Gym observations .....

I truly admire anyone who goes to the gym (or anywhere else) to get fit and know that it’s not right to laugh at people in the gym, but I did have a (silent) giggle at the sight that I came across at the gym the other night. I walked into the group fitness room to sneak around the back, grab a mat and have a good stretching session. Picture this ..... four reasonably 'built' Chinese men wearing bike shorts and singlet tops at the front of the room all with a large weight on their shoulders, squatting in front of a large group of middle aged women who were all squatting with smaller weights on their shoulders. The class was not unusually big (maybe about 15, predominantly female, participants), so why were four instructors needed?! You could see how proud they all were of their weight lifting abilities and that it was very much a chance for them to show off their muscles in front of an admiring audience of female participants. It was quite an amusing sight. One of the instructors is multi talented and I often see him leading classes such as body pump, body combat, hip hop and ballet classes (okay, maybe not ballet). He has a unique outfit for each class – bike shorts and singlet for pump, boxing gloves for combat (despite the fact that he actually isn’t hitting anything or anyone) and a sparkling cap, ‘street’ clothes with one pant leg rolled up for hip hop (I don’t really get the one pant leg rolled up). ‘Normal’ western workout gear just doesn’t exist here in China where the gym dress code is extremely broad. The interesting sights at the gym certainly make the time fly by!