Chasing fitness is a losing race

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By Tom Stafford 8:35 PM Saturday, March 13, 2010

SPRINGFIELD — Jill made me sweat, followed by Rhonda.

Then along came Anne, Julie, Karen, Natalie, another Karen, Pam and Carole.

Kristen and Sophia were in the mix somewhere, too.

For the better part of 28 years, female fitness instructors have made me sweat.

Given their longevity, our relationships have remained remarkably stable and strikingly like the ones at a greyhound track.

The instructors have been the rabbits. I have been the dog unable to catch them — the one who’s now increasingly a scratch in the fifth race.

All this was brought home two weeks ago by my latest fitness nemesis/instructor, Kara.

Having fallen for television propaganda suggesting I could in 90 days do what I’ve been unable to do in 55 years (become a real man), I overlooked my more realistic goal of looking like the guys in the before photo and decided to kick things up a notch.

In this disoriented state, I didn’t even have the sense to stay away from the otherwise all-female class.

Ten minutes into it, I found myself struggling to do girl push-ups while a monsoon of moisture — a tsunami of sweat — rolled off me onto the floorboards.

Only too late did I discover Kara’s evil plan to reacquaint me with a force I’d not seriously encountered in a while: “Gravity, this is Tom. Tom, this is gravity.”

Having not jumped recently, I found jumping and touching the wall enlightening. Shuffling across the floor in the style of a basketball player on defense likewise proved to be a revelation.

While I was still panting tongue-out like a dog, Kara introduced me to variations on the pushup: the normal push up; the two-count up and down; the one with hands out wide; and the one with hands formed into a triangle.

I quickly mastered the down position of each variation.

Over the next week, only a sense of propriety and a working knowledge of the Ohio Revised Code prevented me from asking my neighbors to help me pull up my pants.

I could get them to about hip level, but that final hoist to the waist required effort.

Only after the chest pain faded did my body bring to my attention the pain lurking in the backs of my arms.

Like so many instructors, Kara is both kind and encouraging. And I’ll keep going to the class. Like an aging greyhound still chasing a rabbit, I still can imagine the day I’ll be able to do man pushups for the whole class.

But I know any betting man at the greyhound track would see things more objectively. He’d check the program, identify me as the dog in the fifth race named Elmer Fudd.

He’d then bet heavily on the rabbit, and place an anonymous call to a rescue program.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368 or tstafford@coxohio.com.

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Tom.. don't feel bad. There's been times, after my trainer beat me to the ground.. that the only way I could sit on the toilet was to bend a little and fall.. and hope I had the right trajectory!

Hang in there.

stan
11:15 AM, 3/17/2010

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Tom - I am a P90X story. Tony Horton, preaches all the time his 11 rules (google them) and one of them is Reality - don't expect to look like the guy's on TV if you are 50 years old and never worked out a day in your life. Your 90 days maybe 180 days or 360 days. 90 days is an advertising campaign behind the truth. No one would buy it if it were called by it's real name. PLifetimeX. If you follow any program and learn about nutrition - you will succeed - no matter what exercise program you do.

Anthony Maez
5:07 PM, 3/14/2010

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