I liked the report on the news that some chap, either unable or unwilling to pay for a gymnasium membership, undertook to just run up and down his own staircase at home and by doing so shed some considerable weight.
I did belong to a gym about 20 years ago and got caught up in the whole culture of regular exercise making sure that I got in a session on the machines or in the pool at least every other day.
A house move, only about 100 yards across town, but involving a significant hike in mortgage payments meant that something had to be sacrificed and with some reluctance it was my gym family and fitness friends.
In the following two decades my body mass and wellbeing yo-yo'd.
Although I did my best to keep in shape through cycling, walking, fad-dieting and the one beneficial aspect of stress- involuntary weight loss these activities were not really as effective as a good, sweaty workout on a treadmill, rowing machine, free weights and a plough up and down the pool. albeit not in any recognisable fashion.
I have, in the last week, taken up the gym lifestyle again.
This has been possible not through any increase in disposable income but simply through the intense competition between the large number of commercial gyms that from time to time offer an unbelievable and irresistible promotion to attract new members.
In fact, the whole of the Hull based Thomson's signed up as part of a determined initiative to get or keep healthy and hopefully enjoy all of the benefits that go with that.
The etiquette of the gym has changed somewhat since my last experience.
The establishment that we have pledged allegiance to is in a large purpose built industrial style building which is the current trend.
There is piped, hip hop and trance music in the foyer and from the high vaulted ceiling hang a myriad of matt black audio speakers and Tv screens. In the old gym those partaking in exercise did so in almost reverential silence, suppressing sometimes quite obvious pain and strains with true British spirit and denial.
No longer the manual signing in at the counter but careful insertion of index finger into a sensor at the automatic turnstile type entrance. It seems that many members under old systems did allow others to use their membership details and identity to which the profit driven ompanies eventually got wise to and took measures to actively prevent.
The equipment is not just those previously mentioned but some quite high tech and futuristic machines targetting every muscle group individually which is a far cry from having to make do with a medicine ball, skipping rope, dumbell and just hoping for the best.
I was quite self conscious of working out back in the day and did spend a small fortune in a sports shop to look the part but no-one seems that bothered about a dress code nowadays. Anything goes apparently.
The average age appears to be mid twenties which is at least 10 years less than when I first started to attend back in the 1990's. I suppose that the 20 to 30 age group, in having to live with parents, and avoiding outgoings associated with their own ownership of a home can afford to go to the gym as an integral part of their own lifestyle.
I am by quite some way amongst the senior of those toning and pumping up but there is no evidence that they are repulsed by being close to a red faced but enthusiastic oldie in old band tour T shirt, baggy, unflattering trackie bottoms, and last years plimsolls.
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