Hola, Dartmouth. Greetings from halfway around the world. While you were getting pounded by a ton of snow, I was relaxing and writing this from beautiful Salamanca, Spain.
I'm eating tapas and watching the great game of soccer known by the locals as "f tbol." If a Spaniard saw me type the word "soccer," he would literally take my computer from me and use it as an instrument to bash my skull. But I'm writing this column for Americans and we know that real football players don't lie on the ground crying, as opposed to our Spanish counterparts (see: Gerard Pique after winning the 2010 World Cup final).
I am really excited to write this column because I have the opportunity to supply your weekly recommended dose of "El Mundo de los Deportes."
Every week, I will address a different sporting experience on this wonderful continent. This week's topic: the surprisingly difficult process of working out in a foreign land.
Before you continue reading, please throw out every stereotype you have of a gym. Gyms in Spain are not like your typical 24 Hour Fitness. First, gyms here are small. The average one is about half the size of the 1902 Room. These gyms don't have televisions in front of every treadmill, they don't play ambient pop music and they sure as hell don't have their own smoothie bars. Working out simply isn't a top priority for Spaniards, who are on average skinner than their American counterparts. But that's a different story all together.
While gyms here leave much to be desired, as a player on the Dartmouth football team, not working out is simply not an option for me. So I trekked around the city with my fellow Big Green athlete, sailor John Renehan '13, to find the perfect fit.
This search turned out to be much harder than first expected. We had a map of the city starred with every gym and we planned to visit all of them, and then decide which one we liked the best.
The first gym we walked into was the size of a classroom in Dartmouth Hall. I saw a treadmill, a bike and what looked like an old-school Bowflex machine. Our second visit was no better. It was the largest fitness center in the city (which really doesn't say much) but it didn't have the right equipment. I'm not saying I'm a heavy lifter, but this gym actually didn't have enough weights for my workout. I asked in my broken Spanish what was the most that I could load on the squat rack, and he told me 70 kilograms, or about 150 pounds.
My frustration with the lack of resources turned out to be the common theme of the day every gym we went to simply did not have enough free weights. At one gym I broke down and finally asked the gym manager if he knew of any place with "hombres grades," or big dudes. After he responded with the Spanish version of a "that's what she said" joke, he circled the address of a gym that wasn't on my map. Although an unlisted gym seemed a bit sketchy, Renehan and I didn't have any other options, so off we went.
The moment I saw this final gym I thought there was something wrong. The outside walls were "decorated" in graffiti and the gym didn't even have a visible name. When I stepped inside, however, I was greeted by bumping techno music and a scene that reminded me more of Floren Varsity House and less of a high school sports clinic. I figured that it looked like an alright place and Renehan and I decided to join.
We paid for our two-month membership in cash because this gym doesn't have a computer. There is no receptionist to sign us in either we simply walk in and start working out.
The atmosphere of the gym is very strange. I quickly figured out that nearly every other patron works as a club bouncer. These men are unnaturally large, and every t-shirt they own advertises some type of alcohol.
We also don't think these guys like us very much. No one tries to talk to us and no one takes their eyes off us. It's pretty intimidating to see an entire room of Spanish roid-heads staring you down. We don't really have a choice, so we'll stick with the gym. I hear the bouncers won't attack if I manage to avoid eye contact.
