Where I Stand -- Mike O'Callaghan: The health club beat

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

AS THE YEARS pass by decade after decade, we notice that some things in life seldom change and expect yesterday's problems to still be with us tomorrow. Twelve years have passed since I noted the ebb and flow of health club patrons.

There is always a surge of new members wearing the latest fancy clothes and shoes after receiving a membership under the Christmas tree. They come with good intentions but don't last long. Because of my early morning attendance this group of newcomers isn't evident but during the holiday season, when attending later in the day, the new crowd can be easily identified.

As I wrote in 1988, short-time workout enthusiasts are oftentimes identifiable. Many arrive in pairs with their new workout clothes. They come in twos to give each other encouragement. Both have good intentions, but the flesh is weak and the slightly stained suits are soon hung back in the closet. Many times that happens after a couple of weeks of workouts at a level too strenuous for people not in good physical shape.

Then there is the small group of health club members who do get in great physical shape, but eventually burn themselves out by working out six or seven days a week. They drop out, but return with a new burst of energy after a couple of months and repeat the routine.

Of course there are now and always will be that steady number of guys and gals who were there 12 years ago and are still sweating and plugging away almost every day. You don't know their names but they are friends you always greet. Sometimes you also run into them on the street or in a store and don't recognize them because they are wearing street clothes.

As the health club cycle continues after the holidays, the rhythm and beat are sounds and sights familiar to all of us. It's the same today as it was 20 years ago and when I made record of it during the 1980s. So let me repeat it and then you can make your own observations during 2000.

It takes less than three weeks of sweat and discomfort for the first few to drop by the wayside. During the second month, the frequency of attendance of others begins to lessen and by the first of March, very few of the new club members even bother to show up to break a sweat.

Don't give up hope. There will be a new group and some of the Christmas dropouts will return next month, after the weather heats up and people want to look good in their bathing suits. That group will be working out until about mid-May, when they have either achieved the desired results or, after looking in the mirror, given up hope.

Things will be rather quiet during June and July, when it's boiling hot on the streets of Las Vegas. About the last of July, a hustling bunch of young high school and college athletes will flood local health clubs, getting ready for football season. Those guys will pump enough weights to make everybody wonder what their mothers feed them at home. Probably raw meat and gunpowder! They arrive in much better shape than the new members coming in during the winter and spring. The late July and early August youngsters only stay around a few weeks and then are on their way to the practice fields and the first game of the season.

September is the time many of the members return to a regular routine after slacking off during the summer. Teachers pick up where they left off in May and many mothers, sending the kids off to a school after a long, long summer, find time to return to workout sessions. But very little will change in faces at the club between September and the winter holidays, when the cycle starts over again.

Will you be one of those who hang up your new sweat clothes in a couple more weeks or will you last until March? I know, you are tired following a day at work, and after getting into that chair in front of television it's tough to even think about working up a sweat. Not only will you be giving up comfort, that place is loaded with people in the early evening.

Yeah, and working out before going to work in the morning isn't much more appealing. The chilly breezes in the January and February mornings really call for another blanket and a few more winks. At least the place isn't crowded and the people going in the early a.m. are serious about their exercise routine.

If you make it through February and March without finding excuses to skip a few extra days every week, you'll probably make it 'til May. But now we are getting ahead of ourselves and haven't even finished our routine for January.

Hang in there and put this column on your wall and see if you can make it all the way through next December.

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