If you know or need to know one thing about me, apart from the fact that I hail from the glorious Republic of The Eastern Cape, it is that I am utterly obsessed with sport. I am an armchair sportsman of note, excelling at casual banter in Cricket, Football and Rugby while scraping a standard grade pass in Tennis, Golf and Rhythmic Gymnastics. Without ever being particularly good at one sport, I’ve always involved myself in as many different sporting codes as possible, apart from the sports that involve water. Since the day that my sister’s friend (who is three years my junior) had to swim out to sea with a boogie-board so that I could float to safety while my little cousin of about 8 managed to swim back to shore with relative ease, I have stayed well clear of water in which I cannot stand. I was 14.
Sport acts as both my primary means of entertainment as well as my method of avoiding a repeat of those awkwardly chubby years of early high school. When the exam period hits, the internal UCT leagues tend to shut up shop. The lack of organized sport, along with my almost-negligent concentration span leads me to spending my numerous study breaks arbing around the house annoying my digs mates to such an extent that I actually start to annoy myself.
After a brainstorming session that accompanied making a study timetable, filing all my loose papers, cleaning my room, buying stationery, and making another study timetable in preparation for commencing my actual studies, I came up with a few solutions to the conundrum at hand:
i. Walking: this means of ‘exercise’ is as much a form of exercise as chess is a sport. Chess is not a sport.
ii. Running: living right next to the Rondebosch Common may sound like an ideal location from which to start a run, but a lap of the Common is barely 2.5km and no matter how much I try coax myself into multiple laps the thought of repeating what I have just done and not receiving any kind of medal seems as enticing as rewriting an Auditing exam.
iii. Cycling: driving a car on the Cape Town roads places you in harm’s way as it is. Cyclists are less of a challenge to the head-mental taxi drivers that plague our streets (and pavements) than the dead mosquitoes splattered on my digs walls were to me.
iv. Swimming: glug, glug, glug.
v. Gym
It has taken me four years of varsity and a number of heavily under-utilised gym contracts to finally get me visiting the gym with some form of consistency. A lack of self-discipline and pure dread for the embarrassment posed by an attempt on the heavy machinery had kept me at bay prior to me launching a fresh assault on getting my money’s worth from a new Virgin Active contract.
A month or so later and my reasonably recurrent visits have seen some form of progress from the pathetic, fairy-like knee rehabilitation exercises, through the rowing machines and the circuit and eventually even branching out into a lesson on how to use the stick weights from my rugby playing digs mate (and Tim Whitehead… just saying). Despite the obvious satisfaction of a decent workout, there is still no doubt that one of my favourite parts of a gym session is taking notice of the many different types of people within this gym of gyms:
1. The Looker: An obvious place to start. These ladies are generally on the treadmills or the stepping machines not too far away. Their sheer presence makes the many TV’s in that area of the gym completely unnecessary and wearing specs while on the spinning bikes absolutely imperative. For the lads with game the gym provides a pivotal scouting platform, while the guys on the unlucky end of the game-scale at least have their evening showers made that much more interesting.
2. The Long Term plan: Not unlike the philosophy of Barney Stinson from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ (I just bumped into her this one time at Forries if you were wondering. I was drunk, she was keen…-15 points) some real rough diamonds can be found in the gym. If you’ve got the scouting ability of Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger you might find yourself at the beginning of a fruitful five-year plan. If not, everyone’s allowed at least one chubby chick in their lifetime!
3. The Insignific*nts : Schoolboys. The star denotes a vowel that is not an ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘o’. These ‘buggers’ are truly too cool for school so they hang around with the grown-ups in large groups while chasing tail and feasting their eyes on the treats on display. To their credit, a lot of them adorn their Speedos and head straight to the pool, the one place in the gym I try stay farthest from at all times.
4. The Cardio Man: This guy has it sorted. No matter what his reasons may be, the real reason he spends 45 minutes on the bike is because he is perfectly situated directly in between the treadmills and the step machine things, and if he hasn’t been forced to take up the bike next to a man in full cycling gear pitting more than a pregnant nun, the belter on the bike next door is just an added bonus to the view.
5. Boet: Need I say more? “I’m really dedicated to my gym, Mondays to Fridays at least”, says the buff chop while he walks, not unlike a 3-year-old with water wings on (or 14 in my case), past every single mirror in the gym flexing his triceps, biceps and whatever other –ceps he has that you don’t.
6. The Naked Old Man: I want to say that these beauts are my favourites, but that would lead you to question my sexuality and I’d rather like to avoid the debates we have about our Tax lecturer every time he cocks his wrist, leans back and wafts on in a particularly un-manly-like voice about Capital Gains. Back to the naked old man. This wrinkled, old specimen is only ever located in the change-room. Whether he be in the sauna, on his way to the shower, or having a fat chat about the weekends round of bowls with his old friend Trevor, a mere 30cm away from him, the dear old grandfather is always completely starkers, except for maybe a towel around his neck. His wife Margaret probably gives him a disapproving look of such disdain every time he drops his rods at home that the gym is the only place he can get into his birthday suit.
So next time you go to the gym, take a second from your strenuous workout to feast your eyes upon the Lookers while keeping your eyes peeled for the Long-Term Plans, ignore the Ignsignific*nts, admire the cunning of the Cardio Man, laugh at the Boet and just let the Naked Old Man have his glory. After all, without his blue pill he doesn’t get it in the morning anymore.
