E Actually I wanted to go fishing for this column. Really with rubber boots, quiet, and those little canned worms. But I couldn’t find access to Berlin fishing clubs, and honestly, I don’t know if I could kill a fish. Also this week has been so stressful that I feel like a half-dead flounder myself. And given this feeling, perhaps one should not play with a hook.
So change of plan: Instead of fishing I’m going to pump. My girlfriend holds out a thirty-two centimeter-long strip of paper: “Look, that’s how big my biceps already are!” – “Wow, you beast!”, I say, and I feel like one of those protein-shake guys, you know which ones I mean. My girlfriend is a fitness fanatic; she goes to the gym several times a week to sweat out the office stress. I, on the other hand, wonder why I’m standing next to her now. For me, the gym isn’t a place to unwind but an extended arm of work: first toiling at the computer, then toiling on one’s own body. Efficient progress on the bench press – capitalism as a muscle program.
There are many reasons not to go to the gym. The bright lights, the sticky machines, the guys standing with legs spread and arms crossed in front of the mirrors giving tips no one asked for. And this principle of repetition. Repetition! As if you’re in a treadmill of self-optimization. But it is like this: I sometimes don’t even want to get better, not stronger or more defined. And if I move at all, I don’t want to get bored doing it. But apparently the whole thing works for many. Fitness has long been more than sport, it’s a lifestyle.
People of Sweat
On social media people train, measure themselves, and exchange tips. In the United States, almost 24 percent of the population belongs to a studio; in Germany, 13 percent. We have become a people of sweating—probably because we sit, think, and function so much. Thanks to the fitness studio, you can manage that at least with a strong spine.
So I’ll give the studio another chance. Fortunately it’s almost empty; my girlfriend patiently shows me everything. Today is Arm Day—the day when my arms supposedly get stronger, but with all the exercises they just tremble. We warm up on the stepper and swap our daily dose of gossip. I like it this way: cardio & chat. I ask her where she learned that she’s doing an exercise correctly. “I saw it on some TikTok,” she says. She seems to do it effortlessly. I, on the other hand, wobble my mini dumbbells awkwardly overhead and behind my head.
I admit, the studio isn’t the apocalypse. It still stresses me out that the pumping, sweat-soaked muscle mountains NEVER CLEAN THE EQUIPMENT AFTER USING THEM.
As we walk out, two hours have passed; the stress has vanished for a few hours. Maybe that’s the gym’s secret formula: not self-optimization, but everyday-forgetting. And who knows—perhaps my biceps did really grow by half a centimeter.
