I’m off to the gym. Off to build bone density as I wait for the free weights and the lat pull machine to free up. Spandex is as far as the eye can see as I work my biceps, my triceps, and my wallet with full flexion.
I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve been doing this on and off, mostly on, for the past thirty years. Wherever I’ve lived, I pay the monthly fees, I drive to the gym (Hey, shouldn’t I jog to the gym?), and I drive back home — three times a week.
I have forked over millions in monthly fees. Plus, I've paid for all those classes: Jazzercise, aerobics, step, Pilates, yoga, spinning, kickboxing, core, high-intensity interval training, toning, strengthening with bands, ThighMaster, you name it.
Well before I even get inside the gym, it gets crazy. It starts in the parking lot with everyone vying for a spot closest to the gym's front door. God forbid we should have to walk too far for exercise. Things get even stranger inside, what with the grunts and groans.
I have always known there was something terribly wrong with all this.
Maybe it’s because of my grandmother.
Lack of bone density never occupied a nanosecond of her consciousness. Not because she was ignorant of it. She trained as a nurse at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and knew plenty about good health. But then she didn’t spend hours on the Internet; she didn’t have an in-box clogged with e-mails; she didn’t have iPhone chats; and she didn’t sit for long periods in a car or on a plane.
No, she worked a 19-hour day nearly all of her 91 years. She was on her feet all day. She grew enough, cooked enough, sewed enough, and cleaned enough to keep a family of eight thriving.
She also worked in the family business — a gas station on the edge of the prairie on Highway 60 in Mountain Lake, Minnesota. When Grandpa came home from work to eat the meal she cooked and laid out for him, she (wo)manned the pumps.
And while I’m at it, she didn’t have to learn to live in the moment either. When the tomatoes were ripe, she picked them. If she had more tomatoes than eight mouths could eat, she canned them. When the sun was out, she hung laundry on the line. You get the idea?
But back to that weight room.
Sometime in her early eighties, I noticed my grandmother’s heavy cast iron skillets were no longer on the lower kitchen shelf. As I struggled to put them away to their new higher location, I asked her about this move. She told me she had purposely moved them higher to gain strength.
It took awhile for my addled brain to comprehend what she had just said.
Geez, that’s a muscle-building maneuver with each meal; a home gym with every home-cooked meal.
Twenty-five years later, the inventiveness of this move makes me marvel at her ingenuity; it makes me mindful of the over-engineered, overrated, and overpriced workouts I’ve subjected myself to.
And don’t even get me started on how she cross-trained her brain.
Trust me, there wasn’t an electronic device in sight.