Dialogue: Personal training not a yuppy fad

BY SANDY BURGHAM

Recently at a dinner party we met some wonderfully cultured, interested and interesting arty farty Wellingtonians fairly new to Auckland. We were talking about the differences between the two cities when one of us was interrupted by a call on his cellphone from his personal trainer, rearranging an appointment.

The Wellingtonians just about fell off their chairs laughing at this quintessential Auckland moment. Indeed, they must have taken the view of many that it is downright ridiculous to employ the services of someone merely to tell us how to exercise.

For many years I, too, dissed the personal training phenomenon as a hedonistic waste of money. Why not just join a club, get an exercise video, buy some equipment or, even better, get off your lazy butt and go for a walk?

"It is so pathetic," I cried. "Have the rigours and routines of modern life come to this?"

Ah, 'fraid so. And I, too, have now surrendered to it.

You see, I have had to face up to the fact that my mind is an unreliable, fair-weather friend to my body. It has led it on, used it, lied to it and let it down. It simply cannot be trusted.

I have embraced every new exercise fad with gusto, my mind fast-forwarding to an imagined future when this new regime would have become a part of my life, like eating and sitting around.

There was the calisthenics era, which seemed to involve minimal movement and no sweat (my two prerequisites), yoga, Pilates and now yoga again (since I like to be riding the crest of every exercise fad). But I can never quite break the one-year mark with most of these.

I tried the exercise-at-home videos, too, but it was too tempting to climb on to the couch and have a wee nap. Books never worked for me because that darned reading step simply added another 20 minutes on to the whole tedious session.

And, of course, as a result of my infomercial-addiction problem, there's the at-home exercise equipment - an exercycle, a Rachel Hunter stepper and an abdominiser, to name a few, all now landfill fodder, and making me feel responsible for the Auckland City wastage problem. (Sorry.)

Thus it was with initial regret and reluctance that I found myself knocking at the door of a neighbourhood personal trainer. She's a frightening woman who obviously has spent some time as a drill sergeant in the Army.

I detect a hint of sado-masochism within her but I am far too scared to suggest this for fear that she will add weights to the bar I have to lift. She has the positive and controlled temperament of a dentist who, again, inflicts pain on others all day.

But I have formed a strange bond with this woman who I pay to think on my behalf. Dissecting what she actually does within my allotted session, it seems minimal.

She counts the repetitions of an exercise I am doing, tells me what I have to do next, and asks me what I have been eating.

Hardly rocket science for $50 a session, it may seem - but here's the trick: I have been programmed to avoid breaking appointments with people, and while I often pray that she has to cancel or postpone me, I am unusually loyal and reliable to her.

My first day with her did not go well. Since I had been sedentary for about 18 months, she had to dismiss me early. Exhausted was I after a mere half-hour of using equipment set at geriatric level.

My five-minute stroll home was akin to Craig Barrett's final moments in the last Commonwealth Games. Jelly-legged and disoriented, I weaved up the cul de sac, spurred on by my bemused neighbours.

I am now a few months down the track and things have progressed to the point where I appreciate what the Hilary Commission has been harping on about.

Guess how much weight I have lost - absolutely none. But I have discovered why fitness is more of a concern than fatness.

Now I get it - the bit about mental clarity, and stress control, about feeling good, looking better and, most importantly, about keeping healthy. Usually by June, I would have had at least one flu and three colds.

So for those who dismiss trainers as the domain of yuppy Aucklanders with more money than sense, I beg to differ. It's all a matter of priority and $50 a week is a couple of KFC party packs, a cigarette habit, or a night at the casino.

At least this way I get to breathe in some fresh air.