At the Gym

Living dangerously, 2Blowhards takes on the gym world:

OK, sure. I’ll buy the health explanation from the 40-year-old who spends a half hour on the treadmill, three times a week. Maybe they do some light weights too, because their doctors told them it was a good idea. I think they’d be better off, physically and spiritually, going hiking with their friends, tobogganing with their kids, or having sex with their spouses, but I will at least grant that they are trudging away to extend and improve their lives. The question then becomes: How fractured, lonely, and atomized has our society become, that the most popular form of exercise is the monotonous, low-intensity self-torture that goes on under the soul-sucking fluorescent lights of GoodLife Fitness? Activities that make your heart pump faster are not hard to find. Dreary hours on the exercise bicycle are the norm because we have chosen to make it so. Because we are sick, and for whatever reason our desire to connect with other people is so weak that we prefer a solitary workout over game of touch football.