It may seem hard to believe to many but this evening was the first time I set foot in a gym. In 26 years you’d think that I would’ve found some excuse to set foot into the musky, grunty theatre they call the gym.

Up until recently the idea of paying to sweat away indoors has grated against me. Surely, I’ve argued, you could easily get a similar work out from surfing, spearfishing or cycling and of course enjoy the activity immeasurably more. It hasn’t fitted into my world view of an idealistic healthy life - that being a life lived where you are able to seamlessly integrate all activities in life to contribute to a state of physical and mental health. I have to say that my experience at university came close in this instance.

It seems however that I have fallen for the reductionist version of physical health that the gym offers. Inevitably as one gets older you become more realistic in your ideals and you start to see the practicality in things like the gym. I work a 9 to 5 like most people and as such my weekends are precocious. Being at the right amount of physical strength and fitness is important to ensure that your strength and stamina will hold out when you travel up the coast for those two golden days where the surf is pumping, or when you decide to go on a hike through the national park to try and discover the antidote to the LCD screen, or when you save up all your leave to go on a snow board trip to Japan.

Essentially the gym increases the efficiency of your work out. You’d be hard pressed to find another activity that would give you the same effect with the same, dare I say it, convenience. So in essence it’s a compromise. Spend some time in a gym in the evenings when it’s dark anyways so you don’t get soft and stodgy for the weekend.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit to wanting a bit of shape and definition too. Who doesn’t like someone asking ‘You look good, you been working out?’ Take this vanity to the extreme and you’ll see why I’ve posted this photo. With no implied sarcasm I love this image. There is something about the combination of that Man, that pose, that scenery and those sunglasses that just screams…. well so many things.

Arnold Schwarzenegger by Annie Liebovitz, June 1997