The Ymca Essay, Research Paper

The YMCA Mahmoud M. HegabEnglish 111Essay # 29-23-1998When I woke up seven o clock in the morning, I stayed home, and watched television. I ate breakfast and watched cartoons by the time the clock struck eight o clock. By then I had reached my boredom limit, so I started to think of places to go. I took another look at the watch, and realized it was too early to go anywhere.I started to think of stores or places open that early. I thought to myself that places, which serve breakfast open earlier than the rest of the stores. Since I had just finished eating breakfast, I knew that was not the right place to go to. So I started to think of other places like the mall or the bowling alley, but none of them were the right places to go to at eight o clock in the morning. Finally I thought of the perfect place to go the YMCA. I started to have second thoughts of going to workout, because I was still sore from the last workout. In the end I decided to go anyway but not to workout. I planned to go to look at it from a different point of view. I looked at the YMCA from a view of a watcher instead of an athletic view. I put on my blue training pants, my white shirt, and my white running shoes just in case I decided to workout. I rode my car, and drove to the YMCA. As I was driving I realized how quiet and empty the streets were. I looked up at the skies and realized it was clear with a dark blue color to it. I also heard the sweet and relaxing singing of the birds.Finally I reached the YMCA, though it was early on a weekend day most of the parking spaces were taken. I parked the car in the first place I found. As I walked to the building, I saw two glass doors beside each other. The one on the left side was labeled enter, while the other one was labeled exit. I entered the building through the entrance door. When I entered I looked to my left and found a wide hallway, which got narrower near the middle. At the beginning of this hallway there was the main office, and two desks. The two desks were for the making of memberships. I walked past this hallway to the front desk. Once I reached the front desk they asked me to scan my membership card, before I could go any further. Once I scanned the card, I started to walk past the front desk. There was a reception past the front desk, and there you could smell the sweet smell of coffee. There was a hallway behind the reception that had coffee makers, and in front of the reception there was a television hung on the wall. As I continued to walk past the reception, there was a basketball court to my right. While I walked past the court I heard the balls bouncing, and saw people practicing their jump shots. Finally the hallway came to an end, and there was no place to go except to the left. The gym was located to the left of the hallway. The gym was full of people. The gym was full, because it was early in the morning of a weekend day. People go to the gym in the early morning of a weekend day to get in shape, or to stay in shape, and to spend the rest of the day with their families. I stood facing this huge room, which was filled with people working out with weights or with machines. Energizing music came out of this room. The treadmills were located next to the left wall of this room. Some of them were in use others were not. The ones that were in use had people on, who were tired and struggling to run an extra mile, while others had people who just started. A water fountain divided the treadmills into two sections. A line of people stood in front of water Fountain waiting to obey their thirst for water.

Past the second set of treadmills there was a weightlifting machine. People performed a number of different exercises on this machine. In between of this machine and the wall on the other side, there were weightlifting benches. Past the lifting benches there was a rack of dumbbells. Different weights and sizes of dumbbells were placed on this rack. Near the wall on the right of the room there was another rack of dumbbells. The rack had the biggest and heaviest dumbbells. In between the two racks there were benches that you could lift the dumbbells on. I started to walk to the beginning of the room again but this time on the other side of the room. The walls on both sides of the room were part glass, and part mirror. Next to the wall on this side of the room, there were the Step Masters and other machines used to exercise. This side of the room was extended a little bit further than the other side of the room. In this extension there was a stand to work out your abdominal muscles on and do dips on. In front of this stand there was a smaller stand which worked your lower back muscles. On the ground there were the abb. rollers, and mattresses to work out on. In the middle of the room there were the bicycles, cardiovascular machines, and fat burning machines. Each kind of machine was placed next to its kind in a group. Next to these machines there was a set of weightlifting machines. Each machine either targeted a specific muscle, or a group of muscles. You could control how much weight you want to lift on each machine. On each cardiovascular or fat burning machine you could control the resistance and time you wanted to stay on. On the treadmills you could control the speed, incline and time you wanted to stay on. On each of the treadmill, cardiovascular and fat burning machine you could select a program that will automatically set the machine. In almost every empty spot next to the wall there was a fan. The fan was used to help circulate the air, and to cool you down while you were working out. The lighting in the gym was not too dull or too bright.Now that I looked at the YMCA with a different point of view, I learned not only how hard you workout, and where you workout makes difference, but also how the machines are organized, perfect lighting along with good atmosphere makes a good exercising environment. Music also plays a major role, because when you listen to the energizing music, it makes you want to work harder, and exert more effort to do an extra set, while sad music makes you sad, and do not want to work harder but less. Next time when you come to exercise in a place, and you do not feel comfortable, try to reorganize this place, change the lighting to suit you, or even put some music on to put you in the mood of exercising. Different people like different environment, but usually if you have a lot of empty space, the machines that target the same muscles are together, the lighting is not too dull or too bright, and the music is energizing than you have a good exercising environment.