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Getting fit requires the right fit

BY E. richard stiehm

I think I’m in pretty good shape for someone eligible for Medicare. I bike for an hour or do the Santa Monica steps thrice a week. I walk daily and mow my own lawn. I play tennis and ski. But alas, to the horror of my daughters, I didn’t go to a gym until about a year ago.

They and my female friends do everything from Pilates, Curves, step and salsa to kick-boxing, aerobics, yoga and tai chi. So to keep from being labeled a slacker or a couch potato, plus a faint desire to lose just a few pounds, I got myself a yearly pass to Fit Center South at an additional cost of $150 to my annual UCLA Recreation Center membership fee.

When I showed up at the Wooden Center, I was confronted with a dazzling array of contraptions meant to be pushed, pulled, flexed, extended, rowed, cranked, etc. My wife showed me how to use 10 of them.

My fellow exercisers were female students with 22-inch waists and what seemed to be 2% body fat. The jocks, typically in muscle shirts, left the machines at settings of 12, 16 or even 20, compared to my measly 3 and 4. The place was always crowded, the rock music deafening.

I was about to abandon my venture into the higher echelons of fitness when someone at the lab told me about the Fit Center South, located just a few blocks from my office at the UCLA Medical Center’s Marion Davies Children’s Center.

The Fit Center is in the Rehabilitation Building, with convenient parking, shower facilities and enough machines, mats, weights and treadmills to keep me and the five to 10 users per hour perspiring, panting and grunting. Best of all, there is no rock music — just CNN and ESPN.

Because many of the other clients at the center are rehab patients, the machines are usually left at the easiest settings, putting me above average for this gang. And just in case I get cocky, a few energetic students do use those No. 16 settings.

My daughters were delighted that I had found the gym of my dreams. But I had to confess that I didn’t wear a muscle T-shirt, anklet socks, a sweatband or weight-training gloves, nor carry an iPod or water bottle.

What’s more, the Fit Center has no sauna, pool, Jacuzzi, boutique shop or snack bar. A sole vending machine is the only mild enticement.

My implacable daughters suggested I get with it by joining some club like the Sports Club/LA on Sepulveda, which offers the trendiest amenities, plus valet parking, a restaurant and a spa — at a monthly charge equivalent to my yearly Fit Center fee.

Such hip gyms are clearly not my thing. So, two or three times a week, I make a pilgrimage to the Fit Center. Within an hour, I feel invigorated and return to work feeling as triumphant as when I leave the dentist’s office. I’ve lost 10 pounds and taken 2 inches off my waist.

And I’m not tempted at all by that vending machine in the hallway.

Stiehm is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics.