Rowson

This article is a preview from the Autumn 2017 edition of New Humanist.

We were talking on the radio about core competences, about how an ability to use the London Underground marked one out as a true metropolitan. We talked about how only fully-fledged Londoners knew which queue to opt for at the crowded ticket gates, how to take the right place on the escalator, how to adopt a standing position that kept one at just the right distance from one’s fellow passengers.

But it was only as I slid my membership card into the barrier slot at my local Virgin Active last Thursday morning that I realised I’d also developed a competence that I’d never thought myself capable of attaining. I’d become a fully-fledged, utterly competent, gymnasium user.

On my early visits to the place, I’d felt about as much at home as I would have felt entering a masked ball or a Masonic dinner. I’d forget to collect the complimentary towel, select a locker that was too small for my overcoat, inadvertently take off my underpants before climbing into my shorts, find, as I stood at the changing-room urinal, that I was too nervous to perform. But now I slip out of my trousers and into my shorts in almost a single motion. And those shorts are gym-perfect. It’s now over a year since I threw out the long football shorts that used to fall limply below my knees and settled on a pair of Adidas Clima 365s. I only have to pat the logo on the side of these shorts as I leave the changing room to feel that I’m in the proper place, thoroughly at home, even confident enough to bestow a slightly condescending smile upon less professionally accoutred newcomers.

Any other interaction is, of course, strictly taboo. Whereas in my early days I might have indicated with a slight moue that I was having some difficulty raising the bar to my chest on the shoulder machine, I now know that my face must remain utterly expressionless as I go about my lifting. I’ve also learned to wait until no one is around before selecting the weight that I intend to lift. Nothing betrays one’s novice status so much as being seen to select a weight that is distinctly lower than that chosen by one’s predecessor. But after using the machine, there is no easier way to disconcert the next incumbent than by carefully moving the pin to a higher point on the weight scale. (It’s a bit naughty but it’s what we professionals like to do.)

I’m now also in firm control of my casual strolling. Even when I am so fatigued by my exertions on the weights or the rowing machine that I could happily lie down and die on the running track, I know that I must at all times adopt a sort of muscular shoulder-rolling walk that suggests I’m already well on my way to the next Herculean task. (It’s an effort that reminds me of John Mortimer’s assertion that he hated the idea of orgies because of the prospect of having to hold his stomach in for so long.)

But although there are now many ways in which I contrive to be recognised by my fellow gym members, I consistently fail to resemble them in one key respect. No matter how often I attend, no matter how significantly I increase the weights, my muscles fail to respond. Whereas muscles plump up like melons on my fellow members’ arms, my upper arms, even when rigorously examined in my own bathroom mirror, remain obstinately unmuscled.

It’s made me wonder nervously if there might be other aspects of my gym development that are somehow failing to transfer to my real life. And, in this respect, matters rather came to a head just three weeks ago when I was setting off for my annual holiday. “Are you all right with that suitcase?” called my partner from the front door. “Fine,” I said, eyeing a modestly sized case that contained nothing but summer clothes, sponge bags and two Margaret Atwood novels. I grasped the leather handle and lifted. The case stayed firmly on the ground. I tried again. And again. One more try. Still no good.

“Do you think you could possibly give me some sort of a hand,” I called between gasps. “What on earth’s the matter with you?” my partner asked as she bustled down the hall and calmly lifted one end of the case. “I think it must be a case of horses for courses,” I said weakly. “It does rather seem that nowadays I can only lift anything when I’m wearing the proper shorts.”