Physical Fitness

Originally Posted Sunday, January 27, 2013

I've never had a response to a posted picture like the ones I had to the picture I posted yesterday.  Seems to be a popular image.  Now for a darker version. . . . This woman is a fitness instructor with her own gym.  She was once a three hundred pound crack addict.  Obviously, she is the reason police officers began carrying bigger guns.  She said she didn't "do nudes," so we danced around it all night.  When I sent her this, though, she was thrilled.  If people would only listen to me.  Why would this woman ever put clothes on?  She was training for an upcoming contest and was on a 1,200 calorie a day diet, so she was surly.  I've forgotten what dieting is like.  No I haven't.  That's why I don't do it.  It is not one of life's pleasures.  But I like that she would put herself through the rigors, that she would do that for our enjoyment.  She is swell.  She is a champ.

I worked out in a steroid gym most of my life.  It was the oldest gym in America if you only counted gyms that had not changed locations.  It was originally owned by a German Strong Man who held the World's Record for the one arm lift and the unassisted squat.  What are those you ask?  Old timey lifts from the Old World, I guess.  With the unassisted squat, for instance, there was no rack to hold the weight.  He still had part ownership in the gym when I joined and would come in once in awhile.  He was old then, thick and arthritic with fingers the size of tree limbs.  When he came in, he'd look around and everyone would gather to kiss his ass.  He was not a nice man and had never been.  When I was young, the father of two older boys I went to school with ran the gym.  He was not nice, either.  His sons were tough.  Once the older of the two got into a fight and he bit through the other boy's ear leaving it hanging.  His father gave him the highest compliment he knew.  "You're an animal," he said.

At that time, the gym had a wresting ring as the German was a wrestling promoter, too.  If you wanted to join the gym, you had to wrestle with the "animal['s]" father.  After getting the shit beaten out of you for awhile, he would tell you to go home, work out, lose some weight, and come back when you were ready.  When you got to be a member, the German would walk around and yell at anyone who was doing lighter weights and higher reps.

"Put some weight on there, Pump Boy, or get out of my gym."

Fortunately for me, I joined just after that era ended.  The wrestling ring was gone and Arnold Schwarzenagger had just won the Mr. Olympia title.  Still, it was like working out in prison.  It was all iron and steel and metal chains.  Most of the equipment had been hand built.  And you lifted weights to get big.  And now, I resemble the Old German Strong Man in a minor way when I walk.  Who knew?

The gym is gone now, and few of the lifters are still around.  The "healthy" life took a big toll in heart attacks, kidney and liver failures, and suicides.  When I do see anyone left around town, they don't look so good.  They are not the sorts you think you might like to know.

But me. . . well, I was a bit different.  I was a comparative sissy, I guess, and now I work out at the Y with all the toned, slim, fitness men and women.  Nobody lifts heavy weights.  They avoid it.  They perform wonderfully crazy exercises on balls and unstable platforms or standing on one foot.  They jump up and down on and off boxes and use cables attached to machines by pulleys.  They spend hours on elliptical machines and always carry bottles of water and towels.  They talk about their children who are off to good schools, and during the holidays, they all come in and work out, too, bright young boys and girls with big, white orthodontic smiles and clear, clean complexions.

Gyms are nothing like they used to be.  It's a good thing.