Body shop

A human body is a pretty ridiculous thing, when you get right down to it.

 

It’s the design that gets me. The mouth and stomach are really far away from each other, which seems inefficient; it’s like having a computer monitor set up in Virginia while you’re typing away at a keyboard in Russia, hoping that your keystrokes are translating – and that you don’t get stampeded by a shirtless Putin riding bareback on a unicorn. The eyes are all backwards, with the optic nerves in the back and the behind-the-scenes infrastructure loaded onto the front. And it’s no mean trick to injure us, with all our soft, vulnerable spots easily violated by predators and rabid Japanese samurais. That last bit can be avoided by steering clear of the 17th Century, but it still leaves us trapped in these poorly-engineered fleshbags, an impressionist mess straight out of the playbooks of mead-swilling Italian painters.

 

When we exercise, the absurdity of the body comes straight to the fore. Watching someone work out is akin to eyeing a Slinky’s madcap descent down a flight of stairs. You get how it works, but that makes it no less weird.

 

All this occurs to me as my body is slowly revolting – and not in the usual aesthetic sense, which not even steroids or funhouse mirrors can resolve. No, this revolution is being fought by my back, which is kind of being an arse at the moment. Doctors, chiropractors, and physical therapists have no idea what’s going on, which isn’t exactly comforting when it feels as though you’ve been mangled in a roller coaster accident. It’s like my body senses my disdain for it and is staging an elaborate prank; I picture it laughing maniacally while I sleep, a mischievous jokester in the vein of silent movie villains, the kind with ferret-sized handlebar mustaches and evil-looking monocles. Not that all monocles don’t look evil. Does anybody still wear monocles?

 

Anyway.

 

They’ve got me in this physical therapy program with the goal of strengthening the muscles that support my spine. Early results have been encouraging, but this is where being uncontrollably self-conscious can be a burden. In order to fortify these muscles, I have to contort myself into positions that, while comfortable, have got to be the silliest-looking bodily configurations this side of Cirque de Soleil. When I’m back to a hundred percent, I imagine I’ll be able to pretzel-fold myself inside a clothes dryer, should I ever need to be smuggled out of the country in a household appliance. Could come in handy. You never know.

 

Some of the workouts they have me doing involve an exercise ball, to which I’m no stranger. I used to sit on one at work, until it became evident that I’d never be able to recline against anything other than musty walls or lost mountain sherpas. You’ve probably seen an exercise ball. It’s a big, inflatable balloon-like structure that looks like the kind of bubble they use to quarantine malaria patients. To target my upper back and neck, I’ve been instructed to stomach-straddle this plastic oddity with a dumbbell in each hand; so positioned, I lift the weights straight out to my sides, my arms at 90-degree angles to my body, my weeping ab muscles keeping me balanced atop the wobbling orb. From my vantage point, all I see is the floor and a partial curve of ball. Viewed from a distance, I likely resemble an amorous buzzard, frantically flapping its wings while getting a little too familiar with a giant snow globe. It’s not an image I’d use on an online dating profile.

 

Not that I mind, naturally. It’s all in the name of recovery, and I knew upon entering the program that I was going to have to check my vanity at the door. What I find fascinating is that a huge number of people with no ailments whatsoever, owners of perfectly tip-top musculoskeletal systems, willingly and voluntarily make themselves look like ninnies in the name of physical fitness. I saw Richard Simmons’ “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” once and thought a troupe of Broadway dancers had been hypnotized by the Three Stooges.

 

A few years back, I had a membership to a local gym. I mostly stuck to the treadmills and stationary bikes, and they were great vantage points for people-watching. (I don’t mean that in a creepy way. Much.) There was this one guy, always there at the same time I was, who was obsessed with his jump rope. I mean, obsessed. He’d find an open space, and while sweating lifters and runners were toiling all around him, he’d spend half an hour trying to get a good rhythm going; I’ve got to admire his persistence, because in the months I was there I don’t think I ever saw him go more than two consecutive jumps before tripping on the rope and starting over again. He probably burned more calories bending over to re-tie his shoes than he ever did during his brief fits of cardio. On some level, he must have known what an odd spectale he was. But in the name of fitness, he was willing to go through with the public indignity – never mind that he displayed all the motor skills of an intoxicated pelican. 

 

It’s the modern lifestyle that necessitates such strange behavior. Physically fit humans have existed for centuries; Michaelangelo’s “David” has a pretty rippin’ six-pack, even though it was apparently a little chilly the day he was sculpted. But before such a thing as an “office job” was a concept, people came by their bodies naturally. They lifted heavy baskets onto the backs of donkeys and ran five miles to deliver news to nearby villages. They chopped trees to build their homes and trained with armies to invade exotic empires. We don’t do that stuff anymore. We sit in one spot for hours at a time and get carpal tunnel syndrome deleting LinkedIn requests. 

 

It’s a design flaw in the human physique that we crumble under the strain of inaction; we get around this flaw by squeezing activity into hour-long windows on our elliptical machines, or flailing around on exercise balls. It may work, but it’s not normal – not in the grand scope.

Still, it’s what we have. In some cases, it’s how we heal. I can only hope it does the trick. 

 

Ultimately, I’d still like my mouth and stomach to be closer together. But hey, one thing at a time.