You Joined What?!

Unlikely Scenario A: My pudgy, apron-wearing little Mother (who has trouble hobbling onto a tram) joins a gym and buys stretchy pants. Her favourite work out music is Blondie and she owns a Swiss ball.

Unlikely Scenario B: A cynical blogger (yours truly) who's only exercise was once chemically induced dancing, and who considers sport a symptom of weak intellect... joins the gym too.

Don't worry, I'm not going to go all weird and sporty on your asses...I just thought it would be humorous to document the experiences of a fitness-phobe in the land of lycra and bad music.

After my whole two weeks at the gym I have realised that it wasn't exercise that I've been hating all along, its all that stuff that comes with exercise if you do it wrong.
Public View: I can handle myself looking like a sweating tomato but I don't want anyone else to see me and judge me for it. When I used to go jogging around a park I'd want to put a bag over my head, what the hell...I wanted a screen around my whole jiggly body. At the gym I've joined its special cos its just for women and everybody is too scared that you're looking at their jiggling bodies to look at yours. It works well.
If you're the kind of person who is also irreparably scarred by school swimming sports then you will know what I mean.

This brings me to my next point, Competition: The fear of being judged is also a fear of failure and failure comes when you're forced to compete against some bitchy whippet who sprinkles methamphetamine on their Weetbix every morning. No thanks.
The gym caters to the non-competitive (or the "You can win as long as I never have to try") types. You can just listen to your Mp3, watch T.V. on the treadmills or stare blissfully into space. You can completely shut out the world and let your brain rot as your heat-rate soars.

When I jog on the treadmill I feel remarkably like a hamster in a wheel, I stare out at the gym windows (which are barred like a cage) and I run my little chubby heart out and get nowhere. Sound like hell to you? For me, this caged environment is bliss. When you're a prisoner (or a hamster in a cage) you have no responsibilities; decisions are simple (cross trainer or bike), you don't need to even watch where you are going (you just hold the handles and run) and you are safe from the outside world (which conveniently cannot see in the windows).

The staff hand out chilled towels that smell like eucalyptus and there's free moisturiser, hairspray and hairdryers in the bathrooms. I just wish there was someone to brush my shiny hamster coat afterwards. In conclusion, exercise isn't bad but really enthusiastic, fit people are, and you have to pay $30 a session to train with one of them.