Yesterday I finished the first of my introductory personal training sessions at my new gym, having decided that, as an unemployed writer with no discernable career prospects, a premium membership at an expensive London gymnasium was a cunning and necessary investment.
I’ve actually had a few personal training sessions before. The daughter of my next-door neighbours was a personal trainer occasionally employed by my step-mother, and as a generous gift my step-mother once bought me a few hours of her time.
Despite being born and raised in the Cotswolds (with numerous bratty escapes to Florence), Sam the personal trainer had something of the cockney sparrow about her. Petite, blonde, with a ready smile and a savage wit, she should would stamp her feet and blow cigarette smoke into the freezing December air while I ran laps of the garden, or mock my private life and romantic entanglements as I did sit-ups. For a couple of months she was also my impromptu shrink, her perceptions as sharp as her repartee. She’s off the fags and happily preggers now and should be due any day (incidentally if she’s reading this, I’ve always thought Joshua a wonderful name). And she always left promptly when it was clear I was going to puke after our sessions, to spare me some manly pride, the lamb.
Elvis the personal trainer is slightly more intimidating. He’s got the body I want, but physically we are spheres apart. Possibly the only parts that could stand up to comparison are our shins, which looks like regular shins, basically the same, I suppose, apart from mine are white and his are black. In the shin department we’re neck and neck. Elbows too, actually, let’s give me some credit, we’ve both got elbows, and his aren’t noticeably more muscular than mine. Eyelids. I bet we could probably bench similar weights with our eyelids.
Everywhere else is a different story. I might want Elvis’s physique but one glance shows it is definitely beyond my grasp. In order to get a left arm of comparable size to Elvis’s I would have to get myself another left arm, duct-tape the two of them together and then stuff the gaps with sand, or possible lead shot. Elvis’s pectorals look like they would deflect machine gun fire with a series of tings and kpwings. To an objective observer we could easily be two separate subspecies of humans: homo weedus and homo stackus, perhaps.
Like many very large men Elvis carries himself with a considered, almost delicate deliberateness (the poor man can probably rend metal with a gesture; imagine the tactile responsibilities of a superman). He has a taciturn face and is very softly spoken. He has recently been on Deal or No Deal and talked - with enthusiasm so warm that it became touching - about being recognised in the shops. He didn’t do very well in the show: offered a deal in the high thousands, he held out for £100,000 and walked away with 250 quid. When I ask, as politely as I can, what he did with his ‘winnings,’ he tells me he took his missus out for a meal. By this point I’m starting to fall for Elvis.
The work-out isn’t that bad, partly because I’m a little fitter than I look but mostly because Elvis goes easy on me. “You got this. You’re a strong guy,” he says at one point, managing to keep a smile off his face. We do T press-ups and mountain climbers and the rest (well, I do, Elvis just counts and tells me not to worry when I fail the last rep).
I’m not actually as unfit and puny as I’m making out. I am, however, whippet-skinny, so it’s unlikely I’ll ever get as ripped as Elvis. I’d look ludicrous with a large upper body: like Mr. Incredible, or a Stretch Armstrong someone’s left out in the sun.
However I’m determined to get my money’s worth from this gym, although it’s very impersonal and mechanistic. The breaks between music videos on the screens give ‘positive’ tips, one of which, no word of a lie, is to put unhealthy ‘bad’ items at the front section of the trolley when you shop. This is ostensibly so we can ask ourselves “do we really need this item” but seeing as the item by this point is already in the trolley, all giving the front section special attention is going to do is remind people how poorly disciplined and hideous to look at they are.
One should give the gym the benefit of the doubt: the advice is no doubt designed to inspire rewarding self-control, but I feel the drop in self-esteem engendered by finishing the shop with the front section stuffed with biscuits outweighs the positive feelings that might be accrued in the frankly unlikely scenario where you hold the biscuits thoughtfully in your hand before exclaiming: “Not this time, worthless calories!” and hurl them back on the shelves.
It’s a little disappointing to find that I’ve joined White Goodman’s Globo Gym, but none of this is Elvis’s fault. He’s a good motivator and a nice guy and if I stick to the exercises he proscribed I’m sure I could beef up a bit. The aim of this? Well, the look, obviously, but mostly to feel like I’m getting something worthwhile out of all this free time.
Although it doesn’t make much sense financially, at least going to the gym allows me to exercise control over one element of my life: my body. No job, no book deal, yadda yadda yadda. The best I can do is to make the most of what I have to get what I want, and I have lots of spare time, and I want Fight Club era Brad Pitt’s body. It’s an unrealistic aim, but so is getting £250,000 cash out of a little red box, and if Elvis can give it a fair go and then take the loss with a smile on his face, then perhaps I should follow his example. I’m sure Elvis’s missus would have preferred the big one, but I bet she was pleased with the £250 meal. I’m sure my missus would prefer Fight Club era Brad Pitt, but I figure me getting a little more tonk won’t make her scowl either.
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