I'm not a gym person. Oh I've tried them, even joined several times - and I always get intimidated by all the equipment, especially that obscene open-your-thighs-wide contraption that inevitably has me facing some sweaty guy on a treadmill.
I get annoyed by all the people hanging out, perspiring to be workout professionals, flexing whilst guzzling their fancy-schmancy bottled water. Makes me want to just plop down on a yoga mat and eat doritos and make fun of them. To me, there are untold number of reasons why just plain walking is so much preferable over exercising at an indoor gym.
1. Being able to look in people's windows.
I'm amazed at the number of people (usually men) who think no one can see them in their bathrooms.
2. If the windows are open, hearing other mothers yelling at their kids.
This is always kind of vaguely comforting to me. God only knows what other walkers have heard when they've walked past my house.
3. Being outside, breathing in the fresh air, the wonder of nature, the changing of the seasons, etc.
Besides giving great calves, it really is good for your soul.
4. Being able to stop and smoke a cigarette if I want to, or make a phone call out of the earshot of my kids.
I stopped smoking years ago. I wouldn't dare smoke in front of my kids, they'd crucify me. But I started smoking "socially" several years back when I was out with someone and he lit up a Gauloise and it just looked so damn appealing. Ditto if I'm out and the other person is smoking, I'll usually have one with them. Or two or three, I'm pretty easily led that way. I used to keep a pack of Dunhills in the freezer for special occasions, but there just wasn't enough of those and they went stale.
5. If I don't feel like walking anymore, I can stop at my sister's house and she'll give me a ride home.
This has happened more than a few times. She only lives about a mile away and her house is a convenient restroom stop, or a place to scarf down one of those Entemmen chocolate donuts. They're a family addiction, we all keep a supply.
But just this week, I received a 3 day pass to an upscale and rather luxurious new gym that opened up close to where I live. They have a heated pool, which is the main reason I'm thinking of trying one out again. Swimming is envigorating, it tones the muscles and being underwater is so very soothing, you can shut everything else out. Even if swimming is all I use it for, it'll be worth the membership cost.
I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes. Glug.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
3 Day Pass
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6 comments:
The last time I joined a health club, I was asked to schedule an "initial evaluation". Unfortunately, I made the date for an early evening on a weekday following a reception given by a Bermuda law firm trying to drum up business in New York, at which I consumed several dark and stormys and smoked a larger number of Benson & Hedges. When I got to the club, I was greeted by a guy who could have won a Grace Jones look-alike contest, who cuffed me with a sphygmomamometer and pressed the disk of a stethoscope to a spot just below the inside of the crook of my elbow. After making his measurements, he said, "MISTER Scales, your blood pressure and pulse rate are BOTH far above normal. We will require a doctor's certification that they are within normal ranges before you may begin to use our facilities." My blood pressure and pulse have always been within normal ranges whenever I've taken a routine physical.
Anyway, I was able to get my money back. No more health clubs for me. (BUT, if I thought I could be that sweaty guy on the treadmill while you were on ... oh, never mind.)
There's no piece of gym equipment more emasculating than those things. (And if you're a man, there's real danger of your balls falling out.) I'm resigned to having weak adductors.
In high school, I ran cross-country. Beyond all reason, I kept up with it for four years, and moved up to the middle of the pack by the time I was a senior. I am not a natural or an enthusiastic runner, and jogging out of doors brings back horrible associations of being behind the middle of the pack, especially if it's in the autumn. I'm a much better swimmer.
(I like walking in the woods though.)
You'd probably like my place, there's a bunch of marines that (evidently) get stationed in the closed-but-not-really-closed Army base nearby. They tumble in in herds in the mornings and act all buff and tough and stuff.
You know, there may be other ways top address this.
Of course, that probably just makes Keifus's comment about the marines at his club that much more appealing.
Good point, TK.
Goddess weighs a whopping 121 lbs (55 kg for you, international readers!), pure muscle.
Wanna work out together?
121 lbs? My God, I could wrestle you with one arm tied behind my back.
Ummmm, or not, of course. curtseying
Or so you keep claiming.
Careful!
I might just give you a chance...to get a divine asswhipping.
Lovingly, of course.
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