of water and a pole and you all fitness bunnies'd be making hella tips right now.          I "joined the gym".  I know - right ?  People who know me choke with laughter at this.   The only exercise I generally push toward is the one big sit up getting out of the bed daily.   Or is it a crunch ?  (for Christ's sake)  "Crunch" - sit up is SO 2000-late (ed. note : This will be a fertile ground for me to harvest observations and lay down incomprehensible edicts.  Worth the monthly fees.)  The modern gym rat cannot do it without music.  Fact.  People have been know to turn around and go the hell home if they have forgotten the iPod.  With tunes, you can do no wrong.  You are insular, and, unless you get sweated on (eew) or some asshole decides to scream into his phone (who's that lady on the treadmill with the pursed lips pointing to the "no cell phones" sign ?).  You can totally ignore other people - you are all there doing the same thing - no need for pleasantries.   Adjust the speed on the 'mill to match the drumbeat in the song.  Just don't fall down, and you good to go.  Turn up the music.  DO NOT sing aloud.  Others can, and will hear you.    I now know that "cardio" isn't an EKG.   "Elliptical" isn't a large circular thing that you strap yourself into, in a star shape, and have someone roll you around..  "Spinning" does not actually involve spinning.  "Pilates" is not the man who crucified Jesus Christ.  "Rep" has little to do with one's "reputation".  "Core" is not the center of an apple.      When it is good, it is very very good - and when it is bad, it is horrid.  I was managing the treadmill/weights/bikes thing for a while.  I was getting a (not) cute electronic report monthly : "Trudy Sanders !  You have lifted the equivalent of 2.5 African elephants and burned off 18.25 ice cream sundaes!"  BFD.  I find myself focusing on the .5 elephant not accounted for, and, ice cream not being my thing, I wonder how many cookies I have burned off.  Sometimes, a bag of peanut M&M's can knock out a couple of laps on the treadmill.  There is a "reward scale " - after 3 months, I had, like, 9,000 points . Yay me !     The first "reward" is offered at 100,000 points. It is....(drum roll please...) "feeling better".  Just seeing that put me in the negative points column.  Where can I find a conversion scale for rage and calories ?  I then tried to take 5 classes a week - 2 BodyWorks, 1 Pilates, 2 Core Express.  Yeah, right.  And, yes, I DO want fries with that.      For about 3 classes, I did, I guess, feel an endorphin or 2 trying to infiltrate my tortured body.  I figured that things were working.  With any luck, I'd become pathologically addicted to "working out" and become a big (yet toned) bore.  Then, the snark and the pissiness and the....just disbelief came along.  You know what ?  I SO don't enjoy this at all.  It is not fun, I am still in hideous shape, and I hate everyone even remotely connected to the YMCA and the fitness craze.  I don't breeze in with a pithy greeting - swipe my damned card and don't make eye contact.  Yeah - watch me take TWO towels.   Where is the joy ?  The chemical peace ?  The natural high ?  The Buddha-like sense of well being ?    This is when I figured out my own truths about exercise and physical fitness.  I am not pushed forward by "feeling better", "looking great" (as if), or "moving without pain".  The only time I ever felt truly motivated was....by spite.  Just anger and outrage and "I'll show this bastard !"        We had a sub in one of my classes, and we instantly seemed to understand one another.  I planted myself in the back of the class, he immediately stood in front of me, and it became the front of the class.  He made us start over if we didn't count loud enough.  He had a quirky and eclectic mix tape that he blasted.  He had me at  "I can't HEAR you !"   I edged right into full military cadence and inappropriate shouting.  Who's in the Army now, bitch ?   I swore under my breath - and he introduced himself to me as he actually lay on the floor right up in my grill and watched me struggle through some Girl PushUps.  He said : "Ooh - someone dropped the "eff bomb" up here !"  and  "We can't start up again because Trudy is still on the floor."  Bastard.  I'll show him.  I kept swearing and complaining - he kept pushing.  It worked.   A match made in heaven !      I think I love him.   I don't need peaceful yoga music and crooning teenaged instructors - I need rock and roll and some smart-assed bastard who will beat me soundly into the ground and fuck with my head for a few hours a week.  So I run to the schedule board to see if i can attend every class he teaches : alas, he has ONE CLASS a week.      I am currently taking up a collection so I can hire him as a personal trainer.  He pisses me off and I love it.  It could actually work.   Possible win-win-win.