Gym Rat

One of the perks of joining the gym (actually, the only perk; everything else you pay for, including the towel) is that you get a free personal training session. This is obviously meant to seduce you into paying for future training sessions, and I myself was seduced, to the point that although I am currently hunched over my keyboard because my arms are in so much pain, I am eager to sign up for another session some day so that I can learn how to work on my legs and eventually make them just as painful as my arms and then realize my goal of being just a torso flopping from place to place.

Normally one would try to evenly work both the top and bottom of one’s body, and as I started my training session, I was upfront about my wish to do so.

“What are your goals?” the trainer asked me, as we sat in his office.

“More arm strength, and get my upper arms toned,” I announced. “I need to be able to lift things. Also I need to work on my thighs.”

He nodded and jotted down what I had said. “So strength and toning for arms — is there something in particular you would like to be able to lift?”

“Well,” I said, “I just moved, and I couldn’t lift my boxes of books so I had to hire a moving company. So it would be great if I could lift a half-filled box of books. Not even a full one; I’d be happy with half.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “And you also want on work on strength and toning for thighs?”

I hesitated. I was very particular about taking words literally, and in this case, I had no idea what he meant by “strength” for thighs. Would this be a sexual thing? Or did people habitually desire to crack watermelons between their thighs? Either way, I didn’t want to go there.

“I guess just toning for thighs,” I said, trying to politely avoid any sexual/fruital connotations.

He gave me a weird look. Perhaps he could tell I was thinking about fruit.

Fortunately, he was a professional, and quickly moved on. “All right, so let’s see. You’ve probably just finished school, right? You must be….twenty-five? Twenty-si…” He flipped to the front of the paperwork I had filled out, and his jaw dropped when he saw my age.

“Thirty-five,” I said, into the silence. “Actually, almost thirty-six in a few weeks.”

“Thirty-five?” he echoed. He double-checked my birthdate, as if considering me a liar. Because you know those women, always adding extra decades to their ages. “You were born in…’73…yes, that’s thirty-five! You really don’t look thirty-five.”

He shook his head in amazement. Hell, I was amazed too. I’d just finished explaining that I hadn’t worked out before, other than during the previous three or four months when I’d found out I had high cholesterol (“So no working out at all before then?” “No.” “No swimming or weights?” “No.” “No running or team sports?” “No.” “Not even aerobics?” “No, nothing. Can you just mark down that I’m a lazy slob?”) and here I was, apparently passing for a decade younger.

Admittedly, I had gotten used to hairdressers assuming I was in college, but had chalked it up to them trying, and failing, to sufficiently flatter me enough to want to return. But now I had a professionally trained fitness expert saying I had the body of a twenty-five year old! OK, maybe he wasn’t quite saying that. But he was saying I had the face of a twenty-five year old! Perhaps… someday… when I was ready… I could LIE about my age on match.com! And get guys in the age group I was interested in (35-38, no exceptions, please) to be interested in me!

In my delirium, I must have uttered some of this aloud, because the trainer was shaking his head. “Just go out with guys in their late twenties,” he advised. “Have some fun! Go out dancing! You’ll have a slimmer butt, get out there and shake it!”

“That was just an expression,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean your butt needed work.”

“I’m not even thinking of the butt,” I said honestly. “Let’s get to the thighs first and then worry about the butt.”

Sadly, even the thighs didn’t make it into this session. All we had time to work on was one muscle group. Given that there was a strong possibility I’d need to move in a year, and that I didn’t even like watermelon, I had to choose the arms.

Thus ensued the most grueling minutes of my life. He walked me through 15 reps on six or seven different weight machines, and then finished with sit-ups on a balance ball and the plank position.

“So you just have to do two more sets of these,” he said cheerfully. “You want to aim for three total sets, 15 reps each.”

Earlier in the day, alone in my apartment, I had tried to do push-ups and managed to complete only two and a half of them. I had almost passed out on the last one; thus the half. I tried to put these negative thoughts out of my mind. I had the body face of a twenty-five year old!

So instead of saying, “You’re fucking crazy!” I said, “All right.”

“And then finish with 25 minutes on the elliptical,” he added.

“Sure,” I said.

I had the best intentions, but as I finished up my solo set, I must have looked exhausted. The trainer, working with a new client by then, took pity on me and called out, “I think two sets is probably good for today, Jane.”

“That’s what I was just thinking,” I said, trying not to put any noticeable gasps between each word.

I wearily climbed onto the elliptical and pedaled to nowhere for about 10 minutes, and then realized I couldn’t feel my arms any more.

So I went home. My arms were limp.

But I had the body face hair of a twenty-five year old.

Posted by: Supersonic Jane | October 7, 2009 | 12:12 am
Posted in: This Life