Fitness. No.

Exercise is a bizarre thing. There you are, stretching, straining, pushing,  pumping, in pain, sweating, tears rolling down your face, tears in your muscles, more pain, more straining, joints spraining... And this is supposed to be healthy.

The machines at the gym are evil. Seriously, they are out to kill you. This is the dream we all have of being full of grace and not breaking a sweat while moving through various exercises:


OK Go - Here It Goes Again from OK Go on Vimeo.


My reality is the image you have of yourself, covered in sweat, face-first on the tread-mill as the conveyor belt tries to rip your face off as you lie there. It hates me, and I know it.

The weight machines are even worse: Those things warp and then utterly smash the laws of physics. “Equal and opposite reaction” my arse. As soon as you’re done trying to move the counterweight, it comes to life, gains an extra 20kg and becomes double-jointed so that it tries to break your knees as you congratulate yourself on doing one whole ham-string curl.

And the personal trainers are evil. They are torture masters in disguise, with their shorts and their fancy tops and heart rate monitors. You know what that monitor is really for? Measuring just how much PAIN you’re in so that they can feel that sadistic satisfaction of having caused lots of it, and then causing even more by working some muscles which you didn’t even realise existed. I have this theory that the torturers in the Tower of London were actually a secret cult who passed on their skills to the next generation and the next, and that they gradually figured out how to cause the maximum pain without any implements AND use hypnosis on you to make you think that it’s what you want. Interrogators should hire these guys. I’ll be there’s even a secret hand shake - watch out for it next time you’re at one of these places. It’s all about finding out which government you work for. Just you wait and see, it’s a conspiracy.

The other people at the gym are all in on it. You ever see one of them wipe up after using the equipment? I haven’t, either. No wonder I got sick every time I went last year - I’d manage about a week of regular exercise before another virus hit. I reckon they were all in on it, not cleaning the machines so that I would use them and get infected thanks to the germs getting in through the paper cut I got while signing for the transaction because I had a late fee. And they smell. It’s all a secret government experiment into biological warfare, you mark my words.

Even recently, this happened. It must be air-borne biological warfare. I went to a Zumba class which was arranged as a free activity for the staff with an instructor whom I'd never met, and got sick THE VERY NEXT DAY. They are ALL in on it!!!!!

Then there are the video clips which some gyms show with the half-naked women who weight about 10kg (including what they’re wearing) and probably haven’t eaten more than a carrot and a cup of coffee per day since they were 15. It’s deliberate. To make you hate yourself so you keep going. It’s like I joined bloody Globo Gym.

But I do miss the regular exercise.