Last week I was proudly demonstrating and explaining a brand new Pilates exercise that I had come up with. Amanda, a Pilates client who is very bubbly and charismatic, blurted out “Joe, you are a Fitness Nerd.”
During my mid-teenage years I had always considered myself to be one of the “cool jocks.” Prior to that is a story for another day (here is the blog that I wrote a while ago about that). I ran, I lifted weights, I played rugby and soccer, I ate clean and I was popular amongst my peers. Back then, if you had asked me to describe who and what a nerd is, I would have used Hedley as the perfect nerd avatar. Hedley was a nice enough guy. He was average height, plump physique, had bushy red/brown hair, freckles, knock-kneed and wore reading glasses. Hedley was the first to captain the technology room at our school… I remember watching him single handedly installing this new software platform thingy called “Windows” onto the computers. Hedley used to drink Coca Cola and eat a chocolate bar during lunch break. I once told him that perhaps he should cut out the chocolate and rather drink diet soft drinks so as to not gain any more unwanted kilograms. His response was that diet soft drinks are fattening because you only see fat people drinking them… Fair enough. Hedley was definitely a nerd!
So how could I now be part of that exclusive nerd club? I’ve never heard the words “fitness” and “nerd” coupled together and roll off the tongue as easily as Amanda made it sound. At first I was little insulted. I laughed a fake laugh, mostly because the others in the room were amused by her bold, outrageous statement. Instead of retaliating with a witty comeback, I channelled my emotions and harnessed all of my Pilates knowledge and skills to deliver an amazing workout. From reverse knee stretch series, to kneeling one leg pull and a continuously flowing preparation series, I made sure there was no body part left untrained. With perfect posture, I stood tall and proud as the conductor of this beautifully orchestrated performance and watched in self admiration at my masterpiece. It was like the Pilates version of a gold medal performance of synchronized swimming. I watched with heartfelt satisfaction at Amanda and the others as they walked away from the session appearing to be floating with every step. And it was then that I realised that just like Hedley, I am a nerd… a Fitness Nerd.