Historical March 1989 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
“Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.” Do you hear a faint sound in the background as you read this article? No, that’s not the sound of me blowing smoke rings with my semi-Havana cigar, what you’re hearing is the sound I’m making while on my NordicTrack! Fitness, rosy cheeks, a svelte body, and a longer life-span are just around the corner. Yep, I’ve finally bitten the bullet: I’ve purchased an exercise machine.
Even as I write, in our second-floor den, next to the fireplace and in front of the television, sits my new NordicTrack machine.
The NordicTrack is the machine that you’ve probably seen advertised on cable. It’s a stationary machine that allows one to simulate the cross-country skiing motion. I stand on a platform and put my feet into two ski-like mechanisms while my arms pull on a pulley with bicycle handles at each end of the rope.
My legs go back and forth—there’s some kind of a wheel or something that provides resistance—while my arms pull ropes at the same time. Simultaneously, then, I’m exercising my upper and lower body; I’m doing it at the same time too!
The literature says its the finest cardiovascular activity available. (That’s only because they’ve probably never seen me jogging in the park with a cigar in my mouth, earphones tuned to KWMU on my head, and my trusty poodle, Moxie, on a leash; now that’s a rare cardiovascular activity!) What the literature neglected to tell me is that using the NordicTrack isn’t all that simple. Sure, it sounds easy: “move your left foot forward while you pull your right arm towards the rear; then move your right foot forward while you pull your left arm towards the rear; continue this pattern.” Somehow my left arm wants to go with my left leg and my right arm wants to go with my right leg! Believe me, this is a tough pattern to accomplish! Remember those little magnetized scotty dogs you used to have?
One was white and one was black and they had magnets with reversed polarities so they’d always repel and chase one another? Well that’s how my arms and legs are—or aren’t—working. Plus, keeping one’s balance on the contraption isn’t all that easy either!
It took me several tries, “sessions” in the NordicTrack terminology, but now I have the motion down almost semi-pat.
The race between whether I’ll start sweating or fall off the machine first is being won by my sweating! I can now do the crosscountry exercise for several minutes. long enough to break a Level III sweat, before my lack of coordination gets in the way and I stumble and have to start over.
The exercise is all that they promise (or, threaten depending on your viewpoint).
After ten or twelve minutes I’m sweating like a horse, gasping like a drowning buffalo, and feeling so much pain that I know this must be good for me. Keeping my stogie going while tracking isn’t all that easy; sometimes the blue-grey smoke gets its revenge by blowing back on me!
There are some pleasures, however, that are beyond negotiation. I’m very athletically inclined. That’s if you define “athletically inclined” as being someone who is interested in athletics, likes to participate in athletics, tries all kinds of athletics and isn’t terribly successful in any of them, and is having trouble realizing that he is, to put it nicely, “over the hill.” The current issue of Sports Illustrated talks about how KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR IS THE OLDEST PLAYER IN THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION!!! HE’S NOW THE OLDEST PLAYER EVER TO PLAY IN THE N.B.A.! I’m older than Kareem and he’s a semi-old man! Realizing this was both a shock and a disappointment to me.
It ranked right up there with the day that I realized that I’d never really get to date Bo Derrek.
In an earlier life, I used to be a football player of sorts. “Number 53 on your scorecard, number 1 in your heart” they used to say! Actually, only my mom said it, but she’d always yell it from the middle of the crowd so people couldn’t ever identify her. Being your basic endomorph, football, rather than running-a marathon, seemed suited for my body.
For thirteen years each autumn meant a line of scrimmage somewhere, at some level.
My personal fantasy-land ended one Sunday when I tackled a quarterback for a safety and had someone land on top of me while I was basking in my moment of glory.
To this day I still can’t fully turn my head to the right.
Some would swear, I’m sure, that there was some internal damage done to my head as well.
Since my football days have ended I’ve tried lots of different athletic pursuits: softball; volleyball; jogging; racquetball; basketball; real cross-country skiing; downhill skiing (for three pain-packed days); and going shopping with my current wife while she looks at shoes.
Each activity has its special attractions and advantages, namely burning calories and providing an excuse for me to wear one of my famous colored t-shirts, but each carries its distinct disadvantages too.
The major disadvantage for most of these activities is finding the time and place to do them. Squeezing an hour in at the beginning or end of the day is no easy feat.
Even during the more relaxed pace of the summer, “free time” is never really free, or even cheap.
Besides, as I write this it’s less than 10 degrees outside; in six months it’ll be 90 ° degrees with a heat index of 237 or something.
On those rare sixteen or eighteen days each year when it is reasonable outside, I inevitably wind up with something to do that’s not “athletically inclined.” That’s why an exercise machine is the solution! It’s here, in my house so it’s always available.
Because it’s inside, the weather is never too hot or too cold, and I can still wear my t-shirts (my new favorite is powder blue, “Dan Quayle for the Board of Aldermen!” model).
The NordicTrack burns up an incredible amount of calories, 600 per half hour! (It remains to be seen whether I can keep my balance and/or my heart pumping for a half-hour of this torture machine, but that’s another question.) Finally, this is no cheap machine and that’s good; it costs enough money that I’ll be compelled to use it on a regular basis. Those are all the advantages. Those are also the disadvantages.
Now that it’s here, I can use it whenever I want, regardless of the weather.
My excuses are gone and I have no one to blame but myself if I’m not turned into a Tom Selleck look-alike in a few weeks. I’m already a bit nostalgic. I remember the good old days when I couldn’t play racquetball because I couldn’t find the time.
It used to be that I couldn’t jog because it was too cold or too hot or too dark. How nice it was when I couldn’t work out, but it was never my fault.
I’ve talked to my mom yesterday about this problem, and she’s willing to write me an “excused” note, but I don’t know who to give it to. Say, anyone interested in purchasing a barely-used NordicTrack machine? It’s only been used a few times by a little old lady who only went downhill…
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, March 1989.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1989_03.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
