To gym or not to gym

I have always been a reluctant gym goer. My home is located near a pool and a gym. While on most days I make the time to swim, I have seldom entered the gym. In fact the very room represented the zenith of tedium to me. And the treadmill the height of pointlessness. Why confine ourselves indoors when one can be part of whatever nature has to offer for that day? A blue skied balmy evening or a wet rainy afternoon; a misty  morning or a star spangled night.

In the pool, I knew a sense of peace. You get into the water and let muscle and breath memory take over. The body stretches and cuts through the water; and the mind is free to wander. Somewhere you keep track of the lengths done, the passage of time…. somewhere your body settles into a comfort zone. In contrast the gym seemed a factory where muscles were manufactured in an almost mechanical manner. And perhaps it was the pure pleasure of swimming that finally made me look away from the pool. How could something that feel so good be helping my body at all? What would it be next? Ice cream for breakfast and cognac for a nightcap?

And so when a big bright gym opened opposite my office, it seemed providential. I would soon become one of those resolute stern jawed beings with the soul of a hamster as we tread-milled, bicycled or stepped up and down in the same place, minute after minute. I would keep a gym bag in the car and become one of those fitness persons who have an eye on their heart rate and calorie expended unwaveringly.

The truth is there is some pleasure from this workout business. I have that second glass of wine and a samosa with no guilt. I go for three hour lunches and compensate with an hour at the gym. But perhaps what I have truly learned from my gymming is to increase the degree of difficulty for myself. If the pool is about contentment, the gym is about asking myself, can I do more?

Anita Nair’s new novel is Lessons in Forgetting.