Fitness Emergency

Quickly Kenneth realized that the final straw had finally broken the camel’s back. Things had been pushed just a bit too far. Although lines had always been drawn in the sand and rules had been measly suggestions, his whole world was now turned on its head. It was hard to imagine that this might be the end of it all. All those years of partying, living it up, and having no concern were as pointed as the pain in his chest.

Many people over the years have asked, “why do you do it?” There are many more occupations that are certainly more glamorous than fixing treadmills. There certainly must be easier ways to earn a living, aren’t there? For a long time I had a well meaning relative who was always suggesting other occupations…fortunately, those days have ended. When I first started in this field, I thought it was a good way to earn a living while looking for my next job, the next rung on the ladder. Some would argue that I was climbing a ladder that was sat against the wrong wall. What I found over time was that solving fitness problems to get people up and running again was just about as good a reason I could find for an occupation, so I simply stopped looking for something else.

What we find is there are two kinds of people who own fitness equipment (a massive oversimplification). One is the kind that obsesses over every maintenance detail and the second group are those who use it until it stops, and that may include a period of working out on it where the treadmill sounds like someone is torturing a small beaver with a branding iron. In the first group, some will hear the slightest change in tone while the machine is operating and call us with the expectation that we will tell them that the machine will detonate at any time taking out an entire city block. From the second group, and more specifically the one that had the machine that sounds like a tortured beaver, the person expects that we will tell him that the treadmill just needs a bit of lube and maybe a new circuit breaker.

Kenneth had the same type of reaction as those in the second group. He had done everything wrong with his health and yet, he expects that his doctor will tell him that he needs to tone down a bit on the gluttony and maybe walk a few days a week. Well, it turns out that Kenneth gave as little heed to the doctors’ advice as he did to common sense and his precarious position turned into full fledged heart disease, diabetes, and eventually…death.

When you have an emergency, whether it is fitness or an appliance, it is important to give it the attention that it deserves.