Anger Management Anyone?

One thing I never thought I'd do is get into a morning exercise routine. I am not a morning person and I need more than a little time to get rolling every day. Since I really don't know when I'm getting out of work each day, however, working out before work is my only real option.

The gym is quite serene in the morning compared to the frantic scene in there at night. This morning the quiet was broken by a certified raving lunatic. New Yorkers are sometimes portrayed in popular culture as brash, loud and profane, but few could quite meet the stereotype like the disgruntled customer who was shouting at the top of his lungs at the customer service desk. Apparently, he was disturbed by the lack of attention his request to cancel his membership was receiving, so he became comically hysterical:

"This gym will not cancel my membership. They've got my credit card and they're not giving it up."
"My friends have had to go through this f&%*ing s#@t and I'm not going to stand for it."
"This is a f&%*ing homosexual gym anyway. Hey buddy, why don't you go suck your boyfriend!"
"I was on the phone for two f&%*ing hours yesterday and got nowhere and you people are not going to ignore me anymore!"

There was a lot more swearing, a stroll through the gym where he made some more homophobic remarks and even some urgent pleas to prospective customers: "do not sign up for this gym! They won't let you f&%*ing quit!" I am sure his voice was heard in every corner of the gym. This scene ended as you could have guessed, with a very young and slightly exasperated member of New York's finest escorting the man out of the building.

I think gyms receive a staggering amount of consumer complaints every year, so I do have some sympathy for that guy. Plus, I have, believe it or not, been driven to out-of-control rants at customer service people in the past. Minus the hateful language of course. The thing that always occurs to me after I've calmed down is that an emotional outburst with that much ferocity usually has more behind it than the matter at hand. During a more civil part of the discussion (with the police officer present) I heard the word "ex-wife" several times. I think this guy may have been angry about a little more than canceling his gym membership.

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.

Everyone at the Funeral Said He was in the Best Shape of His Life

It’s that time of the year again, when people carry out their New Year’s resolutions to exercise and get healthy in the New Year. This is time of year when people shell out money for costly gym memberships, dreaming about having abs of steel or buns of iron or maybe just less of a gut. This is the season for brushing the cheeto dust off your chest, reaching for the telephone and finally ordering that piece of exercise equipment sold on late-night TV. When I called, the operator sounded confused when I asked if they could ship my bowflex machine directly to the yard sale in which it will inevitably end up.

I have always been intimidated by gyms. I remember the first time I tried to do some weight lifting in college in a gym. Feeling insecure about my arms, often compared favorably to wire coat hangers, I went right for the bicep curl bar. With no guidance from a friend or a trained professional, the first time I strode in the gym, I did a couple thousand bicep curls. It is amazing how difficult it is to look cool and buff when you can’t unbend your arms for a week. Leaving the gym one day, I ran into a friend on the baseball team, surprised to see that I was in the gym:

“What are you doing here, man?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m just getting in shape, I guess,” I replied sheepishly.

Pausing, he replied, “For What?”

Perhaps that was a good question. I was never athletic or vain enough to become an avid weight lifter. I guess I was on a quest to lose the coat hanger arms or something. But somehow, I never felt comfortable in a gym. The first commercial gym I joined was in New Jersey and I was constantly ill at ease. There were a lot of men with tight perms and tiger print weight lifting pants walking around. Taking my initial required orientation with a personal trainer, my physique seemed to be a curiosity to this muscle bound, sort of square looking guy. Adjusting the Nautilus equipment for a “chest fly,” he said, “I’ve just rarely seen anyone as, uh, flexible as you.” Not burdened by muscle on my shoulders, back or arms, I could almost touch my shoulder blades together.

Foregoing a life as a circus freak, I mostly stayed away from the scary free weights and always tried to get some aerobic exercise in. Keeping a low profile on the treadmill is a breeze for most people. A simple distraction, however, such as an attempt to change the radio station on my walkman or the presence of a pretty girl, would inevitably lead to my foot striking the outside of the treadmill sending me into a George Jetson pratfall. I never really understood the art of meeting members of the opposite sex in the gym. Many of us are not looking our best in mid-workout, and no one really wants to hear “aren’t you the guy who just fell off the treadmill?”

After six weeks of holiday overeating, I finally made it back to the gym last night. I saw a guy in the mirror who’s pushing 40 hard and looked like he needs some exercise. I also saw a guy who was slightly embarrassed because he was looking at himself in the mirror as he used the stairclimber. How lame is that? These days the elliptical machine has passed the stairclimber as the stationary machine of choice among young women. I remember when the stairclimber ruled, leading a lecturer I once heard to say, in a perfect North Carolina drawl, “Why a woman would want a butt like a 12 year old boy, I will never know.”

My attempts to maintain a modicum of dignity in the gym continue, but it is an ongoing struggle. Perhaps I should follow the best advice I ever heard about what the perfect exercise equipment is: try a good pair of sneakers and a couple of barbells. [Originally posted 1/10/2008]