Seasonal Gym Booms (and Busts)

Certain holidays draw more people to the gym. Key dates--New Years, Valentines, holy days--seem to spark the desire to be more fit.

Actually sticking to fitness resolutions is another matter.

New Years triggered a virtual tsunami of gym interest. 2012 began with dozens of new people appearing in Flex Fit Gym, clad in workout togs and clutching water bottles. Nearly every recumbent bike, elliptical machine, and treadmill whirred in a symphony of well intentioned New Year's resolutions. Clank-clank-clanking from the weight room offered the percussion to this musical composition. Bear in mind that this was at 5 am--yep, five am in the morning.

The week after New Year's saw strong gym attendance.

Fewer people came the second week.

By the third week, the cardio room at Flex Fit was very quiet, with only me and three middle aged ladies riding the recumbent bikes, giggling and watching Urkel on Family Matters. I began to develop a great appreciation for the comic genius of Jaleel White, the actor who played Urkel.

New people would come in and out, of course, showing up once or twice or a few times, then, for whatever reason, petering out. There was one particularly entertaining guy who showed up only once.

One day, I was in the weight room and the sudden explosion of noise in the cardio room made me think that livestock had busted in and were mating. Went to see what it was, and a guy about my age, ear buds jammed in, was on a treadmill, shouting encouragement to himself while letting out large grunts of exertion.

Nothing wrong with this, I suppose. But I hoped that, come Spring, his cries wouldn't attract any actual amorous cattle. Or Javenlinas, which have actually been spotted close to where the gym is.

Since he never showed up again, I'm pretty sure a Javelina got him. But I digress.

Valentine's Day tripled the number of women showing up at the gym for the early morning shift. Women at Flex Fit greatly outnumbered the men. I only had two theories to explain it.

1. A really good Valentine's day.
2. A really bad Valentine's day.

Women friends offered other explanations. Marie Rose suggested the cause of the Women's Post-Valentine's Day Gym Boom was chocolate. She said that whether the chocolate was a gift or was "self bought," it "makes to difference to the calories consumed." Thus, "the need for mad working out."


The Denises (Wilks Saltz and Carrell) attributed the Valentine's Boom to crummy V-day gifts. Denise W suggested that "clueless men" probably "gave gym memberships" for the Holiday of Love. Denise C. agreed, noting that a gym membership is a "crummy gift" for the occasion.

Amy Rieger had a common-sense but completely different theory. Valentine's Day is close to Spring Break, which many women "want to look good" for, she said.

Whatever the reason for the Valentine's Day Boom, it brought a lot of women to the gym, women with enough self discipline that they continue to come regularly. Self discipline and commitment are usually character traits I admire.

Usually.

But this wave of self disciplined women brought me the Stair Mistress. She made me realize something bad about myself:

I have become an old codger.

This is not something I'm happy to admit. But, on cardio days prior to the ascent of the Stair Mistress, I had a nice routine--I'd ride the recumbent bike for 30 minutes, and then I'd get on the stair climber. That fateful day, I got done with the bike, turned around, and there she was.

On MY stair climber.

The one I ALWAYS use.

Now, she has as much right to the stair climber as I do. But that day, I was thinking "But that's MY stair climber. I ALWAYS use THAT stair climber after biking."

Bear in mind that there is another, perfectly functional stair climber right next to MY stair climber (the one Stair Mistress was on). But I'd gotten so settled into my routine that, for a moment, my head vapor locked, and I was thinking, "I can't work out. She's on MY machine." I didn't even do stair climbing that day, I was so thrown.

I had tuned into an old fart. The Stair Mistress made me realize that about myself.

BTW, I call her the Stair Mistress because, if anyone deserves to "own" that machine or have her name on it, it is she. She drives herself hard, every day, to the point of near collapse, for a really long time, something like thirty minutes. If you've never actually used a stair climber, 30 minutes is epic, like climbing Kilimanjaro or finishing War and Peace in Russian. Stair Mistress is actually a title of honor. She is the Monarch of the Stair Master.

Fat Tuesday and the beginning of Lent brought about another attendance mini boom. At first, I thought the increase was people working off Fat Tuesday indulgences in food, alcohol, and pancakes (I'm Episcopalian; we pig out on pancakes to prepare for Lent). ingested on Fat Tuesday. But the Lent Boom was a mirage --most of the people who suddenly showed up on the first day of Lent were gone by the weekend.

Stacy Bruce said these Fat Tuesday Fitness Nuts (FTFN) stopped coming because of fasting--they had "no energy for exercise." Yvette Schaffer said that Lent may have first sent people to the gym with a "promise for better living." However, after a while, they "felt guilty" about "making Lent into a vanity project" and either stopped going out of guilt or decided to find a "more lofty" thing to do for lent.

Several people suggested that Amy was right in the first place--it's about looking good in the swim suit for Spring Break. If so, that's a concern of the young--it's been so long since I've looked good in a swim suit that I don't even remember what it was like.

Nope, I go to the beach--I live twenty minutes from the beaches of Padre--and expose the world to my big belly and my back hair, most of which is now grey. If the svelte who actually look good in swim suits are offended, well, they don't have to look. I'm so busy chasing after my kindergartner that I don't have time to check out other people's swimsuit fashion, anyway.

But all of theses Seasonal Gym Booms, and the busts that inevitably follow, have made me wonder why some people "stick" at the gym and why most people don't. And why I have stuck at the gym when most people haven't.

I have been out of shape for a LONG time. My pot belly is old enough to vote, own a house, and buy alcohol in any state in the union. If you had to pick a random person off the street and name them "Least likely to stick to a fitness program," your eyes would be drawn to me. "HIM," you would say, pointing your finger at me like a witness identifying a criminal in the courtroom. "The fat bald one with the grey beard."

So when I notice which people come to the gym for a while and stop, and which ones stick, I am NOT judging. I have more failed fitness plans than there are amendments to the US Constitution. I admire anyone for trying to come to the gym. I sympathize with people who start, stop, come back, and then stop and start again (like Fauxhawk Guys). I really respect people who commit and come to the gym every day, like Latino Fabio and the Stair Mistress.


Eric McClellan, a friend who is a former college football player now struggling with weight, tells me that "People go to the gym for the wrong reasons." These wrong reasons usually include trying to "look good" for a spouse or someone else they are romantically interested in, or trying to change the way "other people view them." He says the only reason to go to the gym is for yourself.


I'd like to believe that Eric is right--that I have achieved some kind of Zen like state of "inner self actualization," that I have such inner peace that I am going to the gym for me. But in my case, the answer to why I am still working out after so many failed attempts is more simple.

It's the damned dog's fault.

Yep, Crazy Daisy, the Most Irritatingly Peppy Beagle in the Universe, keeps getting me up at five in the morning, demanding to be walked. She's learned a little patience--she may give me ten, twenty seconds after the alarm goes off. If I fail to get up, she trims my cuticles with her teeth.

She continues the Teeth Cuticle Trim, interspersing it with licking the most ticklish parts of my toes, until my feet are safely encased in athletic shoes. If I try and cheat by laying back down wearing shoes or just opening the back door and hoping she'll go out back and pee, she jumps on me, then bites the toes of my running shoes, still trying to trim the toenails through the fabric.

If I just give in to the inevitable and just walk her and Pearl the Seventy Pound German Shepherd, Daisy stops nipping my toes and goes back to sleep. She only nips me 'til I get up and walk her and Pearl (although I doubt she really cares if I take Pearl along).

By the end of my walk, I'm semi awake, dressed, and it's still five o'clock in the friggin' morning. So, I think, I might as well go to the gym.

Daisy is the reason that this try at fitness has succeeded after dozens of others have failed. I don't know if I ought to thank her, or make her start sleeping outside.