I’ve had myself a Burn energy drink and now I’m high. Not high as in “oh, my god, I’m so high” because I’m boring enough to never have gone there and I probably never will. Let’s agree that I’m just a bit worked up. An energy drink doesn’t really have any effect on me, but this time it did. It might be because I had it right after I returned home from the gym. Coincidentally, this entry is also about going to the gym. What luck!

I’ve been working out on and off for over five years now (at least that’s when I posted my first entry tagged with “exercise”). For the last three or so years I’ve been going regularly to the gym, which, by simple logic, should have turned me into a walking pile of muscle and Testosterone by now. But that is not the case. When I look in the mirror, I still see the same skinny kid I’ve always been. No six-pack in sight, but rather the beginning of a small keg. My consolation is that - considering how little I move around at work - what I’d seen in the mirror if I was not going to the gym would most likely be a mess going downhill and going there fast. And it’s quite possible that some of what I see in the mirror is a product of my imagination, because there’s a beautiful girl who lives with me who tells me she likes what she sees. Or maybe she’s just a product of my imagination as well? Still, what I’m doing at the gym now is purely maintenance work - but maintenance is what will keep this thing going and going and going and going until the bitter end.

The gym I go to is an interesting place. I used to go to SATS, which was quite expensive and they locked you in for a good twelve months. Lately, however, budget gyms have started to pop up everywhere. They usually charge under half the price of regular gyms and they have no or a limited lock-in period. I’m going to a Fresh Fitness gym, and just by the name of it you know that you will get both fresh and fit going there. Interestingly enough, Fresh Fitness is owned by SATS: There was a business segment available - people who most likely wouldn’t pay the premium price at a regular gym, but who want to work out - and SATS grabbed a share of it. Smart move.

And most of the people at my gym are those you’d never see on any of the premium gyms. I thought that my SATS gym was average Joe’s gym, but I was wrong. Fresh Fitness is. I’ve been going there since February and I’ve yet to see a proper Gym Babe. I once thought I did, but it turned out she’d strayed into the reception area by accident. Bummer.

Around half of the people at Fresh Fitness are in the spring of they work out career and I witness a lot of creative ways of working out. Not long ago, for instance, someone sat down on a lat/row machine with his back towards it and started pulling like a madman. I should of course have told him how to do the exercise without breaking his back, but some people are really touchy about being corrected by strangers at the gym. Or just in general. Thankfully, he stepped away from the machine before he got seriously injured. Other people tend to build up a lot of speed when working out and bang things together as loud as they possibly can. I’m not sure why, it might be a cry for attention. “Look at me, I’m working ooouuut!”. This is probably the reason why quite a few of the machines are always out-of-order. It’s budget equipment and someone is always using it wrong.

All right, the next time I see someone using any of the equipment a little bit too creatively, I’ll let them know, even with the risk of being punched in the nuts. I’m not going to claim that I really know anything about working out - I might even do a lot wrong myself - but if I can save someone from breaking any bones, I’ll go ahead and do it.