My Brief Sojourn At The Gym — Why I Won’t Be Continuing My Membership
Fitness is obviously very important, for life and also for your own mental health during the Aussie bikini season. I decided it was probably a good idea to maybe get fit and also try and look like I don’t binge eat peanut butter from the jar whilst watching The Bachelor (soon to be Bachelorette).
In light of this epiphany type realistion I then immediately took my first step towards change and naturally began following as many #fitnessbloggers as possible. Apparently ‘summer bodies are made in winter’, so I joined a gym. In winter. Thus began my very exciting, humiliating, confronting and ultimately unrewarding experience with group indoor fitness...
Day 1: Boxing class
Fridays are always great, you often cannot dim the light of a Friday. Drinking from midday, even while at work is all of a sudden not that taboo. You can be hung over tomorrow and NOT spiral into existential crisis because hey, you don’t have to go into the office, it’s all about the sleep in baby. You have two whole days of undisturbed freedom ahead of you and the world is your bloody oyster. Nothing could bring you down. Except the humiliation that comes with attending a boxing class for the first time without realising it’s partnered. Nothing makes you feel truly as vulnerable awkward and uncomfortable as hearing the instructor say “partner up” when everyone else has clearly arrived with their pre determined, regular boxing partner. It reminds me of high-school P.E and I want to run away and hide. Forever. Luckily, after several minutes of crippling awkwardness the instructor acknowldges the one person standing alone (that’s me FYI) and offers to be my partner. Several things are unsettling about this situation however. Firstly, I now have to stand at the front of the class, with the instructor as she instructs and I have no fucking clue what I am doing. Secondly, I don’t get to swap and be the ‘pad holder’ so by the end of the class I am literally an incapacitated version of my former self who has forgotten what it’s like to not be covered in sweat. Pretty sure it’s my own but honestly who knows at this point. Thirdly, I realise at the end of the class that my top is inside out. Fourthly, my hands also now smell like feet due to use of communal gym gloves. Not to self: don’t try that again. Don’t ruin the magic of Fridays.
Day 2 — Body Pump
Apparently you’re meant to set up your own bench and bar weight thingy for this one and you’re not allowed to just assume ownership of what appears to be an already set up empty one. No, that’s someone else’s. Luckily the fire alarm went off three quarters of the way through allowing me to escape the torture of this exercise. Unfortunately my legs were rendered useless due to excessive squatting and I then fell down the stairs whilst trying to make a subtle exit.
Day 3 — Body Attack
Firstly, there’s a lot of clapping, running in circles and high fives. Not sure if in gym class or accidentally stumbled into a motivational self help group for women.
Secondly, if I’m going to listen to awful techno covers of terrible pop songs whilst flailing my limp body around like an idiot, I’d like to be seven tequila shots deep, in a dark club setting. Certainly not in a halogen lit studio complete with walled mirrors. I’ve never been so confronted or aware of how lanky and uncoordinated my body is.
Thirdly, if you’re a gym instructor, please just stick to instructing — don’t try to sing along with the awful pop techno covers. You’re making me want to cry and it’s not even 7am yet.
Fourthly, I should have left when I walked in and saw the instructors t shirt. Which read: I eat burpees for breakfast. This to me seems wrong and disturbing on many levels. Until next time body attack. (Next time is actually never. I’m never going back)
Day 4 — Spin
If someone told me to design a room as close as possible to some kind of torture den out of a horror movie, I could not do a better job than whoever designed the spin class room at Fitness First. The windows are literally boarded up and painted black and the class is conducted in absolute darkness, save a small collection of blue halogen lights that remind me of those hand held lights detectives use to search for bodily fluids at a crime scene. My clothes appear to be covered in lint.
HOT TIP: do not choose the bicycle closest to the overhead fan. The conflict of body temperature rising and hypothermic temperatures coming from said fan cause extreme inner body climate confusion. I think I may have the chills but also I’m sweating and I could not be more confused. I think I need a hug, also a shower.
Day 5 — Quitting my membership (aka the best class of all — taught by me)
After trying all the available classes at the gym and deciding I woud literally rather gauge out my own eyeballs than have to attend any one of them again, I started just arriving, walking on that stepping machine for 20 mins and then leaving. This seemed a bit like a waste of both my money and my time, so one fateful morning I mustered up the strength, nay the courage to walk right int here and cancel my membership. Pretty inspirational right? Last night I had dreamed of quitting the gym, then that very morning, I QUIT the gym. Please follow these simple instructions to do the same:
Set alarm for 5:45am. Begrudgingly awake and put on exercise clothes, resenting every minute of movement. Drive to gym. Enter gym. Walk up to annoyingly smiley receptionist (side note: look into whatever she’s on that’s making her so happy at 6am in the morning). Decide that once again, bikini body can wait until next summer & wine and chocolate is life. Cancel gym membership. Go home. Get back into bed. Think about how that was my best adult decision ever. Dream peacefully.
