Victory Is Mine

Cardio madness

I am really naive. My faith in the altruism of my fellow human beings has hit a new low. I had to rail on some fitness instructors yesterday because of lackluster enforcement of cardio rules. I hate this shit. It's not like the speed limit when you can go five or ten over and the cops don't care, because your extra 10 minutes of cardio means I have to wait an extra few minutes just standing my ass around to get on a damn machine. If I'm driving 70 in a 60, in a non-reckless manner of course, you and I both get where we need to be a bit faster than we otherwise would. Cardio is different. Your breaking the rules only adds inconvenience to me.

I work out at 24 hour fitness. Generally, it's recommended that you do 30 minutes of cardio because that's how long it takes to get your body to really start burning calories. In fact, even 24's own trainers recommend that you do 30 minutes of cardio - no less than that - at least 3x a week. For whatever reason, 24 has a policy of 20 minutes max on cardio machines during peak hours, which is M-F 4-9pm. Everyone in there knows this. I could do interval training but because of a partial bulging disc in my lower back, I will not run on a treadmill, and because of a recent knee issue that arose when adding the bike to my cardio routine, I can't comfortably bike at this time. So elliptical is my only option.

I'm waiting behind the elliptical machines yesterday when one gentleman saw me and was kind enough to get off his machine, citing the 20 minute limit. I got on, did my 20 minutes, and by the time I got done, only ONE out of the five others in that particular row of machines had finished. I'm not kidding when I say that EVERYONE in there knows the rule at this point. They announce it at least once daily - though the trainers follow up the announcement with absolutely zero enforcement of the damn rule. Everyone's trying to appear nice so they can get their fucking PT sessions sold. Anyway, most of those faces on the ellipticals were familiar. And they all pull the same smug shit like looking around and pretending that they don't realize they've gone over 20 minutes, or they've got their goddamn US WEEKLY magazine sitting right on top of the monitor so you can't see how much time they've taken up, or they've got the timer changed to "Time remaining in segment" so you can't tell how long they've been on there. Or they just think they're either so hot that they should get away with it (b/c everyone's staring at their implants anyway), or they're so damn overweight that they deserve to blatantly violate the rules since they need to lose the most weight. Bunch a bitches.

Seriously - What. The. Fuck?

posted by Publius @ 8:29 AM