My local gym has recently had a fresh influx of personal trainers and they're all on the prowl for new clients. This has turned what used to be a fairly relaxing place into a intimidating exercise-themed cattle market.
Personally, I am at my most vulnerable when on the cross trainer. I'll spend anything up to an hour plugged firmly into my iPod, tracing perfect ellipses with my feet, listening to some podcast or another, and trying to burn off my lunch with the least physical pain possible.
And this is when the trainers usually strike. One will suddenly appear in my eyeline, give me a winning smile, and then just start talking, even though they must be able to see I've got headphones in. It would take a level of rudeness that I have yet to master to not remove the headphones and engage them in at least a basic conversation.
The Gym Conversation
“Hi there!”
“Hi.” (Piss off)“How are you doing?”
“Fine.” (At least I was until some dick interrupted my workout, made me lose my place in the podcast I was listening to, caused the programme on the cross trainer to pause and then reset itself, and then asked me how I was doing...)“What are your fitness goals?”
“Erm...” (Mind your own business you nosey, polo-shirted twat)
What are my fitness goals? Let me think...
How about: to get fit without paying a private sector P.E. teacher to stand next to me shouting motivating cliches? (“Are you feeling the burn?” “Well I'm certainly feeling the burn in my wallet...”)
Or: to be able to listen to my iPod without getting interrupted for awkward small talk every ten minutes? (If I want to have a shallow, forced conversation with a total stranger who wants my money, I'll get a black cab...)
Or simply: to not have to declare my “fitness goals” to some grinning muppet who has a vested interest in telling me either that they're the wrong goals, or that I won't achieve them without his or her (actually it's never her) help.
So to be totally frank, my short term fitness goal is to get you out of my face so that I can actually do some frigging exercise.
A week or so ago, one trainer was “convinced” that he knew me from somewhere and we spent five minutes trying to establish a connection when deep down we both knew it was just a clever if slightly cynical tactic to engage me in conversation. Sadly it worked — I now greet “Ricardo” by name whenever I see him. Ironically he seems to have forgotten my name.
Yesterday, another trainer interrupted me right at the end of an hour-long session on the cross trainer and asked if he could “try something”.
Well, the truthful answer would be: it very much depends...
If it's gently holding my buttocks while I train then I'd have to say, on consideration, no. If it's stroking my hair during the cool down then, thanks, but no thanks. And if it's joining me in the shower afterwards to help me achieve my “cleanliness goals” then I think the answer sadly still has to be firmly in the negative.
In the end, what he wanted to try was “interval training”, delivering the information as if imparting some great secret handed down from personal trainer to personal trainer and refined over millennia through a long-standing oral tradition.
“You mean going fast for a bit, then slow for a bit, and then repeating?” I asked.
“Er, yeah, basically” he replied, looking very disappointed.
We tried that, and not surprisingly it almost killed me. He looked very pleased with himself. As if the secret to getting this ridiculously hot and knackered had eluded me up to this point in my life.
He wasn't to know that I've broken sweat getting the lid off a jar of cook-in sauce, but it's no great surprise to me that if I run my tits off for 30 seconds then have an inadequate rest and then do it again and again and again, at some point it's going to look like I need an ambulance.
When I regained the power of speech he handed me his card, and I promised should I ever feel like doing anything like that again, I would give him a call.
As a confirmed non gym attendee (!) surely revenge would be to walk up to one of these "people" whilst they are in the middle of "coaching" and ask all manner of inane questions about their training schedule/technique? I'm sure the hapless trainee would appreciate a break from all that shouting...
Good idea. I think I might wait until they're halfway through running, say, a spin class and quiz them on their career goals - "where do you see yourself in five years?" - or perhaps try to sell them double glazing or life insurance...