The king reflects on fitness culture from a position of considerable personal experience
On A Room Filled With Instruments Of Voluntary Suffering
Good people, I was this week taken to observe a modern establishment called the gymnasium, wherein subjects pay a monthly fee for the privilege of lifting heavy objects repeatedly and running great distances while going nowhere whatsoever. I confess this struck me as rather backwards, for in mine own youth I achieved considerable athletic renown through jousting, hunting, and tennis, activities which at least had the decency to move a person from one place to another, or in the case of the joust, occasionally off a horse entirely.
It was, in fact, a jousting accident in the year fifteen thirty six that left me unable to pursue such exercise thereafter, a misfortune from which mine own waistline never fully recovered. Had a personal trainer been available to me in mine later years rather than merely a growing collection of tailors, I daresay several portraits of me should look rather different today.
On The Matter Of The Protein Shake
I am told modern subjects consume a beverage called the protein shake following exercise, intended to repair the muscles and encourage further growth. In mine own day, the closest equivalent was an entire roasted swan and a gallon of ale, a recovery regimen which I confess, in hindsight, addressed rather fewer of my actual nutritional needs.
On The New Year Resolution, A Custom I Recognize
This modern habit of joining a gymnasium each January only to abandon it entirely by February, I am reliably informed, is nearly universal. I confess I recognize this pattern intimately, having myself resolved on no fewer than six occasions to be a more attentive husband, a resolution that likewise tended to abandon itself rather swiftly.
The King’s Verdict On Modern Fitness Culture
I do hereby declare the modern gymnasium a wise institution, though I note with some bitterness that it arrived roughly four hundred and ninety years too late to spare me either the jousting accident or its considerable aftermath. Had a treadmill been available in Hampton Court, I daresay history should remember me as rather more svelte and considerably less inclined to blame Anne of Cleves for my own declining humor.
I am further told the modern gymnasium offers a class called spin, wherein subjects sit upon stationary bicycles and pedal with great enthusiasm toward absolutely no destination whatsoever, accompanied by loud music and a shouting instructor. I confess this sounds not unlike several of mine own military campaigns, in that considerable effort was expended, much sweat was produced, and in the end no meaningful ground was actually gained.
Full and glorious source of this tale, as ever, upon The London Prat: https://prat.uk/gym-membership-new-year-resolution-habits/