I Think I Was Too Old for This 10 Years Ago

For my first year in New York, I went to the gym at the university fairly regularly, like 4-5 days a week. Everything was fine and dandy until I started to feel overwhelmed by students. I work around them all day long and then at night I was surrounded by them in the gym. My breaking point came when I was sitting on a bench working out with dumbbells when a student cornered me about an issue he was having. At that point, I decided my days at the university gym were numbered.

When I moved into my apartment in midtown, I discovered a gym right across the street -- I mean RIGHT across the street -- from my home and much to my surprise the monthly fee was the same as I was paying at school. Surrounded by regular people and so close to home, this seemed like a much better fit. The guy signing me up did the hard sell on some personal training sessions, and since I'd been thinking that was something I'd be interested in anyway, I signed up for 4 or 5 sessions.

I had to wait a few weeks to get started until the students were all settled in at school and I could actually go to the gym. I played phone tag with a guy trainer for a few weeks, and then finally decided (with a little trepidation) that I had to get started so I walked up to the desk and just told them I could start. "I can take him!" said a perky young woman in her 20s. Oh dear, I thought to myself.

The first (7am) session last week had me doing pushups and squat-thrusts like I hadn't done in years. She tried to get me to do some dumbbell lunge exercise that involved about 4 different movements and whatever little coordination I normally have left me completely. Before I left, Ms. Perky said, "when do you want to meet next?" I suggested one week from then -- Friday. She told me we'd be meeting Tuesday and Thursday. So much for easing into this. I left the gym sore and climbed slowly back up to the fourth floor and my apartment.

This morning was my second session. Again she had me doing jumping jacks, lunges with a medicine ball, and then there was the let's-show-the-gym-how-uncoordinated-Paul-is exercise. It involved me standing on an inflatable ball that sat flat on the floor while holding a barbell bar in my hand and trying to pull it into my chest. The only thing that would have made it harder was if she had asked me to spin a plate on stick while I did this. After some crazy chest press things (imagine getting in a pushup position while gripping a dumbbell on the floor and then rolling the dumbbell away from you laterally while you do a pushup) we started to do some ab work. I began to get so worn out that my brain and my body were just no longer on speaking terms. I explained to the trainer that as much as I'd like to do 5 more crunches my torso had an entirely different opinion on the matter. And I began to feel a little nauseated. Then I began to feel flat out sick and light-headed. She assured me this was normal. After she was finished helping me get stretched out, she look at me one last time and said "are you OK"? I said I was even though that was definitely an open question.

And what is it that a nausea victim wants to face on the 50 yard walk back to his house after a strenuous workout? A giant black tanker truck with "R&R Rendering" on the side of it was idling next to the burger restaurant on the plaza. The company apparently collects grease, bones and fat from restaurants in their lovely little truck. The fragrance coming from the truck cleaning out the grease traps was almost enough to put me over the top. As of now there has been no vomiting on my part, but I can't make any promises.