Gym Bunny. Runs on ordinary batteries.

Yesterday I joined the gym. A thoroughly humiliating experience. Presumably it’s the same for all men who’ve taken no exercise in the last 10 years.

I went into the gym and met by one of these rake-thin girls that get manufactured there. Rake-thin girl was about to ask me for my membership when she caught herself.

RTG: Can I see your…..Do you want to join the gym?
Me: Yes please (but the eyes were lying, and she knew it)

RTG then gave me a perversely long form to fill out. I think that they make them that long to give you time to reflect on your decision. I imagine this is this the same is if you are joining a monastery of pain. I filled out the form badly; home number and work number in the wrong place, ½ my address, that kind of thing, and handed it back. By this time RTG had left (it was a long form) to be replaced by short-fat girl. SFG must have been in on work experience from Dunkin’ doughnuts or Burger King, she was more out of place then the penguin that bought the pepsi to the polar bear party. SFG then asked me had I filled out my forms; I assured her I had, glowing in the self-satisfaction of my badly filled out form victory.

It turns out that there is another form, underneath the two forms I had already filled out. Sheepishly, I filled this form out in sub-ten seconds, it was of the yes/no variety, and I have learned my lesson about telling the truth at medicals. So this done, I handed over my cash (€350) got a ‘complementary’ lock, bag and towel, and followed SFG in her alarmingly tight pants to the holding area.

The holding area is where fresh meat stands to be taunted by body-nazis. I presume that this is a masochistic right of passage. My fascist was a very cheerful guy called Conor. He asked me a few questions, some Zen (why are you here?), some hitch-hikers guide (where’s your towel?). I told him that I wanted to get fit and lose weight. I showed him my towel. Cheered up by the fact he was going to cause me serious discomfort he took me to the cycling machine.

BF: Ten minutes should warm you up
Me: OK! (Thinking, ten fucking minutes, warm up? are you crazy?)

Ten minutes later, the body fascist comes back. I am a sweaty heap, reminiscent of the Golgotha monster in Dogma, he is a still a cheerful sadist. “Lets put you on the cross trainer” he chirps. Well named. It made me very cross indeed. BF applied some rules.

BF: That’s it, your doing it perfectly. Try to keep your strides between 110 and 120.

He left to go and find some other lambs to slaughter. Immediately my pace went up to 160. I found out that cross trainers are incredibly difficult to slow down. I grabbed the pulse monitor in desperation. Mistake. There is a light indicator on the front of the machine, it rose from “Not in the fitness zone” to “Double-Yip-Yip-Gaga, coronary” instantly. My pulse was two hundred and fifteen. I believe your heart isn’t designed to go that fast. My head was bowed, the lenses of my glasses filling with sweat and tears. Ten minutes and a couple of thousand strides later, nazi-boy makes a reappearance.

BF: How was that?
Me: Wheeze.
BF (laughing): Yeah! That’s an all over body work out!
Me: Wheeze.
BF: Lets work that upper body! (People actually talk like this in real life?)

So, he took me to the rowing machine. Now, I like the rowing machine. I find it slightly less menacing then the other instruments of torture. I think in medieval times if I had a choice I would have opted for the rack. When I get on, BF puts resistance up to ten. This is the highest level. Now I know he’s pulling the piss. There are guys built like brick shithouses on the machines beside me and they’re only on eight.

Me: What if I want an extra one?
Him: Huh? Come down in ten minutes and we’ll do the lower body.

Besides a not-so-oblique cultural reference falling very flat, the prospect of rowing for ten minutes with the bonus prize of lower body workout was very very unappealing. So I rowed off ten minutes, completing two kilometres. After my row, I wandered downstairs to meet my tormentor. He put me on the upright bike.

The upright bike is evil given shape. I was put on the interval course; this means that you pedal at resistance x (four in my case), and after a while you enter a new resistance y (eight), and the bike alternates automatically every ½ k. The magic, nay beauty of this is that you have to enter in your punishment yourself. It is psychologically very different from putting in a number at the start and sticking to it. Making the work harder for yourself after a few metres is like sticking lemon juice in an open wound. After six minutes I was beat, about to give up a female body-fascist came to my aid.

FBF: Are you ready for weights?
Me: Arrgh! The pain. Ow. Don’t look at the sweat pooling under my man breasts.

Weights are fine. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 80 x 25kg ab crunches, and 80 x 20kg back lifts. The weights were fine, because I didn’t do them; that’ll be for tonight.

Conor. 89.09kgs. 196lbs to the metrically challenged. And falling.