Andy and Gym

Andy has joined the gym. He has been twice this week, both times after work which, given he has been late finishing almost every evening, is pretty impressive. He went last night.

'I nearly died!' he announces cheerfully, returning an hour later. 'I did running uphill but stopped just before I felt like I was going to collapse.'
'Good,' I say. I wonder if I ought to sneak along with him, just to keep an eye on proceedings and administer artificial respiration if needed. Should I make him have half an aspirin before he goes? Did he take his blood pressure pills this morning? It's a bit of a worry. Especially when he's so blase in his near-death proclamations.

I can't bear gyms. That's why I go swimming and walking and do gardening and dance around the kitchen when no-ones watching. I've had gym membership twice in my life and the longest I managed to survive was eight months. It's the pain, you see. You go along with your stretchy pants and oversize T-shirt and your trainers that make your toes go numb. You start on something gentle like the exercise bike. You pedal away for ten minutes, building up a sweaty glow and then a stick-thin gym trainer appears and says 'That's your warm up done. Now do another twenty minutes. And don't forget to warm down for ten minutes at the end.'

Another twenty minutes?? Then warm down??? How does one 'warm down?' Call me old-fashioned, but I used to 'cool down' which involved getting down , or rather falling off the exercise bike and lying very still on the floor until I'd stopped hyperventilating and felt less hot.

And then you're expected to do more! So you attach yourself to the rowing machine and slip and slide around on a seat that has been worn dangerously shiny from the thousand other bottoms that have slid up and down on it before yours. I confess I didn't mind the rowing machine, especially if it had a little electronic consul that showed you rowing across a lake or up a river past ducks and stuff. I didn't mind the step-machine either except for moments when the gym trainer would come along and change the speed and incline without so much as a bye-your-leave and you'd suddenly find yourself climbing Mount Kilamanjaro at fifty miles an hour rather than a gently hilly slope at three.

The cross trainer was invented as an instrument of torture during the Spanish Inquisition. It was outlawed almost immediately on grounds of extreme cruelty even then, and has only been reintroduced in the guise of a piece of gym equipment because someone found one in a cupboard one day and turfed it out because they needed the space for their doughnut stash.

And then the gym trainer starts suggesting you do a few muscle toning exercises which is basically where they make you lie on a rubber mat that smells of old shoes and stale Lynx aftershave and do abdominal crunches until you projectile vomit. They try and make it sound all cosy and fluffy bunny by calling them 'tummy crunches' but don't be fooled. They burn like hell. And that is your body's way of telling you NOT TO DO THEM!

After you've finished, the gym trainer says 'Well done (fatso), don't forget your warm-down stretches.' And you go, 'Are you mad??? I'm off for a shower and a mug of hot chocolate and probably a good half packet of biscuits. And if I still feel like poop-on-a-stick, I'll have a piece of cheese on toast too.'

So I'll stick to my swimming and walking and gardening and dancing, thank you. They cause me no pain and they let me think about writing whilst I do them rather than worrying if I'm going to be sick or break my legs.

Tomorrow we are going, courtesy of our free 'Kent's Big Day Out' tickets, to the Yalding Organic Gardens. I am very excited.
'Are you excited, Andy?' I ask.
'What? Oh, er...yes,' says Andy.
I would be more convinced if he wasn't stifling a yawn at the time. But perhaps he's tired from this week's gym exertions.