For the sake of his children, our pasty British friend Ben Wakeling hits the gym. Then he hits the wall. Then the floor.
I did something terrible this past weekend. One moment of madness that I might regret for the rest of my life.
I joined a gym.
I avoid exercise like the plague. Instead, I prefer to fool myself: If I break into anything more than a walk as I ascend the stairs, I convince myself that I’ve just done an hour’s intensive workout, and that I’ve just burned 300 calories, or something.
I only did it because, when I’m playing football with my boys in a few years’ time, I don’t want to be one of those dads who, after five minutes of activity, lies spasming on the turf like a fish out of water. I don’t want to be one of those dads whose belly is so big that when he stands at the loo to pee, he can’t tell if he’s aimed properly.
Following a pizza (which I figured would give me plenty of energy), I arrived at the gym on Monday evening clutching a towel, a bottle of water, and my Blackberry. After having a startled photo of myself taken for membership purposes, I was introduced to a short, buff chap named Mike, whose shaven head was the proud, waxy peak of a body clad in a skin-tight shirt and clinging shorts.
He thought I didn’t notice when he looked me up and down, taking in my pale thighs, my short shorts, and my baggy football shirt. But I had. I might be weak in body, but not in mind. Not until I’m old, that is, and can’t remember my own name, or which direction I’m facing.
I say weak in body, but it was established during the initial assessment that my skeletal muscle stands at 39%—a full 2% higher than an average male of my age, height, and weight.
I have no idea where this muscle is; it’s certainly not in my upper body, that’s for sure. When my wife nuzzles into my shoulder as we watch a film, she’s met with a cheekful of shoulder bone and little else.
This mysterious 37% could possibly be packed into my buttocks, which have been described as “pert and chiseled”—by me, that is.
We decided on a regime of cardio and weights, carrying out each on alternate nights. That first night would be simply a taster of all the equipment I would be using. Easy, I thought, as we stepped onto the gym floor, where the air was opaque with sweat, testosterone, and terrible, terrible music.
Five minutes later, as I was rowing like a Viking and staring at digital numbers that make no sense at all, I realized: I’ve made a big mistake.
♦♦♦
Mike announced that he was going to “push me.” He boasted of doing an hour on the bike, followed by a 10k run. I nodded as I pulled back on the chain, cursing him and myself in words best left unrepeated.
Then came the cross-trainer.
“Just pretend you’re running,” Mike explained. He was exasperated, and rightly so. For some reason, I cannot get the hang of this stupid machine. Instead of merely running, my legs flail about as if I’m trying to maintain balance on an icy puddle, my feet whipping back and forth like a couple of pendulums on ecstasy.
Mike eventually gave up. “Bike next.” he said, curtly, as I dabbed my glistening forehead, hauled myself onto the saddle, and began the ride to nowhere. This is more like it, I thought to myself, as I began to relax as my feet circled away.
“Um… let’s increase the resistance a bit.” Mike gestured towards the blinking display, which I regarded in despair when I realized that, out of a resistance scale of 1 to 12, with 12 being the most resistance, I was cruising on a leisurely 1. He punched a few buttons, and suddenly I was pedaling through clay, my thighs—or ‘quads’, as he called them—beginning to burn.
Mike informed me that I need to be aiming for eighty somethings a minute (whatever the unit of measure was, I can’t remember now). I looked at the display, noting that I was up to fifty somethings. I was doing the equivalent of cycling through the English countryside, enjoying the spring air, the sweet birdsong, and trying to avoid a crazed, gun-wielding madman.
I pushed my speed up to eighty. It hurt. Mike told me (in a roundabout way) that if I do under eighty, I’m a little fairy girl.
♦♦♦
Next we were on to the weights next, which—thanks to my dumb luck—are located in a room at the top of a flight of stairs. Mike bounded up, two steps at a time. I staggered behind, clinging desperately to the handrail like a pensioner who’s had his Zimmer frame stolen.
Fortunately, I find weights to be much easier than cardio, mostly because I can lie about which weight is right for me. “Ooh, yeah, that burns just right,” I’ll say, feigning exertion as I lift the equivalent of a puppy.
The end was in sight, like a rousing crescendo in the closing stages of a mind-numbing opera. Mike complimented my quads as I flexed on the tortuously-named “leg extension” machine. I felt a strange sense of accomplishment as I finally identified where that elusive 39% of muscle must be.
A few half-hearted stretches later, and the session was over. I shook Mike’s hand limply and staggered to my car, spitting phlegm onto tarmac as I went. I managed to punch out a text message to my wife through tired thumbs. “Just finished,” I wrote. “When I’m done crying I’ll drive home.”
—Ben Wakeling
Now that is brilliant, this guy is in lovely shape he must work out daily. lol great post…
Adorable article! Loved it!