The Gym

Originally written: Thursday, January 04, 2007

Exorcise bites: people-watching at the gym

Funny how the gym attracts different people at different times of day. Off work, I've been going at varying times of day instead of my usual 4:30-6:00pm. It's been 10am, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 8pm... depending on what else I'm doing or when I can get the time.

The people-watching has been fascinating. One day I know I'm going to recreate that cross-trainer scene in Lost in Translation ... through tiredness, sure, but also because I'm looking around me.

After work, at my usual time, there are usually professional people there after their day's work: working hard, getting rid of the day's stress, generally these people are quite fit. They pound away fast on the treadmills and the men lift weights the size of a shetland pony. There is quite a lot of competition. Many of the women are permatanned and reapply make-up before they exercise instead of afterwards. There are classes on at this time as well. Depending on the class, the clientele can be pushy or chilled out. The spinning sessions attract the alpha gym-goers... not afraid to push it till it hurts, these people take their exercise seriously. The outfits feature lycra and the arms feature muscles; cycling shorts and a small towel around the neck are de rigeur. 45 minutes on, when the spinning instructor has screamed her last command, come the steppers: trouping behind the lithe but prematurely sun-dried blonde instructor, they chatter on their mobiles and plug in their iPods on the way, getting ready to leap around in an apparently caffeine-induced frenzy. Later come the body pumpers, ready to build muscle and lift ever-increasingly loaded bars. Decks are out: these people can multi-task... raising the bar, they climb aboard the deck, and nobody ever seems to fall over. Outside the studio, the gym echoes with the groans and shouts of the weight-lifters, punctuating the constant flow of dance music which urges you to go harder, faster, longer...

The evening brings a slightly different clientele. Again, professional types but also some students and young mothers are there: this is glamour time. Fewer serious exercisers but acres of reasonably toned flesh on show in crop-tops and long shorts; long, straightened, blonde pony-tails being flicked and the occasional serious injury when a false nail is dislodged by an errant medicine ball. Men comparing weights and extensions and generally beating their chests. The sauna and the aroma room are busy as people wind down for a night's sleep or polish up for a night out.

Next morning come the pre-work enthusiasts, springing surprisingly awake into the 7am spinning class. Once the workers have gone, out come the yummy mummies. Little darlings deposited at creche, 4x4s safely parked at the door, they walk briskly, occasionally breaking into an elegant canter, on the treadmills, with carefully arranged hair and carefully chosen co-ordinating outfits. Finished for the day, they spend another hour showering, buffing, fake-tanning, straightening, curling, painting, spritzing and glossing before issuing forth with a glow of well-being and an aura of Burberry Brit.

Coming up to lunchtime, the desperate housewives arrive. The mothers of teenagers or university students, or sometimes of the late afternoon or evening crowd, these are women who know what they want. They reserve a bench and a cubicle in the changing rooms, and an exercise mat to use and the one beside it for their bottle of water when they reach the gym floor. In the mid-noughties, it's not so much the ladies who lunch as the ladies who crunch.

At various times during the day one can encounter a few retired people - often in cardigans and polyester slacks - or willing victims working one-to-one with a fitness instructor. "Just ten more... eight... six... four, keep going... you can do it... three... go on... two... almost there... one... just one more... and relax." The instructors unfazed, the clients red-faced and staring their own limitations in the face. Then there are the sixth formers, members of the rugby team from a nearby school, in shorts, t-shirts and matching school socks, who talk a lot, compete with the weights and laugh when the fitball rolls over and makes a flatulent noise. And not to forget the serious boxers, who pound the punchbag as though it were the very person they hate most in the world: uppercut, lowercut, right, left and KICK.

Saturdays are often quiet - aspirational sportsmen pound away on the treadmill while fixing their attention on Sky Sports. Sunday mornings bring the couples out: the older married couples tuning into Countryfile while the young, more recent couples giggle and touch each other from neighbouring exercise bikes.

The car park has a convention of its own; if you have a BMW, a people carrier or a 4X4 you are probably entitled to two spaces; if you are a hairdresser or beauty therapist your supermini will have fluffy accessories and will be full of hanging outfits in dry-cleaner's polythene, and you will struggle out carrying handbag, small gym bag and vast make-up case; if you park over by the fence, the seagulls which hang around the McDonald's drive-thru will defecate on your car.

If supermarkets are the new singles' bars, then gyms are the new people-watcing emporia: the perfect arena for observing personality or social position through the stride on the cross-trainer or the mode of execution of a sit-up.