The Geriatrics Update!

When writing about the geriatrics the other day I forgot to write about one of my favourites.

She has died her hair red and when she comes out of the shower and her hair is wet and all messed up, she looks exactly like a baby orangutan. Adorable and cute.

I hope she doesn't get upset by this post. 

The Geriatrics

This is quite a cute group of gym regulars and they always impress me as they show that you are never too old to benefit from exercise.

They tend to be seen in the early afternoons and rarely in the evenings - I guess they like the quieter times at the gym. There are quite a few of them and they all seem to have their own little quirks, so let me introduce you to a few of them.

Walking Stick Man - he shuffles onto the gym floor and tends to use the cardio equipment, though he once appeared at the back of the studio to take a weight, but I never saw what he used it for. He hangs or props his stick up on the machine he's going to use and slowly inches onto it, then off he goes - cycling or walking. Then when he's done, he collects his stick and shuffles off to the next piece of equipment.

Steam Room Woman - she comes in practically every afternoon, does a little bit of cardio then spends the rest of the time in the steam room and pool. She does go very slow in the pool (and unlike the coven) is aware of this and will make space if you want to swim laps. The other day someone called her 'Young', which she adored and she kept on saying 'She called me young! Me! I'm 92 and she called me young.' She's obviously got to that part of life where you stop lying about your age and start bragging.

Mr and Mrs - they arrive in the gym at ten minutes past four every Tuesday. He helps her through the new barriers and then they leave their bags by the door and go around and say hello to all the geri's - and this being France - by giving the double kiss. It doesn't matter what exercise the 'greetee' is doing, they have to stop and be kissed by this couple.

Miss Rambler - who wears an outfit that would be more suited to a cross country hike rather than a gym - long trousers that zip off into shorts, walking trainers and dark glasses. To her credit, she does the classes and has improved in each one.

Mrs Black Hair - who is off the age where jet black hair is fooling no one - and spends her time in the gym chatting or checking herself out in the mirror. If you thought it was only the young gym bunnies who constantly check themselves out in the mirror, then think again....

The Gym Douce Girls - they turn up for each and every 'easy' class - bodybalance, aqua, gym douce, le stretch etc like a crowd of starlings and do their bit, moaning and flirting but getting stuck in. Then afterwards they chat away in the changing rooms comparing grandchildren, hospital experiences, gynecological problems, hairdressing tips the works, then suddenly all disappear again.

They are there, week in, week out. Maybe the gym is some sort of social life for some of them but most of them do come to exercise and you can see that it is helping to keep the active and is benefiting them all, whatever their level of mobility and fitness. I hope I can be doing that when I'm 92 too. 

The Chief Witch - on her own!

I was doing some interval training on the cross trainer today, when I suddenly noticed the chief witch, tucked away in the corner and doing her best not to exercise on one of the bikes.
It was much earlier than the usual witching hour, when the coven descends on the gym and she was all alone. At first I was surprised, then realised that since she has come back from her long holiday in Spain (boy, did I enjoy those weeks) she has not been around as much as usual.

Sure she appears in the gym, but rarely does the classes. She would still met up with the other witches in the pool afterwards and lead the conversations in the changing rooms, but has gradually been reducing her appearances.

Has there been a big row? Are they in disagreement about who could be the most annoying? Have they decided to explore other career paths? Have they split because of musical differences? I will endeavor to eavesdrop and find out for you, but for the moment it does mean the gym is a much quieter and more pleasant place to be.

After my workout I was doing my usual couple of post steam-room lazy laps to cool down and was enjoying having the pool to myself, when she suddenly appeared next to me about to commence her 'walking' slowly up and down the pool exercises.
It is a narrow pool and she likes to walk round the edges of it, making lap swimming impossible. I seized my moment and stuck hard to my 'lane' and swam furiously up and and down, forcing her to to use the other 'lane' for her walking.

To be fair her walking appeared to be much quicker as she was on her own, I guess she was able to use the extra energy she usually expends on talking annoying loudly.

For me however this did mean that my usual cool down, lazy laps became another workout as I really wanted to make my point and show her how a pool is normally used. For all that extra effort I put in, it better have done!

PS - did the new release of body pump today - will have achy muscles tonight. Much, much harder than the last one.....

The Staff 2

Time to introduce some more of the staff!

First up is the Chief Guy.
Now he is a true example of French employment logic. He is the eldest and therefore the boss of the instructors, even though he is the worst instructor ever. He never asks if there is anyone new in the class, he never demonstrates the moves correctly (which can be quite dangerous when you're asking people to lift heavy weights) and - this is the worst bit, he can't even do some of the moves.
Cute Guy moaned once about a difficult, optional move in body balance that he didn't like but said he'd been told to include the move by Chief. The funny thing about this is the Chief doesn't include the move in his class!
I eventually have decided that he has a problem with his knees as he can't do squats properly and always uses light weights. In body balance he can't do a Hindi Squat or a Swan pose. Now this is fine in itself, lots of people have problems with their bodies when they are reaching their late 50's but I just wish he would say so, rather than just do the moves incorrectly and have a class full of people copying him and potentially damaging their joints. Just saying.
He is also the worst at singing along to English lyrics, badly. Very badly. Always gets the lyrics wrong (in case you think I'm being judgmental - I never sing along to any song French or English, unless I know the words!) At the moment we have the joy of Flo Rida's 'Whistle' for our ab track in body pump, which is a song about blow jobs. Having Chief singing 'Can you blow my whistle baby?' is just not good. Seriously.
This week he has taken to wearing his baseball cap backwards.....

Fortunately I can avoid most of his classes except on the rotating weekends and he also alternates a Tuesday body pump with Chatty Girl, and she is lovely.

In fact, I wish she did more classes, she was brought in when another instructor (who didn't do the Les Mills classes) left and so got put on her schedule of sculpt, aqua, step etc - but I think she is the most qualified instructor in the gym, so they now let her do these alternating classes on a Tuesday, which is a little frustrating as she is really good.
She's funny and chatty but not in an obnoxious way. She also challenges you and encourages you to do more (no wonder the Coven all disappear when it's her turn to lead the class as they don't want to lift more than 5kg!) Her sculpt classes are a real challenge!
I think she's worked abroad as her English seems very good (well she gets the lyrics right when she sings the songs and her accent is good!), in fact I must ask her one day, but she's never in the changing room long enough for a chat.

So there you are, two more of our instructors. I guess like most gyms, there are those you like and you tend to gravitate towards their classes when you can and those you don't and you try and have as little to do with them as possible.

Oh, in case you're wondering - Leotard Woman wasn't wearing her leotard today, but I'll keep you updated on any more sightings!

Shock Horror

A leotard was seen at the gym today.
I was so surprised I nearly feel off the cross trainer.
It was blue and worn with blue and white stripy leggings.

This is the worst bit - it looked new.
Yes, new.

Now this lead me to wonder why and here are a few possibilities....

1 - this woman is so bang on trend (I admit I'm not) and she's streets ahead of the rest of us.

2 - she was having an 80's throwback moment (she's in her early 50's, so it's possible.)

3 - she's a mature gymnast and was stopping in at the gym on her way to gymnastics class.

Which do you think?

Why?

Why, why, why, why, oh why did I think it was a good idea to raise the weights for the squat track in body pump today.........

The Staff 1

Time to introduce to some of the staff at the gym, so here goes.

First up are some of the gym instructors.

They do the weekend shifts on rotation, so today we had Cute Guy. Please feel free to blame one of my friends for the naming of the gym guys. She used to do Ju Jitsu here in Lyon and practically all her conversations would start 'So there was this hot guy at the gym...' We used to have code names for them all, in fact it was quite a surprise to occasionally meet one and find out they had a proper name. So this habit continued when I joined my gym and I was finally able to start conversations with 'So when I saw hot guy at the gym...'

Back to Cute Guy. He really is very sweet, has a lovely personality and you do just want to pick him up and put him in your pocket. He is one of the better instructors and is good at explaining correct movements etc and keeping an eye on everyone in the class. I regularly go to his body balance class on a Monday night. He is also honest if he can't do something (unlike one of the other instructors), for instance some of the advanced moves in body balance are a wee bit challenging and he can't make all of them. He moaned bitterly about the Crow Pose saying that on the training videos all the instructors would just pop up into it and he really couldn't do it. It makes the class slightly refreshing.
Cute Guy has also been known to shake things up a bit, like the other week when he changed the order of the body pump to make it more challenging, but I think I moaned commented about that in a previous post, so won't go about that now.
I think he's been on a Stretch course recently as today he had us doing some strange shoulder and arm stretches that I have never come across before and the other week he had us all lying on the floor with our legs up the walls doing bizarre moves to lengthen our hamstrings and glutes.
He does have a reasonable English accent and doesn't sound too bad when singing along to the lyrics of the songs. He does get the correct lyrics too, which is not always the case. I also like him as he will go and switch the aircon on when necessary and not have a great debate with everyone about it. The French seem to have some mortal fear of the aircon and really don't like having it on, but believe you me, when you have 30 people in a small room, all sweating - you need it!

There is also Petite Girly who was on duty last weekend. I only ever do her classes when she has the weekend shift, so don't really see her that often. She is tiny. I also am not sure if she is boarder line anorexic as she doesn't have an ounce of fat on her. She does have a set of abs to die for. She is very quiet and just comes into the studio, does the class and thats that. No chatting and interacting, just does her stuff. In some ways it can be refreshing, in other ways I don't find it very motivating.
She does have the annoying habit of dictating what weights you should be using in body pump and will, for example, frequently say that the women should use a small and medium weight as a maximum for the triceps, as I'm putting on the large weights on the bar (as encouraged to by the other instructors.)
I do feel a little sorry for her, as she has to do the body pump training but she only takes one class every 4 weeks, so the Sunday Morning Regulars always know the routine better than she does. Last Sunday she gave up the pretense and did one of the older releases and actually it was fun to be having a bit of variety, so I hope she does that again.

That's it for now, I'll introduce some more instructors another time!