Tuesday 7^th February 2006

Sweating bodies all in a row

I went to the gym this evening - on a whim really, since I only intended a pre-dinner walk. But my walk took me up round the other side of North Sydney so I decided to visit the other Fitness First place that I had yet to check out.

Now this was a wholly different experience. On the main level as you enter the gym, they have jammed cross-trainers, step machines, runners, bikes and rowing machines as tightly as possible against each other side by side forming about five or six rows with tight corridors to access the machines. And they are in front of a larger bank of screens than I am used to.

... after work-gym junkies pumping in unison to the "not quite identifiable" thump music and confused visual inputs...going harder and harder...transcending to that next level...

I cannot be sure I found their level, but I certainly found myself transfixed firmly in the "realm of the now", watching a woman in front me. Her bottom to be precise. She would take every fiftieth step on the cross-trainer to launch into a twenty step turbo-charge: a cyclic thrusting of her bottom t'ward me and even more intense recoil gained by the advantage of the arm pull action on the trainer handles. I was transfixed.

I regained self-awareness after about six minutes (the machines have timers to remind you it is time to eat) and realised that it was time to go to the front row and work my gut on the rowing machine, nose pressed into the bank of not-real people in music videos thrusting their bottoms at me.

Calories burned, I dragged my sweat drenched body back onto the street for a semi-jog home for dinner.

I felt good.

End of rant.

(C)opyright Sylvano Lucchetti.