Fit

I'm no stranger to the gym. I enjoy pounding the treadmill and feebly pushing up the odd weight so wherever I work I try to find a gym that fits with my daily routine. It probably helps to stay active. I'm fighting against the slippery slope of middle age valiantly by going twice a week, more if I can find the time.

The RMIT gym is small but well equipped and frequented by largely the same group of stringy young guys. They're never going to be Arnold Schwarzenegger and neither am I but we look like we are enjoying ourselves. Apart from exercising I like to watch the other people doing their stuff. In one corner there's usually a group of boys laughing and shouting raucously at each other and Vietnamese is a very raucous language indeed. At the other end I often see a smaller group in quiet conversation with each other whilst gently bouncing on the large rubber exercise balls. These balls are there to be used in all sorts of fiendish ways to make muscles stronger and more supple but this little group use them as improvised stools. The other major piece of equipment getting the most use is the floor to ceiling mirror that they all take a moment or two to pose in front of as they move from one social group to the next.

I'm somewhere between the two groups, either on the running machine or the weight machines isolating myself from the noise with my ipod and hoping that the ball bouncers have finished their conversations before I need a ball for my sit-ups.

But the more interesting exercise sights are to be seen not in the gym but outside my window in Sky Gardens. In the opposite block, on floor 3, there's an apartment occupied by a local family who have a cramped terrace that they fill with potted plants and plastic furniture. It has a low fence around the outside and a corrugated plastic roof to keep off the rain. Each morning the lady of the house emerges in her floral pyjamas with her hair in rollers to begin her morning workout. She starts with a bit of running on the spot followed by some arm swinging and finishes with some hip twirling. She has a bouncing, half-hearted run that's never going to get her very far and her hips are somewhat stiff. She's not fat just thick set and the hip twirling looks painful. The arm swinging consists of her throwing both arms forward cross her stout body and then jerking them backwards finishing with a sharp jerk of her shoulders. I hope she's OK because some of her routine looks like it may result in a sporting injury.

Also out of my window I often see an middle aged guy doing the arm throwing and hip twirling although he is slimmer and can get his hips moving around quiet fluidly. His arm movements are more flappy. He flings his limp arms around his body slapping himself alternately on his chest and back. He looks very pleased with himself most mornings as he takes prime position in full view of anyone who cares to watch him. Perhaps he and the running on the spot woman should get together sometime for a bit of one-on-one exercise activity.

We also have power-walking people, usually older Korean men, who march along in a very determined manner pumping their arms high across their bodies whilst clenching their fists and sticking their chins forward in a determined and quite proud way. But mainly we have slow wandering families or nannies minding babies. They sit around on benches and gossip which must be healthier than all that jerking, jogging and twisting.