So as I was leaving the gym this morning, one of the ladies who works there says to me, “How are you doing?” I figured it was a polite gesture as is the norm in our society.
I was wrong – she got me good.
I answered, “Good. Thanks.” Then I grabbed for my keys and began to turn around and she says in that don’t think I haven’t noticed voice: “You haven’t been here in a while.”
This woman (who could easily be 20 years or more older than I am) had that look that your Mom or girlfriend gives you when she expects an explanation. Now, I have – in fact – been at the gym. Sure, due to the end of the summer being crazy and the beginning of the school semester being nuts, I’ve had to cut back to maybe going 3 out of the 7 days of the week, but I’m still getting to the gym and working out.
However, being a well-brought up young buck I had no choice but to bow my head and say, “Yeah, I’ve been really busy lately.” Almost as soon as I said those words I knew what was coming next.
“You have to make time to workout.” At this point a second woman behind the counter began “Mmmm Hmmm”-ing her in agreement.
My response was all I could say (staying honest): “Yeah, I’m trying to squeeze in gym times as much as I can, whenever I can. That’s why I came in here today at 7am.”
I think that satisfied their needs – the older woman said, “Well that’s good. I’m glad to see you’re trying to get in here more,” as the other woman chuckled in agreement to my assertion that I was trying to workout whenever I could.
I’m just glad to know that the $51 per month that I pay for my gym membership is at least being spent on people who appear to give a damn. I enjoy that. Good for them for taking an interest in their customers.
I’m there every morning at 5 AM. There’s no excuses. You have to train, you can’t look at it as excercise. It’s moving weights. I hope your not one of those Men’s Journal types that spends 45 minutes on his abs and only 5-10 minutes pushing weights. That’s why you aren’t in there every monring, because if you were pushing weights, you’d get more satisfaction. You gonna let the weights push you around? You ganna let your boss push you around, or the credit companies. No sir, you have to push back and you have to wake earlier than those things in order to do it.
You need some inspiration on why you should be powerlifting instead doing situps and eliptical trainers -fine:
Here’s a poem:
Down the road, in a gym far away
A young man was heard to say
No matter what I do my legs won’t grow
He tried extensions, curls and presses too
Trying to cheat, these sissy workouts he’d do
From the corner of the gym where the big guys train
Through a cloud of chalk and amidst the pain
Where the iron rides high and threatens lives
Where the noise is made with those forty-fives
A deep voice bellowed as he wrapped his knees
A very big man with legs like trees
Laughing as he snatched another plate from the stack
Chalked his hands and his monstrous back
He said, “Boy stop lying and don’t tell me you forgotten.
The Trouble with you is you ain’t been SQUATTIN’!
Yeah, so there definitely are good excuses to miss the gym. For instance, I’ve been working on a Master’s Thesis pretty much every day for the last three weeks. Completely kicking that Master Thesis’ ass is much more important than going to the gym everyday – especially since I “cut back” to only three or four times per week instead of seven while finishing up the thesis.
And with classes back in session, 9 hours of my Tuesdays and Wednesdays are automatically gone from my schedule. Not to mention that I actually work two jobs since I was hired by my summer internship.
Most of the days lately have been like yesterday – I left my apartment at 9am and got home at 11pm. Today I left at 7am, managed to stop back at the apartment for 30 minutes in the middle of the day, now I’m getting ready for another meeting at 10pm, and I’ll finally be at home to stay by midnight.
So there are certainly good excuses to miss the gym – and believe me – no one pushes me around… 🙂
I just thought that it was nice of her to scold me – feels good that someone that I really don’t know took an interest in my health.
Oh, and I’m not Men’s Journal by a long shot. I don’t focus on abs because I take a realist view on the gym…in other words, I’ve already lost 112 pounds and I could probably lose another 60 or 70. So you can’t even see my abs to justify the time and effort spent on doing them, but I do a few crunches after my cardio just for posterity.
Nice poem
you got the keg insted of the six pack abs!?!
Man, that’s almost a whole person you lost good for you!