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Hardly pumped about working out

The Guelph Mercury, 2/4/2009

Where in the world is Victor Conte when you need him?

Probably out on a California playground, selling anabolic steroids to elementary school kids. Just when we need him here in Guelph. More specifically, I need him here.

I’m talking about the one and only Victor Conte, the mad scientist/alleyway pharmacist whose steroid cocktails apparently turned baseball’s Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi into cartoonishly big action figures. It worked for them, and it could work for me.

Let me explain.

I’m not a fitness expert, but a consultation with a personal trainer that begins with “Ewww, you’re going to need a lot of work,” before even you take off your jacket generally means there’s room for improvement.

That was the cold, hard truth slapping me in the face last week, after mistakenly sauntering into a local gym. I had thought it was a short cut to a cheeseburger stand, and all I found was a bunch of sweaty people in tights.

Next thing I know, I’m laid out on an office floor, wired up like a car battery and pulling on a lever that goes nowhere. I’ve always known I’m about as flexible as a telephone pole — with roughly the same build — but it turns out I also have a resting heart rate comparable to a sputtering, 27-year-old Volkswagen Jetta, with similar levels of exhaust. And no, that’s not a good thing.

The fitness consultant enters all this bad news into a fancy software program. And out spits this punch to the stomach: my fitness age is deemed to be 35, a full seven years higher than my real one.

I begged to differ, but how do you demand a second opinion from a machine?

The fitness consultant tries to be upbeat. Turns out there is help for people like me. Would I like to try hot yoga? No thanks, I’ve already eaten. How about spin class? I’d probably get too dizzy.

But the point has been made. Maybe it is time to do something. Of late, I have started to look like someone who spends his days hunched over a keypad, squinting at a screen. I also appear to have been taking human growth hormone, but its effects have been localized exclusively in the gut area around my stomach.

I like the idea of getting fit, the only problem is it seems like so much work. That’s when the idea of skipping the work part struck me. Our most accomplished athletes are altering themselves with banned substances, so why not?

Even the Toronto Blue Jays, who, when they aren’t printing up ‘Wait for 2012′ T-shirts, are on the defensive over claims in a new Joe Torre book. Torre alleges when steroid association spokesperson Roger Clemens was in the Jays’ uniform, the team’s entire starting rotation was taking amphetamines, or speed.

Seems everyone’s been cheatin’. So why can’t I?