Spinning in Butter.

After sitting shackled to this ergonomic chair and keyboard like some 19th century prisoner for much of the day; hunched, immobile, listless (you get the picture) I like to end my day running on a treadmill in some wierd outburst of frenetic energy (think 70's gerbil wheel and you've got the picture).

I belong to Crunch Gyms (hey -- no "judgments" is their logo) and I dutifully go everyday to watch the free cable and atone for the sins of my flesh. In addition to the medevil excerise machines ("stairmaster" sounds like pre-enlightnment torture device to me) and the weights there are also a range of "fun" and "fresh" classes designed to make you forget that you are actually excersising. Usually, these classes involve an obscene amout of jumping around to a smattering of selections from every kind of "popular" music played so loud your brain starts to feel like a bad euro-trash disco. But I , like most of the other people in the class (READ: 20 to 45 year old WOMEN) am happy to actually feel that my arms and legs do work after a day of sitting motionless.

The other day I decided to take the epic plunge and try the spinning class which is like a Jane Fonda aerobics routine all done, get this, atop a bike. Imagine an excersie class designed by methamphatimine addicts and you kind of have the idea. You enter a darkened room, which is designed to look like an abandoned disco with bikes where the dance floor should be. After adjusting my bike to fit my respective height - mine, it should be noted, is set so low Frodo could have used it ride to Mordor - I begin to comfortably pedal and get ready for the class to start. The bike is oddly fast and I worry that when I begin to sweat I am going to come hurtling off it. I begin to have visions of telling my friends I got in a STATIONARY bike accident.

Brushing off this worst-case scenario, I nervously look around and get ready, feigning confidence, as well toned women with sculpted biceps and steely glints in their fat burning eyes take their place around me. Suddenly an instructor wearing a hands-free, head-set mike, is shouting to "SPRINT" which is, apparently, my cue to pedal like a 13 year old chasing traffic. The superwomen around me morph into Lange Armstrong crack addicts; their kneecaps look like dangerous killers. I am glad I don't have prosthetics because I feel at any moment one of my legs is going to detach itself from my hip and go flying into the middle of the ...dance floor? No one else seem to share my concern and they pedal, spinning away their calories with a commitment I am not sure if I admire or find terrifying.

This goes on for 45 minutes. By the end we have gone "uphill" and "downhill"; we have done push-ups on the bike, and a bit of yoga and I am sure, at some point in this class, I forfeited my ability to have children but, what the hell, right? My knees might not work when I hit 35 but my body is that much closer to being fat-free.