Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Leaving no sweat is no problem

By Carl Heintze

Of late, through no fault of my own, I've been introduced to the world of fitness. Every morning, I get up, drive to the fitness world (I should walk, but . . . ), get out of the car and trudge past an echoing maze of racquetball courts (whack! whack!) to two huge rooms.

One is filled what appear to be torture devices left over from the Middle Ages. That's the equipment room. The second room has row on row of stationary bicycles and "steppers." Mirrors line the walls. One can't avoid them. I suspect they are there to show you how out of shape you look. They sure do that for me, anyway.

No matter what time of the morning each room is filled with people, most of them aging Baby Boomers, male and female, huffing and puffing, groaning and moaning. But the inhabitants therein aren't always the same. Their makeup depends on the time of day.

Early in the morning, it's mostly males on their way to work. After 9 or 10 a.m., it's women of various sizes and shapes, presumably out-of-shape mothers and singles.

The men are wooden-faced as they puff away, the earphones of portable radios on their heads, doggedly pumping their stationary bicycles or grunting at steppers, trying to "climb" as fast as they can.

Their attention clearly is elsewhere. Some read newspapers. Others stare at television screens on the wall where the anchors for CNN are disgorging the latest calamities in Israel, Bosnia or Africa.

The women are different. They tend to come in pairs and to talk as they exercise. That seems to ease the monotony of doing the same thing over and over again.

A lot of women also come with athletic water bottles from which they slurp frequently--you know, the kind football players use--with a semi-permanent straw sticking out the lid.

I am presuming they are drinking water, though it could be Gatorade or some such concoction. Could even be scotch. Whatever it is, they drink a lot.

Beyond these two large groups of fitness freaks, there are occasional old crocks like me who slink off in a corner, their eyes downcast, hoping, I suppose, that no one will recognize them. Or maybe it is because, like me, they can't stand to look at the bulging image in the wall mirrors.

Signs admonish us all not to leave traces of sweat around. It makes things slippery. I find this warning unnecessary because I am trying to the best of my ability not to get up a sweat.

I know this flies in the face of why this fitness emporium exists. It's supposed to be a place where you grunt, sweat, grit your teeth and build up your ABS (and that doesn't stand for anti-locking brake system, either.) No pain, no gain, right?

Well, maybe. Fitness is sort of why I am there. Mostly it is to repair the ravages of minor surgery and illness, to try to get my atrophied muscles back in some kind of slightly better shape.

Still I have this feeling that I have stumbled into the wrong place, into an alien culture. I'm not a Baby Boomer. I never ran a 6K race; in fact, I never even walked a 6K race.

Like the late Robert Hutchins, once president of the University of Chicago and the man who killed its football team, when I feel the need for exercise coming on, I tend to lie down until the feeling passes over.

What's more, I prefer my exercise to be taken in the sunlight out of doors, not in a room noisy with the sound of rock music, CNN's global view and machines that measure rate of speed, caloric output and miles per hour. Bicycle machines do that. Some even have television screens on which a virtual reality scrolls along ahead of you as you pedal, thus, I suppose, making you think you really are bicycling outdoors, not in a sweaty gymnasium.

But the TV picture has no real sunlight and no wind in your face. It may be virtual, but it's not reality.

But then as I heave away on the exercise machine, trying to get my ABS back to something like normal, I reflect that this is all sour grapes and jealousy on my part. I would really like to look and feel as fit as these kids, most of them the age of my own very fit children. I'd like to have the gray hairs on my head turn to black once more, to feel that lift in my stride, to be able to do a pullup or two or maybe even 10 pushups.

I used to be able to do that once and maybe if I keep on trying with this infernal machine, I might yet make it again. Not that I'd be rid of the gray hair, but at least it would look distinguished on top of a newly rejuvenated body.

I'd like to believe that, so I keep on pumping iron or whatever this machine does. Just a little longer and then I'll go to Starbucks and have an espresso and biscotti. That's what these other younger people in the room do when they finish being fit. I'm sure of it.

Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.