Of course it will do all of that, of course it does everything, and more. We can do this, other people do, I've seen the pictures, read the articles. I won't make the same mistakes as last time, or last year? Will I? You know, the tomorrow story, ' I can't get there today, but I will tomorrow.' Ahh, well, we all know that tomorrow never comes, don't we. When you get to tomorrow, it's today...you just cannot reach it. It must be NOW! Right now, immediately, or success slips away from you. It's how life works, exactly like that. Immediate action, no procrastination, equals success, or at least, a jolly good try!
All those things, too often go through the minds of the newly converted, with resolutions fresh in their head. Oh, it's all right for those gym bunnies, who are already into getting the surge of endorphins, released through heavy excercise. Ok, for the regulars, the super fit, the athletes, the ones who can!.....and do. You see them in, and around the gym all the time don't you? As you slink in quietly, with your mismatched gear, your unused trainers, and the wrong socks, dithering on the sidelines. They are the sleek looking ones, in the serious track suits, with the correct trainers for the job. The ones already working up a sweat on the bench press, or pounding along like an antelope, on the running machine. They know everyone, or else they work with a level of concentration, you know you can never achieve. Oh please, don't look at how I'm doing it, you think. Putting in an extra ounce or two of pressure, to impress. What me? Trying to impress, I never would! But you do, sometimes.
It's all very well, for these super fit beings, who own the gym space, who know the best times to go, to get the machines they want. What about the rest of us though? The people like me, who, maybe not every year, but regularly, begin it all over again. Begin the fight, for fight it is, to get fit...er, ok, fitter. Who start, maybe looking at our diet, and almost certainly at the leval of cardio vascular excercise we actually do. Not counting the shopping bags hauled home the other day, or the morning you ran, very inelegantly, for the bus. You know the real orchestrated stuff we are supposed to do, to make our heart beat faster. To increase our heart rate, get the blood flowing. The way we are supposed to do several times a week, yes.... several. I know, really, I know. It's people like me, these instructions, and recommendations are mostly aimed at. The well meaning, wish I were fitter, but I'm no good at running, sort of person. Just like me! Aimed to hit my guilt muscle squarely, which it did again, quite recently.
I sometimes console myself with the thought, that gyms are a fairly recent phenomenon. That is, apart from the old style boxing gyms. You must have seen the old films, where boxers training for a fight, had the scruffy bare room. With a boxing ring in the middle, a punch bag, to knock seven bells out of, a skipping rope, with which they were very light on their feel, as well as fast. Or, maybe running, along the road, trailed by a manager in a car, before being wrapped in a white robe, with a towel wrapped around their head, and jaw, as their hands were bandaged. Mumbling, mangled vowels, through thick lips, 'I know Arry, I'll do the job right'. Trained, honed, and ready for the gloves to go on, for the fight. They were just about the only gyms, once upon a time.
I never saw one, apart from at school, which were vast seas of polished wood, and swinging ropes. Where, every week, they tried to make me jump over a ridiculously high vaulting horse, covered in suede of all things, I seem to remember. Unsuccessfully over, I might add, although I did cause much 'hair tearing' from the 'butch' teacher, as I failed in a variety of inventive postures. Now, gyms seem to be everywhere, and there are more opening up all the time. Springing up like mushrooms, all over the place, they are, it's amazing. Many of them very smart, and expensive looking. The latest way to make a quick buck maybe, or the start of a trend? Who knows. Although, I must say, many of the older ones, have been around for quite a few years now.
You may not believe it, to look at me now, but I have always been interested in keeping healthy, keeping fit. I remember at thirteen, fourteen, doing nightly excercises lying on the top of Grandmas bed. Leg lifts, pedalling, with legs in the air, sit ups, all sorts. In those early days, I invented my own excercise regime. Lord knows where I got them from. Magazines, or tv, something like that. Oh, if only I had known I was in the prime of my health then, with inexhaustable energy. Limbs that would reach anywhere, and zing with energy, or fold anywhere, without creaking. Of course, I didn't know, and no one told me. Probably, they just shook their heads, and thought, ' she'll learn! When she has to work, as well as exercise. ' When it's no longer a game, but hard work. As it is now, as it definitely is now.
Over the years, I have gone through this renaissance many times. With varying degrees of success. A few times, achieving the right fitness level, and even slimness to feel very virtuous. The trouble is, with every year that passes, my downward slide into slothfulness, and a relaxing lifestyle, gets harder to reverse. If I am honest, much harder to face, even, to plan for. I have to keep trying of course, when I finally give up, I will be on the downward slope towards old age. Something I am not ready to face yet. If ever, I have to add.....right now, before I forget. Something else that needs a bit of a nudge sometimes, is my memory. Perhaps, they should make excercise compulsory for everyone over a certain age, in the same way they do with school age children. We would all carp, complain, and try to avoid it. Just the same as we do now, but for free maybe. It would be a good thing in the long run though, wouldn't it?.
Anyway, here we still are, trying to cope with self motivation. One of the things that got me there, to the gym regularly, in the past, was going with my friend, and having a good 'perve' at the young male eye candy on display, all busy flexing their pecs, as they worked out. Well, why not? we thought. Men have done it for years, why not us? It was great fun, we did no harm, and it spurred us on to work harder. I'm not sure if I still have the naughty sense of humour, required for such an excercise any more! Nor, does my friend live in the same country as myself now. I also have to bear in mind, they might accuse me of 'stalking' them.That certainly wasn't around when last I looked, either.
But hey, I take it a bit easier nowadays, I began walking a bit at first, then swimming regularly. Better for the joints, don't you know, now....the thought of the gym is beckoning. Perhaps I still can, you know, work a few machines, stretch a few muscles...get back into the swing of things.
Hell, I might even see some good looking, muscle bound, men. The trouble is, will it be like with the policemen, will they all look about 'twelve' to me? Now that's enough to make you concentrate on your excercise, isn't it.
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