How Good Is Life At GoodLife Fitnesss?
From much of my life I have had a predilection for physical exercise. I started out as a runner; throughout my teens and into my twenties I did track and field, cross country, and 10K. In my late twenties I admixed a good deal of cycling into my training, and in my thirties and early forties I switched to weightlifting. I was spectacularly mediocre at each of these sports, and enjoyed them all hugely nonetheless. But due to changes in life priorities and the dwindling supply of available hours inevitably accompanying middle age, I put serious training aside, and for the last several years my exercise regimen has comprised nothing more strenuous than walking. Walking is wonderful exercise; it is very cheap, low impact, requires no technical knowledge, and can be done anywhere, in all weather—the perfect sort of training for our declining years. It is also, unfortunately, low on novelty value, which is perhaps why I recently decided to get back in the gym (it my also be my mid-life crisis arriving on schedule). After browsing the available local venues, I have settled upon GoodLife Fitness. This is my first experience with a megalithic fitness industry franchise, and I naturally find myself rating it against the many types of gyms I have used in the past.
With dozens of gyms throughout the city, all with extended hours, and a couple open round-the-clock, GoodLife scores high on accessibility; I can easily schedule a workout wherever and whenever I find it most convenient on the day. While the locations I have tried so far vary in total floor-space, they share the same basic tripartite configuration of cardio, machines, and free-weights, with some locations offering swimming pools and saunas. The facilities are uniformly well-maintained and the equipment perfectly functional—a selling point for those wishing to avoid chipped paint, cracked mirrors, and dankness (although having trained in some truly dank gyms, I would add that cracked mirrors can have their own charm). GoodLife does not, however, offer squash-courts, indoor running tracks, gymnastic equipment, and Olympic-sized swimming pools, thus falling short of the average YMCA, not to mention my Alma-mater's athletic centre.
GoodLife banks upon its user-friendly, non-intimidating environment—At GoodLife we strive to create an environment that is safe and welcoming—with a variety of general fitness programmes and a phalanx of personal trainers at each location (all of which I have eschewed). In gamer parlance, they appeal to casuals—those interested in shedding a few pounds and generally toning up. They are a less than ideal venue for anyone training seriously for a competitive sport. I must admit to pining wistfully for the old days, as the GoodLife environment can get a little soporific if I am not focused. Gone is hardcore intensity—the straining and groaning of blistering maximal effort, music blaring at maximum volume, the booming and crashing of iron plates; GoodLife’s rubberised plates tend to make an underwhelming fwump sound, it’s inane selection of pop music is routinely drowned out by the whirring of exercise bikes, and it generally discourages intensity, lest it scare away the noobs.
Gone as well is the boisterous, testosterone-fuelled camaraderie I once found ubiquitous—which loss, though piquant, I can stand, my exercise goals differing from what they were twenty years ago. But what I find especially striking is the absence of any camaraderie whatsoever. Sans the burbling pop music, the whirring of cardio equipment, and the occasional fwump of rubberised weights, I find myself training in complete silence. The other clients rarely, if ever, say anything, maintaining strictly demarcated zones of isolation, barely even making eye contact—a rather depressing plurality of solitudes. I hear no locker-room banter, witness no congenial flirting, encounter no mutual encouragement or enthusiasm. Is this simply the way it is at corporate fitness chains in a big city? Or an indication of a general, societal shift? Are we all now leery of being sued for harassment? Not recommended, unless you do not mind taking a vow of silence before training.
Out of ten I rate the GoodLife experience a six—five for the overall miasma of blandness, with an extra point given for level of maintenance. Having opted for the non-commitment type membership, I will continue to train there for the time being. Hopefully, when and if I do opt out for something better, the GoodLife salespeople will allow me to go without too much browbeating. In any case, I am well enough occupied with coaxing my ageing carcass into motion, and not overly fussed with GoodLife’s sterile atmosphere. In fact I am very well occupied; I thought I knew how training after a long lay-off feels—roughly two or three weeks of suffering and soreness, after which I get my legs back. That is what it was like in my thirties. But to my bemusement, forty-nine-year-old soreness is of a different calibre, and someone, sometime in the last ten years, seems to have made off with my legs entirely…