MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO

I go, not always regularly, to a gym (I started before January 1st, honest!). A very pleasant place admittedly, with a swimming pool, tennis courts, a big lounge with very confortable sofas and an Internet café, the works. Even so, I have always wondered at the underlying business concept of gym clubs. It basically relies on customers to pay hefty sums of money, month in, month out, for the privilege of putting themselves through hell in the company of other sweating, grunting people. I must say it doesn't sound like a winning proposition to me...

If you look at it in detail however, it's actually quite clever. For instance, they have in my gym a crèche, where working-out mothers can leave their progeny while they complete their masochistic ritual. It's amazing what kind of torture parents are willing to endure in order to get a couple of hours of child-free respite!

There are also other, subtler ways to build up the loyalty of customers. One of them occured to me this morning, as I was in the changing-room. Like most people, when you go to the gym, your goal is probably to shed a few pounds and reach a reasonable level of fitness: maybe enough not to be laughed off the field in the next Accounting vs IT grudge match, or for the parents mentioned earlier, enough to catch Junior when he decides that dog on the other side of the road looks cute.

In any case, there comes a time when you think that you are closing in on that goal, and you feel half-reconciled with the reflection you see in the mirror (especially that one closer to the swimming pool which is always half fogged-up). That is usually the moment when some obscenely fit so-and-so walks by nonchalantly, all bulging pectorals, rippling abs and tight behind (not that you look in detail - whether they welcome your attention or not, staring at other men in the changing room is a lose-lose situation). Coincidentally, that is also the moment when, resisting the urge to kick that foggy mirror, you decide you'll probably renew that yearly subscription.

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So, I might regale you in the coming months with some more anecdotes from the gym, because it looks like I'll be in there for the long run (no pun intended)!