Gym Dream
By Anoop Rathod | May 25, 2006
Will the new gym inspire Dartmouth to exercise more?
Move over, Novack. There’s a new hangout spot in town: the newly-anointed, freshly-ribbon-cut Kresge Fitness Center.If you walk into the gym on a sunny afternoon, you’re bound to find it packed with Dartmouth students, in their trendy workout sweats or grungy t-shirts and shorts (emblazoned with fraternity letters, so that the other top specimens will know where to find them on those lonely Wednesday nights), breaking a sweat on the new hi-tech cardio equipment. Even with the new gym’s 42 additional cardio machines, securing an open one takes a bit of cunning (erasing a rival’s name from the timetable sheet) and temerity (not getting off a machine even when you’re clearly screwing someone over).
One can arguably say that Dartmouth has always had a very health-conscious student body. Everyone is into light vanilla Colombo yogurt, Diet Coke (with ice), blue PowerAde, the EBAs no-carb burger – which consists of two beef patties, bacon strips, and lettuce – and vanilla Fro-Yo. And if you listen carefully to some Food Court conversations, you’ll discover the rare, but always existent, calorie-conscious drinker: “I can only eat these Food Court fries for dinner because I’m trying to save up 900 calories for tonight when I get totally shit-faced at Tri-Kap softball tails. Not that I’m obsessed with drinking or anything.”
And neither am I.
But with the opening of the new Kresge Fitness Center, has Dartmouth entered a new era of health consciousness? Or, as with other national health fads – the Atkins diet, 100% fat-free, and “margarine-not-butter” – will Dartmouth’s heightened health consciousness fall the way of the Dartmouth Greens’ battle for increased composting?
For starters, the new fitness center may encourage strangers to take a jaunt on a treadmill while watching “Seinfeld” or even to try out that new-fangled machine that works out some muscle the biology department hasn’t heard of. Will Bashelor ’07, a Chi Gam and Dartmouth baseball stud, has become a personal trainer for his good friend William Rollins ’07, a newbie to the Kresge Fitness Center, and fitness in general. Bashelor stated: “My roommate Will Rollins is really enthusiastic about the new gym. I mean the new gym doesn’t really affect varsity athletes, but for out-of-shape people, like my roommate, it gives them hope. In fact, he was mistaken for [Dartmouth Rugby player] Paul Huelskamp the other day, and needless to say, he was excited.”
Will Rollins has taken to his exercise routine, which he calls the “Paul Huelskamp workout,” with vigor. Rollins was enthused about the possible benefits of a newly minted physique. “Let me tell you, this workout is doing wonders for my relationships with Dartmouth women. I feel like the luckiest man alive. Being from Southern California, you don’t see nearly as many hot chicks as you do back here in New Hamp. But with my new workout plan, I’m able to take full advantage of everything the Granite State has to offer.” Rollins added that his blitz Reply-To is “chunk,” if any ladies should inquire.
Some naysayers, however, have countered that this “newbie effect” may prove toothless. “The ‘build it and they will come’ phenomenon will not hold,” argued [TDI Managing Editor] Pooneet Kant ’07, expert couch potato and my one-day-in-sophomore-fall jogging partner. “Some people, myself included, are just plain lazy. I never once went to the old gym, so in that sense I suppose the ‘new’ gym isn’t really new at all to me. And I plan to keep it that way.” Kant then attempted to dial EBAs, but was thwarted by the phone being all the way on the other side of the room.
But, for coach potatoes who love their Family Guy, the mini-TV screens on every cardio machine may afford the perfect balance between pain and pleasure. Dunia Rkein ’08 believes the flat-screen TVs are great incentives for the dorking class to join the gorgeoisie. “The new equipment and flat screen TVs are the best gym incentives (next to beautiful trainers, of course) that a gym can offer.” But Lindsay Weinstein ’08, Chi Gam tough guy and fellow French LSA+ mate of Dunia’s, suggested the opposite. “Of course the new gym will not lead to more exercise at Dartmouth. Have you seen the place? People go to work out but get distracted by all the TVs that are there. How am I supposed to lose weight when Different Strokes is on?” Weinstein also added: “Either way I don’t really care, because fat is beautiful. I love me some cushion for the pushin’.”
But aside from shiny TV screens and hot(t) trainers, perhaps all this healthy activity is merely a product of the New Hampshire spring weather. Katherine Amato ’07, enthusiastic runner and general outdoorsy type, agreed: “I think the bright, sunshine-y atmosphere is definitely enticing the ‘outside kids’ to become ‘inside kids’, and making the lazy oafs think twice before rolling over and going back to sleep.” Ms. Rkein also offered a similar insight. “Springtime weather (and subsequent skin exposure) tends to encourage exercise, as people are actively trying to shed excess winter pounds. Likewise, rising temperatures lure pasty undergrads out of their annual winter hibernation.” Perhaps, then, Dartmouth’s current obsession with the elliptical machine is nothing more than a freshman spring fling.
But for me, all this talk of exercise smacks of a well-intentioned New Year’s Resolution gone wrong. Maybe it’s my growing inner conservative speaking, but I think I’m getting a bit tired of all this talk of personal growth and change. It’s not that I hate all change, per se. I’m all for social progress, free-market “creative destruction,” and the dismantling of corrupt institutions (i.e. the TDI editorial board). And trust me, I’ve definitely read and liked Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I suppose, when push comes to shove, I really only hate one kind of change—the kind that requires me to do something.
Dartmouth students of similar sentiments should be more realistic about setting fitness goals. Will Rollins, a man of true Confucian genius, offered the following advice: “The bottom line is that if you’re fat, you’re fat. But the new gym means you can be fat in a good-looking environment.”
Easy enough.