Working Out with The Boys

“...Bleugh!”

“You good?”

“Yeah...”

Liquid cardboard clouded my palate.

“These taste horrible...” I muttered.

“Do it for the gains!” Prius declared.

Heavy-duty steel rope whirred in the background, as people repetitively pulled and pushed their equipment. While one person repeating these movements would result in a rhythmic sound, the unsynchronized crowd only created a cacophony.

Now who were these soon-to-be university students, forcing themselves through horrendous protein shakes and extensive training at their local gym?

It was me. The boys were with me too, but I was the only one suffering like this.

“Are Ravi and Coco still running?” Prius asked. “I’m impressed.”

“Well... Coco’s a runner, after all.”

“Yeah, but Ravi?”

“He goes outdoors a lot, so it’s not that big of a surprise.”

“You definitely haven’t surprised me,” Prius teased while patting my back.

Finally having recovered from the protein shake, I walked up to the bench press.

“For the gains...” I muttered.

“That’s the spirit.”

I set my bottle on the ground and laid myself down on the bench press. Wrapping my fingers around the scaled iron grip, I prepared to perform the first rep.

“Wait!” Prius stopped me. “This weight looks like it’ll kill you.”

“How much is it right now?”

“One-fourty.”

That certainly sounded like a lot for me. However, being unaccustomed to the gym, it didn’t cross my mind to pay attention to the large black discs on either side of the bar.

“What’s the highest you’ve done before?” Prius asked.

“...Zero,” I promptly replied.

“You’ve never used the bench press before?”

“Nope.”

“...I’m glad I came with you.”

We decided to start with a blank slate—no weights, with only the bar. I figured I might as well get the movements down. Prius described to me the proper posture and positioning, and I attempted my first couple of bench presses.

“One... Two...”

Easy enough.

“Three... Four... Five...”

I was feeling a little bit of fatigue.

“Let’s stop here,” Prius suggested after the eighth rep. “Is the weight good?”

“We can add ten on each side.”

“Sounds like a good start. If you’re still good after the third set, we can keep going.”

“Alright. Your turn.”

Prius added sixty-five on each side before performing his bench presses. I was unsure whether or not that was impressive—I just knew that in comparison to me, he was a beast.

I stood behind the bench as the spotter as he sharply exhaled through his teeth with each rep. My hands hovered beneath the bar as he exercised, prepared to catch the bar if his muscles gave out.

“D-done...” he grunted. It was the seventh rep, and his toned arms were trembling. I helped raised the bar onto the rack, and we switched places.

“Thanks,” Prius said. “Man, it’s nice having a spotter. I get to push myself a little more.”

“Yeah... these kinds of equipment can be super dangerous.”

“Haha, you probably would have died already if I wasn’t here.”

“...Shut up.”

While it was true that I would’ve been injured if I attempted to bench my own bodyweight on the first time, it was only due to my own ignorance. This would’ve been a different story had I been better acquainted with the gym.

“Which one do you want to do after this?” Prius asked.

“Why don’t we join Ravi and Coco?” I suggested. “We came here together, after all.”

“Ehh... working out together isn’t exactly the best.”

“Why not? You just said that having a spotter was pretty nice.”

“Having a spotter is nice—as in, one spotter. Working out with too many people makes it easier to lose focus.”

“Really? I feel like... I’d push myself a lot harder if those two were watching.”

After all, lifting light weights in front of Prius was embarrassing enough.

“That might be true,” he admitted. “But in larger groups, I find that we usually end up chatting quite a bit if we don’t split up. That’s as useless as being one of those guys who stand in front of the mirror for half an hour between each set...”

“Sssh... he’ll hear you...” I stole a peek at the man who really was admiring himself in front of the mirror. “How long has it been?”

“We’ve gone through three gym machines since then...”

“Wow.”

“I guess it means you can still be unproductive when you’re alone,” Prius admitted.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Well for my case, it’s probably because of how unfamiliar I am with the gym.”

“Come to think of it, how come this is your first time working out? You were pretty athletic before.”

“Well... I wanted to do it in high school, but my parents scared me away.”

“They didn’t want you to work out?”

“They said I’d tear my growth plates or something. While I had some experience with calisthenics in Phys Ed, I stayed away from the bench.”

“Ah. So this really is your first time on the bench.”

“Yup.”

“Don’t worry. If you get injured, I’ll add extra weights onto the bar before grabbing help.”

“...Why?”

“It’s so you’ll look cooler,” Prius snickered. “Anyways, we should get back to our set.”

“We were quite distracted just now, weren’t we,” I commented.

“Guess so. Looks like we should split up...”

“Wait, no! You need to spot me.”

o

“Entropy is irreversible and all we do on Earth is suffer...” I thought to myself as we walked towards the treadmill. While I couldn’t exactly feel the pain in my muscles, my arms would quake with a magnitude of seven whenever I tried to exert them.

“Time for cardio!” Prius had cheerfully said once we finished our last couple of exercises. Apparently we were supposed to warm up with a run at the beginning, but Prius had opted for a quick stretch to avoid using the same machines as the other two.

Nonetheless, Coco still appeared to be occupying the treadmill. She was wearing a similar outfit to when we first met her on the hiking trip—black leggings and a sports bra. Her windbreaker was hanging over the treadmill’s rails.

“Aren’t you tired?” I asked her.

“I’m... limit-testing... today,” she said, in between her promptly scheduled breaths.

“Ah...”

Coco’s back was straight, and her body was barely bobbing up and down like mine would when I ran. It seemed like all her kinetic energy was propelling her forwards, and there was none left to move her vertically. I could hear her consistently inhaling and exhaling to the tempo of her footsteps.

I looked around for Prius, who was nowhere to be found. That guy just disappeared on me? Oh, no, there he is. He’s cooling down with Ravi.

Looking at Coco’s determined face, I felt bad for leaving her.

Might as well join her.

Stepping on to the adjacent treadmill, I looked over the settings. It seemed to be configured as “miles per hour”... whatever that means. I started off small.

One.

...It was rather hard to walk so slow.

Three.

If I took slightly smaller steps, this was closer to my normal walking pace.

Five.

This speed was an uncomfortable goldilocks zone—I could either jog lightly or walk quickly.

Eight.

Now I seemed to match Coco’s pace. My heartrate quickened and it was getting harder to breathe.

“Breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose,” Ravi said from behind me. “I like to measure it by steps—three steps in, three steps out.”

“Where’s Prius?”

“In the washroom. Also, talking disrupts your breathing, so try not to do that so much.”

“...”

“Hey... Via,” Coco said. “Whoever stops running first owes the winner a soda.”

Since when were we competing?

Not wanting to talk, I simply nodded and tried to maintain my pace.

After a few minutes, the sides of my stomach began to feel painfully sour, as if they inverted so sharply that they were stabbing into my organs. I turned to see Coco still pushing forwards.

Not wanting to give in, I kept my legs moving. My chest heaved, and a dry fire ignited at the bottom of my throat. I couldn’t keep it up for much longer.

It didn’t take long for me to smash the big red STOP button and keel over in defeat. The treadmill slowly whirred to a stop, as the speed gradually dropped to zero again.

“What...” I gasped. “What event... haa... did you run in track?” I barely managed to finish my sentence without feeling like I was depriving my body of oxygen.

“Long distance.” Coco smirked. Having seen me admit defeat, she stopped her treadmill too.

While she was indeed an experienced runner, she too panted heavily for air. It wasn’t as if she was invincible; although, it was still impressive that she kept up the pace for... around ten times as long as I did?

“How’re you so good at running?”

“...I train every day.”

She carried a tint of gloom on her lips.

Ah. I forgot.

Coco’s fitness came at a cost—the cost of time... or in her case, it would’ve been a reward? She told me her situation on the way to our camping trip. Due to the suffering and isolation from her peers throughout high school, she eventually switched from basketball to running; she gave up her beloved team sport for a solo sport due to bullying.

“Do I need to experience some kind of hardship to push me forwards too?” I mumbled.

“What are you talking about?” Ravi asked.

“Ah... nothing. You’re pretty fit too, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How long did you keep up with Coco for?”

“Hmm... I stopped around ten minutes before you arrived.”

That’s pretty impressive.

“What makes you stay fit?”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “You know I like doing stuff outdoors. I’d be in trouble if I didn’t train my cardio every once in a while.”

“I see...”

“Why?”

“Coco has her reasons for training, and you have yours.”

“Are you finding a reason to stay motivated for the gym?”

“...No, I think I know.” I smiled.

“Oh? Well... congrats?”

I remembered what my reason for training was.

There things that I wanted to do, and people that I wanted to do them with.