I've given up on gyms
They just lead to misery and woh for me.

I started pub manager training after leaving college. Living in a pub 24/7 took a toll on what used to be a very fit and active body. Free food, free beer and 30 a day Marlboro habit made me a bit portly.

Gym 1 - 1997. Have decided I want to be a copper and save being a pub manager for when I retire. I decide to join a gym to get fitness level up for test. My introduction session was carried out by the stunning, lycra clad, Rachel. I tucked in my gut, pretended that joining a gym was an every day occurrence to me and generally try to be cool in front of Rachel. Cycling machine was fine. Cross Trainer was fine. Stairthingy was fine. 30 pull-ups on one of those machines that helps you a bit, not fine. In fact I felt dizzy. My blood was pounding in my ears and it felt as though my face was going to pop. I asked Rachel if I could grab one of those silly cones of water and have a quick rest. I sat down with my cone of water and promptly feinted backward of the bench. I retired to the dressing room in shame and never returned.

Gym 2 - 2003: I didn't actually attend this gym, but my gf at the time did. I was amazed that she would go 6 nights a week and then come home and shag me silly. Turns out she was fitter than I thought, because she was going to the gym, shagging her ex-boyfriend (who went to the same gym) and was them coming home and shagging me silly. I think it was when I found this out that I took on an almost fanatical hatred of gyms. Not exercise, just gyms.

Gym 3 - 2007: The now ex, Mrs Smurf decided she was joining a gym in January 2007 as a new years resolution. What's my first thought on this? "Shit. She's going to meet someone at the gym and shag them and then come home and shag me". Of course.

So I, despite grave, grace misgivings, joined with her. Ok, there was part of me that liked the idea of getting fit again as well. The first session was fine. The second session I suffered an AMAZING leg cramp whilst on the cycling machine. At home you would hop around screaming "FUCK, CRAMP CRAMP CRAMP FUCK!" but obviously at the gym you just try and style it out and hobble away, biting your tongue and essentially looking like Quasimodo's long lost brother. Within a few days my calf had gone rock solid. Not in the good 'developing tone' solid, but in the 'huge great blood clot in your leg' kinda solid. A few days after that I was diagnosed as having DVT. Now, I cannot strictly say that this was down to the damage caused by my exercising at the gym, but I'm fairly sure it is (although my pathological dislike of gyms might have aided my theory).

I returned to the same gym not long after I'd recovered and was off blood thinners. I had a reintroduction session and the trainer wanted to know more detail about what happened. I explained at length (the short version for you being part of clot broke off, travelled through heart and ended up in lungs leading to funny heart blips on an EKG, but entirely safe. Ish.) and proceeded with my reintroduction. Ex Smurfette is already pounding away on the running machine, so I go with the trainer to start some warm up stretches.

Now, I've always suffered with cramp in my chest muscles. Dunno why, I just do. The cramp will spread from mid-chest, around the side and across the back. It'll randomly happen even whilst I just sit here typing.

What happens in the middle of my stretches, on return from being rather poorly and having just told the trainer I have a slightly damaged heart (I did say it was cellular damage, but I don't think he understood the word)? Bastard cramp in my chest, on the left hand side.

So there I am, laying on the floor on my back. I'm gripping my chest, red in the face, unable to talk because of the constriction. You can't seem to stretch this cramp out, you just end up involuntary writhing and bucking, just trying to find one position where it'll stretch.

The next thing I know I'm being straddled by some pimply, muscle toting, bum fluff wearing, trainer who's now brandishing his fist in the air. My first thought is "What the fuck have I ever done to him"? When he starts saying "Remain calm and try to breathe", I realise he thinks I'm having a heart attack. And here I am lying underneath him, writhing and bucking. From behind it must have looked like he was maliciously making me dry hump him, in some strange, voyeuristic ritual.
I finally managed to squeek out "Get off me you cunt, it's just a cramp". But not until the embarrassment factor was too great for me to ever return to that gym.

Oh, and guess why Mrs Smurf is now ex Mrs Smurf. Yep. You guessed it.

And going back to my second paragraph, a girl said to me today that I looked like Al Murray, but prettier. Is that a good thing?!

Apologies for length, I'm stoned and rambly.
(Big Smurf Brush me daddy-O, Tue 14 Jul 2009, 19:10, 1 reply)

Have a sympathy click or seven
I took a boom (as in, 30 foot long piece of hardened steel reinforced with carbon fiber attached to the bottom of the mainsail on a 38ft racing yacht) to the chest once during my sailing stint when we were doing about 10 knots and the wind violently changed direction.

Knocked me clear off the deck and into the water about 20 feet away, and when they picked me up again I found it very hard to breathe - turns out I had cleanly cracked my rib-cage along the left side of my sternum.

Upshot of this means that my sternum sometimes slips under the left side of my ribcage. This makes it hard to breathe. It also is very, very painful.

This means I sometimes look like I'm having a heart attack - though I can just stretch hard and crack my ribcage back into place after the cramping stops. This is apparently not a particularly funny party trick.
(DarkLite swallowed my entire undercarriage, Tue 14 Jul 2009, 19:45, closed)