Step It Up

Last week I mentioned that I had finally gotten around to joining a new gym. Now, don't worry, this blog isn't about to turn into daily updates on my training and diet. Frankly, the internet has more than enough of those to go around. On top of that I haven't been back into a routine long enough to see any of my work pay off yet and get people to write in saying how good I look, which is really all those blog are trying to accomplish anyway. Plus, I'm still trying to figure out my way around the place and how some of the machines work. I had forgotten just how specific weight machines are, which is why so far I have mostly been sticking with the stuff I know how to do and occasionally sprinkling in some new machines to test them out, some of them for the first and last times. One of the machines I tried this morning was a StairMaster. For those of you not familiar, this is another one of those machines which simulates a normal activity (in this case walking up stairs) - the kind of physical exertion where if we were willing to do it in our daily lives we wouldn't need to join a gym in the first place. StairMasters are not exactly a new piece of gym equipment but they were never something I had previously put into my workout routine for one reason or another. But with my new "why the hell not?" attitude towards the gym I figured I would try it this morning. After today's attempt I do not expect to add it to the rotation.

The first thing I noticed is that there was a serious design flaw with this machine in that you need to step a full 18 inches off the ground to get on the first stair. That wouldn't be so bad if the stairs were on some kind of piston system in which they never really went away, but that is not what happened here. These stairs were more like an escalator, which means you only got three steps before the belt went underneath the machine and the bottom step disappeared. This meant if you weren't paying attention or keeping up with the pace not only would you come off the machines, you would have a pretty nice fall to accentuate your failure. The same thing would happen if you lost pace on a treadmill, but that would only drop you a few inches. Therefore using this machine felt very similar to how I assume Wile E. Coyote feels after he runs off a cliff but hasn't looked down yet. I guess it is one way to motivate the person on the machine but I would also think you could have a pretty gruesome injury on your hands unless the floor is padded. So, I'm already on the machine and desperately trying to keep up with the moderate pace I had set myself when I noticed a second problem - whoever designed this machine had really small feet. I was never expecting the machine to easily accommodate my size 14s, no stairs ever do, but for some reason these rapidly moving stairs seemed smaller than what you find out in nature. I could barely get my heel on them and constantly felt like I was about to go flying backwards, which was just another thing for my mind to think about on top of the gravity issue. If these two things were done on purpose to distract the user from the pain screaming through their thighs, congratulations, it worked like a charm.

With those two things weighing heavily on my mind I guess you can understand why I didn't pay much attention to the settings on the StairMaster and instead just started climbing. It wasn't until I was in a nice rhythm that I noticed one of the programmed workouts you can choose is "famous buildings". The big trend in workout machines over the last couple of years has been to attach some kind of game to the display screen because designers know nothing motivates people better than competition. It certainly is more appealing to look at than a bunch of numbers. Most of them allow you to race someone else at the gym or the computer and then post scores for other people to try and beat later. Other will allow you to compete along a famous route so, just like those expensive exercise bikes which will let you race Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France, this machine would let you track know how far up the Empire State Building your workout would take you (you know because we all visit skyscapers for their famous stairwells). Obviously not exactly the kind of thing which would motivate me, but it clearly inspired someone because the next screen shot was the "High Scores" for the week. That was when I noticed someone at the gym (allegedly) had climbed 350 flights of stairs. Now, because I was preoccupied with not falling I didn't catch if that was a total or just one session but either way it feels excessive.

When I was working out religiously back in high school the goal was to get as jacked as possible so I could bench press a lot of weight because that seemed like what I should be trying to accomplish. It wasn't until I matured a bit that I realized there is no need to be able to lift 500 lbs because we have things like forklifts to move really heavy objects and my workout goals shifted to being slightly more realistic and normal. Clearly the person who set that score (if they even exist because it could be an artificial number set by the StairMaster maker to motivate gym-goers) hasn't learned that yet. I get that part of the reason for going to the gym is to push yourself to be able to do things which are more physically demanding than everyday, civilized society requires but there is also a point where you cross from being in shape to just being crazy. I checked, the tallest building in the world in Dubai only has 160 flights of stairs, so it is not like being able to climb that many stairs is even useful. This is more like training by walking the distance from Boston to London on a treadmill, something which will never come in handy, ever. But, since I have no doubt a building that tall is only a matter of time, let me just go on record with this right now: if something gets left behind on the 350 floor, the elevator is out of order and the only person left to go retrieve it is me, than whatever that object happens to be is staying there. Besides, only having one elevator for a 350 story building seems like a pretty large design flaw and I think I have dealt with enough of those this week.