Gone are the days when physical fitness defined a man

                                       Physically fit man                    Photo: Courtesy

There are many ways to keep in shape, attain fitness, cut weight but nothing evokes the same reverence as the gym. Gyms have always represented a middle class aspiration of arrival.

There was a sense of arrival when you could afford to join a modern gym. There was a time going to the gym was just an excuse to break a sweat to justify use of the sauna. However, in these fast food and high stress times it has become a necessity. Good medical cover doesn’t come cheap.

Maintaining fitness outside a gym facility seems to be only possible for those whom exercise is an occupational requirement. I had no intention of joining the gym, but was forced to by circumstances. I was socialised to think of the gym as a place to add muscle mass or lose weight.

You went to the gym in search of aesthetic appearance of the body. Those who sought true inner fitness, played outdoors.  I grew up in a neighbourhood that was dominated by fitness freaks who swore by running.

The ‘road work philosophy’ meant hitting the road early in the morning and running hard. In the 1980s in Nairobi, people gallivanting across neighbourhoods doing road work was fairly common sight. Jogging was a normal neighbourhood activity and in some, a rite of passage. If you ever hoped to make your mark in a sport, gain a measure of respect, you had to get fit. And to get fit you jogged.

There was a near obsession with keeping fit. It was probably heavily influenced by the post-Bruce Lee era of martial arts movies, where the hero character had to pass a fitness test before the final duel.

I tried to relive those days towards the end of last year. I located a mate who jogs regularly and joined him for an ‘easy’ evening run.  It was all nice and dandy, until the pain set in after barely two kilometres. I was certain I was going to collapse if I did not stop running.

DRAMATIC

My mate thought I was being a bit dramatic, but it was clearly a bad idea trying to keep up with the pace of a guy who had run two half marathons last year. The next day my body felt like it had been panel beaten by City Council askaris. I tried maintaining the discipline of a morning run but regressed to procrastination. I needed help.

When I got back to the gym after a long absence, I was dismayed by the number of guys who take fitness seriously. The average guy wouldn’t venture into the gym without a doctor’s recommendation letter. Gyms are filled with older guys trying to get into shape mostly for health reasons. Young guys are conspicuously absent, and the fitness classes are dominated by women.

 The only people I see jogging by the roadside in the evenings are typical older, mostly female, and largely foreigners. For a country that is known for its male long distance runners, the typical Kenyan male fitness enthusiast is an armchair analyst of the Barclays Premier League. It is a sorry state of affairs.

The standards of manhood have regressed and we seem firmly back to the idea that a man of means will be known by the size of his stomach.