With Vim and “Vigor”

Yesterday, I took advantage of a 75-degree afternoon bathed in sunshine, to get in a brief run. With my health club shuttered since St. Patrick’s Day, I’m constrained primarily to performing body-weight exercises and running. Although at my advanced age, the description of what I do would more closely resemble a measured jog.

Since the club is closed, I use the now-deserted parking lot to work out – a panoramic 5-acre spread framed by rows of towering pines and maples.

As luck would have it, I ran into the head trainer at the facility, who was working with a client, hoisting kettle-bells roughly the size of beer kegs and walking with them from one point to another. So, I asked him if he had any insider information about when it would reopen.

He explained that health clubs along with numerous other businesses were in the fourth phase of reopening, which he said at the earliest would be July 1, with the possibility of extending it an additional two weeks until the 15^th. The thought of another month exercising on my own was bad enough, then he went on to explain that masks were required apart from “performing vigorous exercises.”

Talk about something open to interpretation.

What constitutes “vigorous” exercises I asked?

He seemed as unsure as I was.

For example, there’s a member who’s one of the top competitive runners in New York State and regularly clocks 11 or 12 miles on the treadmill before embarking on second daily run outdoors. I assume that would qualify as “vigorous,” and can bypass the masked requirement. But what about the overweight member trying to get back into shape and is winded just walking on the contraption?

Ditto for lifting weights. Some of my colleagues can bench press close to 400 pounds as easily as lifting a house cat. But those who struggle mightily with the iron would be consigned to looking like the Lone Ranger in a tank top.

Last week I ran into a fellow exerciser, a hulking attorney with arms like canned Virginia hams who confided to me that he will in no way wear a mask and if forced to do so, would immediately resign his membership. He said he has three friends who have already torn up their renewal notices.

Like many other businesses emerging from the COVID-19 quarantine, it would be a safe bet that the club would suffer a yet-to-be determined percent of member attrition.

Unless of course they pursue some degree of compromise – vigorously.