Heavy Metal.(American obsession for working out)(Brief Article)

Before coming to America, I had never set foot in a gym. This is not to suggest that gyms don't exist elsewhere in the world. They do, but people elsewhere are far more tolerant of indolence. Living in Asia and Europe, I used to cheerfully declare that my only form of exercise was jumping to conclusions. You can't get away with that in New York.

Americans, pound for pound, are reputed to be the most obese people in the world. What to make, then, of their relentless pursuit of youth, longevity and fitness? Everyone I know belongs to a gym, or at least owns the latest running shoes. The better-heeled have a personal trainer, of whom they speak in tones once reserved for famous hairdressers. You can't take a Sunday stroll in New York without crossing dozens of people pounding the pavement in leg warmers and headbands, headphones strapped to their ears and a grimly determined look in their eyes. Every second bus stop sports an ad for gyms, each outdoing the other in the range and luxuriousness of their facilities-- and the attractiveness of their membership discounts, if not always their clientele. If someone drops dead on a Manhattan street, he probably had a heart attack while jogging to the health-food store.

To foreigners, especially one accustomed to thinking of physical exertion as something you pay others to do, this is intimidating. All these lithely fit folk, slinging gym bags over their muscular shoulders as they stride purposefully toward their next fitness destination. Ignore this national mania and stay defiantly out of the gym? Lazier men than I have succumbed.

When I finally gave in, I joined a gym that advertised itself as a cardiac fitness center. Here businessmen and managers of a certain age disported themselves in genteel surroundings. There was more silver on their heads than in the average Nevada mine; locker-room conversation usually focused on the latest gyrations--of the stock market. Most of the membership was even flabbier than I, so I was able to ease myself into the gym habit without feeling entirely out of place.

But then the pressures of time and proximity prompted me to switch to a larger gym, closer to home. This is part of a gigantic nationwide chain with a dozen branches in Manhattan alone. Walk into one and you get the impression of a large machine huffing and puffing to spew out fit Americans. Large barnlike spaces, often in basements, are crammed with exercise machines of every type--treadmills, steppers, ...