
EastEatsWest is never afraid to get immersed in the strange life of Asia: So after not working out for a while it was time to hit the weights again. I decided to go to the municipal gym not far away from my friends’ house. The gym staff insisted that I take a one hour introduction course and I already feared of being lectured in Japanese. Luckily the session was done by a friendly young Japanese woman called Aia who did a brief session in English just for me.
First I had to buy a ticket for a session from an automated machine. Then I had to fill-in a questionnaire answering questions if I like to exercise, if I have any physical disorders that prevent me from working out, if I had slept well and if I am hungry (the answer to that question is always yes). Then my blood pressure, pulse and weight were measured and I received a work-out sheet (regulation so that no one with high blood pressure gets killed). Aia explained the cardio machines which were not exceptional except the arm supports on the running-mill (for weight support, Aia said). In a separate room I found some “healing” (relaxing) chairs which play soothing music, feet massage machines, a digital grip strength machine (Aia exclaimed “oooooooh” when she read my measurements) and a high-jump pad that measures how high one can jump ( a medium 49cm). In the main room there was it, my favorite machine: The color-coded jump pad! It consists of a circle on the floor with five touch-sensitive colored areas. The machines indicates a color and one has to jump into the respective area quickly. The machine then measures the response time. I remember when as a kid we had hand held machines that did exactly the same (and additionally played different sounds). Then there was a stair-climbing machine (probably for firemen) and a side-split machine that measures your nimbleness (probably invented by Jean-Claude van Damme). Then there was a balancing-cushion where one can sit on and has to balance. The rest of the weight-training equipment was pretty standard. At the end of the workout one again has to measure blood-pressure, pulse and weight and has to answer if one feels better or not (I did after so much fun). If one does not feel better one has to do the stair-climbing machine for one hour (just kidding). And yes, all machines have lovely white towels in order to wipe the machine after usage.
Despite all of the gym’s efforts like introduction, two staff patrolling the gym and the computerized workout programming machine, I saw many people using improper technique, obviously training without proper program and generally not looking very fit. A picture that is prevailing around the world: people spend hours and hours in the gym without any obvious results! It still puzzles me why people would waist hours ineffectively and inefficiently and even are willing to pay for it.
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