by James Birk
Chapter 10
Paul eyed me with a mixture of contempt and pity.
‘So what are you looking to get out of your training?’ he asked.
‘Just looking to lose a bit of weight and get a bit fitter, really,’ I lied.
I was fed up with sneering attitude of others when I claimed I would be running a marathon, and Paul seemed like he’d be even less sympathetic than my co-workers in this regard.
Paul was the personal trainer who’d been assigned to take me through my induction at ‘Pete’s Gym’, a local fitness centre that had two key advantages over any other in Cardiff; firstly it was a five-minute walk from my flat, and secondly, it was cheap. Alas they were really its only merits as far as I could see.
I hadn’t shirked the task of finding a gym to join and I had visited a number of hotels and health clubs in the Welsh capital in order to find the best fit to get me fit. Ian had given me some useful advice, explaining that if I contacted the clubs in advance might be able to get a one day free trial. It was a tip that had proven to be quite lucrative. Seven different centres had agreed to let me ‘try before I buy’ and so I had enjoyed a veritable week of luxury in some of the finest health clubs the city had to offer. Alas my fitness had not benefited one bit from these excursions as I had too often found myself relaxing in the Jacuzzis, saunas and steam rooms of these institutions rather than spending too much time in the gym, and the closest I had come to vigorous exercise was a couple of lengths of the undersized swimming pool in one of the clubs, which in fairness had left me rather breathless.
I had particularly enjoyed my trial at Ludus Health Club, which was very much at the five star end of the market. An attractive woman in her mid-forties called Bryony had shown me around, taking every available opportunity to flirt subtly with me. The place was amazing, from the technological wonders of the cardiovascular equipment and the utopian health spa, through to a myriad of courts for any racket sport you could imagine and a gloriously well stocked cafeteria.
The array of BMWs and Mercedes parked outside Ludus, told me that I couldn’t even dream of affording to join on my salary, but Bryony saw things differently, almost intimating at one point it seemed, that if I were to join, I might even get to enjoy carnal knowledge of her. Tempting though this was, (and it really was) my low self-esteem told me that she was far from interested in me as a lover, and more than interested in getting me to sign a direct debit form that would have left so little of my wages in my account each month that I would have been forced to choose between whether to pay the rent on my little flat or do other essential stuff like eating. When I ultimately decided not to join, Bryony did become a little colder towards me, but credit to her professionalism, a man with a sturdier ego probably wouldn’t have noticed.
If Ludus was the pinnacle of health and fitness then Pete’s Gym must surely have been at the other end of the scale. Certainly the other six places I tried out were all superior, and if not quite scaling the heights of Ludus, were certainly more reasonably priced as well. But when it came down to it, I just didn’t have the finances to justify the monthly fee of any of the nice places, particularly as even those with a relatively low monthly fee still charged a monstrously high joining fee, which seemed completely unjustifiable.
Besides Pete’s Gym may have been at the lower end of the market, but what ultimately were my needs? A Jacuzzi, steam room and sauna were not what I needed to get fit for my marathon. A swimming pool might have helped, but ultimately what I needed was a treadmill to spare myself any more freezing cold winter runs and some other machines to help me vary my training a bit. Pete’s gym had several treadmills, as well as some other reasonably modern looking equipment and while the setting was not as luxurious as Ludus and the like, it was definitely adequate for my current needs.
Paul was an imposing figure, certainly a good advert for the benefits that a commitment to more exercise and fewer kebabs might bring me. Although I was fairly large in stature, he dwarfed me, and his ripped and toned physique only emphasized how soft and flabby I was. Nevertheless, impressive though he was, I saw absolutely no reason for him, or indeed any man, to wear quite as much Lycra as he was currently sporting.
‘So what’s your main focus,’ Paul asked, ‘weight loss or fitness?’
Now I’d always assumed that getting fit would naturally lead to weight loss, and so was naturally confused by this question. Paul, who was not as thick as he looked (and let’s be honest, my self-esteem demanded that I be at least a little bit more intelligent than him) realised my confusion and elaborated.
‘Some fitness programmes lend themselves more to burning fat and others to improving fitness. Obviously one will lead to the other, but we can design a programme for you that will focus more heavily on one aspect.’
I was impressed; I had no idea it was going to be this technical when I signed up for my induction. Naturally fitness was more important for the marathon but the sight of Paul all muscular and toned hurt my ego and so vanity led me to declare that weight loss was my main focus (it didn’t really matter, my previous experience of going to a gym back in uni told me that I was probably going to ignore whatever training regime Paul designed for me in favour of whatever I felt like doing if and when I made it to the gym). Paul nodded as if he too felt that weight loss should really be my main objective.
However it seemed that our interpretation of what constituted weight loss was very different. My definition of weight loss was to lose the beer belly, generally tone up and become the kind of physical specimen that would have the ladies queuing up (to eventually be disappointed by my low self-worth, lack of career direction and all round incompetence in the bedroom). Following Paul’s regime would certainly have aided me to lose weight, when those cumbersome things that I called my arms fell off! It was my own fault, Paul’s routine merely followed the premise that you lose more weight by doing lots of repetitions lifting the lighter weights on the machines rather than few repetitions lifting heavy weights; it was simply my unwillingness to admit that the weights the big muscle-bound freak had suggested I should be able to do this with were still a tad on the heavy side.
The cardiovascular induction fared little better; I discovered to my horror that running on a treadmill seemed no easier and no less painful than running around the park, and had the added disadvantage of being a lot more boring. The less said about the rowing machine the better, but I certainly gained a new found respect for the Olympic gold medallists that Britain seems to churn out in the sport every four years.
The induction did not end in total despair though, for the last piece of equipment that Paul introduced me to was the cross trainer. Generally in the past it was a machine I had avoided because it seemed to be the best machine for losing all your dignity in one fell swoop, but the truth of the matter was, I didn’t actually find it that hard, gone were the pains in my ankles and lower back, and while I was out of breath after only a few minutes, it was the good kind of breathlessness, more associated to burning calories and toning up as opposed to the kind of breathlessness that one associates with coronary failure.
After my tour of the gym, Paul handed me some forms to fill in, which seemed to mostly be for the purpose of waiving any responsibility from Pete’s Gym in the event of me exacerbating any serious medical conditions through exercise, but Paul assured me that every member needed to fill these in and it wasn’t that he thought I was particularly likely to be suffering from exercise related health problems anytime soon.
‘That’s everything then mate,’ he said as I handed over my completed forms, ‘see you soon.’
‘What time does the gym open in the morning,’ I asked, thinking that an early morning workout might still suit me best since I had now established a fairly consistent routine of getting up before breakfast to go running.
‘Well we’re open at six thirty,’ he said, before adding with a grin, ‘but if you want to see the really fit girls working out in their tight shorts, then you’re better off c
oming after work.’
While somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware that that was quite a chauvinistic thing to say, I was also grateful for the advice and made a mental note to switch some of my training sessions to the evening.