Homespun wisdom

Most people agree that exercise is a good thing. The idea for this article came from the fact that our group chairman recently redecorated his city centre flat with all white walls, white, low-line furniture, just a few photographs and designed to make the most of the spectacular views over the city - and then imported an exercise machine that is in the middle of the otherwise very clean, empty, elegant and tasteful living room. Worse, except for some minor updates in styling, the machine is the same as one in the free, always open to residents and reasonably equipped gym just 31 floors (in the lift) below him. We asked him why he bought his own machine and stuck it in the middle of a room that everyone walks into and says "WOW." His answer was enlightening.

"I sit in my study surrounded by computers for up to 16 hours a day.Every day. I almost never go to any of our offices. All my internal comms operate through the internet. If I leave the flat for work, it's usually to go to the airport and then to yet another hotel. I don't own a car so when I go out I usually walk. When I go to a public gym, it's full of people that without realising it make me feel self conscious because I'm a fat old bloke. And for some reason I can't fathom, all the gyms I have tried play dance music or, worse, so called R&B which disturbs the rhythm I want to work at. So I hate them. Hell, you can't even have a sauna in peace and quiet. To use the gym in my building, I have to go through all the same preparation process as if I am going out: I have to change, to put on shoes. In short, I have to put in unproductive, time wasting effort just to do the exercise. But the machine in my living room is always there. When I sit to watch the TV News, it nags at me. So I get up and I spend five minutes or so doing something other than being sedentary. And it's all productive time. Even late at night, when I would usually flake out in the chair and fall asleep in front of the TV, now I get onto the machine and spend ten minutes or so de-stressing the muscles that usually ache from sitting at a computer for so long. So I sleep better. And the machine cost the same as one year's membership to a gym - a gym that history tells me I will go to twice before the factors I hate so much kick in and I don't bother going back. In fact, in the first three days I had it, I used it more than I used a whole year's gym membership last year. And I didn't drive, or get a taxi or even a lift to the gym to do it."

So we polled around the office and asked for comments about how people view "fitness centres"

"Why are people willing to share an exercise machine but not a car?"

"Duh! Get in car, drive one kilometre to gym, spend five minutes driving in circles looking for car park, moan that it's a long walk from the car to the gym, get to gym, change, find someone is using all the machines you want, use something else for half an hour, get fed up, shower, leave, drive one km home in a traffic jam. Stop off for coffee and cake to cheer youself up. Why not just go for a walk?"

"none of us drive to work in KL: we all pay extra to live in the city within ten minutes' walk of the office. It works out cheaper to do that than to own a car and it's cheaper to take a taxi to most places in the city than to park a car anyway."

"Drive? In London? You have to be mad or very rich to have the convenience of a car in central London these days. So I walk - briskly - three km to work and back and then I don't need to go to the gym."

"Exercise bike? I have one. I use it to cycle the seven km to the office each day."

"Why do fitness centres use so much air con?"

We decided that others may have something to say on this - so we looked at the internet. All copyrights are acknowledged!

"Buy a bicycle, ride to the gym, check it's still there, ride back home. Same effect, more scenery. "

"Reminds me of the irony of the treadmills. Why would someone need to use energy in order to expend energy?""This reminds me of how my wife, a marathon runner, complains when she has to park 30 feet away from where she's going."

"I once watched a moving company lift a gym worth of weights up a flight of stairs. It seemed very strange that the people going there for exercise weren't willing to do the lifting."