Cardio TV Facts

My old company had a great gym. It wasn't very large, but it was on the premises and cost only $10 per paycheck. We had three televisions mounted on the wall, four treadmills, 4 elliptical machines, 4 bikes of varying heights, and several weights. The three televisions were controlled by standing on your tiptoes, reaching for the channel button then pausing, turning to face the gym and mouth to the other members “Are. You. Watching. This?” All the sets had closed captioning on, which was good since every attempt I made to use headphones while running 8 MPH was disastrous.

My new gym costs a bit more, $65 a month with my company discount, but has easily four times the equipment of my old one. Every piece of cardio equipment, from the treadmills to the bikes to the stairmasters to the ski machines and more has a flatscreen television attached. Everyone has his or her own televisions, the facts of which are these:

1) You control the volume(if you have headphones) and can change channels, but I've yet to discover a button to access the menu and turn on closed captioning. So far it seems to be a matter of luck. Maybe I have subtitles on the machine I've chosen, and maybe I need to read lips.

2) You would think lip-reading wouldn't work for animated shows such as Family Guy, so I'm guessing I've simply seen the episodes enough times to have the dialogue memorized, as well as “hear” the characters' voices in my head.

3) I used to love Friends not just for the humor, but for the realistic portrayal of young people living in Manhattan and their various relationships. I thought someday I'd be hanging out in coffee shops with my friends. When you watch the show without sound however, you realize just how excessive their physical comedy was. No human being leaps around as much as they did, gesturing wildly and waving their arms like more than one of them was Italian. Could they be more obviously putting on a sitcom?

4) The last channel is the monitor for the daycare room, which always seems to be empty at night when I go. It's a very bright room with a colorful carpet and toys stacked along the wall. I wonder if it would freak people out if I left it on that channel and worked out watching an empty room. It probably would be weirder if I worked out during the day watching people's kids.

5) Even without sound, I can't leave a feminine hygiene commercial on for more than .5 seconds. It’s like that one aisle in the supermarket we guys walk past more quickly than the others.

6) There's something about Rachael Ray that makes me linger a bit too long when channel surfing to find an episode of Family Guy or Friends. It's either the food or the sweater.

7) Every police drama has bad lighting.

8) Jim Cramer is more animated than all six Friends combined. If the televisions were 3D, I'd have a harder time resisting the urge to duck every time he chucks something at the camera. Gyms must never implement 3D televisions on their equipment.

9) At certain times in the early evening, it is entirely possible to cycle through 22 channels and not find anything to watch.

10) And finally, a personal television makes any workout fly by.