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Fitness No:
1
Balanzs Power, 151 Mariniersweg
Every week he books the Power Yoga class on Friday. It is taught by a South African Viking called André-Louis. He is a giant and extremely agile. The class is described as ‘invigorating’ and ‘intensive,’ and is intended to improve body strength, core stability, flexibility and mental resilience. It’s always well attended, mostly by women – all of them young and incredibly fit – and it’s not a beginners’ class: the pace is high, sweat gushes down bodies. The temperature in the studio is 29oC. The women wear shorts or leggings, and usually a tight top. Sometimes, he sees a woman in a bikini or sports bra. He himself wears the same clothes he wears when going running on a summer’s day: shorts and a singlet.
The Viking, who has a deep voice but a light step, asks the class to close their eyes and make a resolution, for example: ‘I resolve to be less judgemental today.’ Or: ‘I intend to greet everyone with genuine feelings of love today.’ He keeps his eyes open and doesn’t think about his own resolution.
He looks at the women around him, at their bodies and their muscles, at the down on their skin. The Downward-Facing Dog gives him a view of their buttocks and, in some poses, he can even see the contours of their labia. He is married with three children. His wife loves gardening. After taking the Viking’s class, he is ready for another week.
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Fitness No:
2
Rocycle Studio,39 Mariniersweg
Once a week, she walks from her house on Hoogstraat to the white studio with the sixty exercise bikes arranged in rows. She wears leggings and trainers. Her gait is light. Some people don’t walk, they bounce along. She is looking forward to her class. She always does. When a friend asked her why she was into indoor cycling, she didn’t answer. She just smiled. Nobody knew her secret, the secret that she discovered during her first class, after less than ten minutes of pedalling. A secret that she was ashamed of for a while but cherishes now. She knows how to sit on the saddle, how to press her pelvis against it to come as often as possible during the lesson.
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Fitness No:
3
Boot camp, Dakpark
She is an architect, platinum blonde (dyed) and not yet thirty. On her Instagram account she posts pictures of buildings, but sometimes she embellishes her stories with a few images of herself. Pictures of her strong body. When she shines in her swimming costume, the reactions to her post get quite heated. Some comments are cheeky, though, or utterly shameless. ‘Nice tits,’ wrote an elderly architect whose work she admires. She never responds.
Her breasts are impressive. During boot camp, which she attends on Wednesdays and Fridays at the Dakpark rooftop park, she wears a Nike crop top. Her navel is exposed, but most of the men look at her nipples pressing against the elastic mesh. She likes to be watched. That’s why she wants to be fit. That’s why she does a workout that exhausts her twice a week. ‘There is no such thing as can’t,’ shouts the trainer, who was a commando in a previous life. Or: ‘Pain doesn’t exist. Pain is an emotion!’ At home, she fantasises about his naked muscles, about digging her nails into his dark skin. But when she stands on the rooftop, dying of exhaustion, she stares at the three Marconi Towers. She is as strong as concrete, hard as glass.
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Fitness No:
4
Personal Training, MyLife Club, 11 Ommoordsehof
They are friends and colleagues working at a large maritime liability and logistics insurance firm located in the city centre. The director keeps a pair of binoculars on his desk, which he uses to spy on the offices on the other side of Blaak. He is a voyeur, and he knows where the most beautiful women work. The women in his own office know that he watches them when they leave his room, but it doesn’t bother them. If they wear jeans, it gives them a sense of power.
They exercise their buttocks – their gluteus maximus muscles – at a fitness centre twice a week. They want to look good, and they do look good. They’re in shape. Their personal trainer is Guido, who always starts them off with ten minutes of abdominal exercises. They need to repeat each exercise twenty times. Guido counts, always to ten, and then to ten again. He makes sure that they don’t give up, that they push themselves to their limits. Thanks to Guido, they become stronger and, thanks to him, their boss looks at their fantastic asses with an increasing sense of frustration.
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Fitness No:
5
Pole Dancing Academy, 90c Schieweg
The pole dancing instructor is called Tiffany. They adore her. Tiffany also works as a prison guard. Her studio on Schieweg contains a number of poles. It was their dream to learn pole dancing. The first time they went to the studio, they made the mistake of coming to class in jogging bottoms. ‘Take off as much as you can,’ Tiffany had said. ‘Then you’ll have more grip.’ They looked at her huge legs. Legs like pillars. The other students wore shorts and tops. For the next class, they wore the same.
They learned to defy the laws of gravity, learned how to float. It was a new feeling, like so much that was new to them. Tiffany touched them sometimes, supported them, pushed with her shoulders against their hips, their legs. When she showed them an exercise, they watched breathlessly as her body moved around the pole. They couldn’t take their eyes off her legs, which were strong and glorious. ‘Don’t look for too long,’ Tiffany told them gently. ‘You’ll see the bruises and the burns.’ They considered this the sweetest thing ever whispered in their ear.
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Fitness No:
6
CrossFit Gold Pact, 69 Brielselaan
She lives on the south side, in Vreewijk, and chose the CrossFit studio on Brielselaan because it flies a gigantic rainbow flag. It’s not a studio really, but a warehouse. Every training session is different but she almost always goes to the one taught by Paul, a big hulking guy who taught her how to lift weights. Her mother thinks she has become too strong. Her old clothes don’t fit her any more; she can’t get her arms through the sleeves of the shirts she wore two years ago.
She wants to become even stronger though. Just like the woman she sometimes sees on Saturday mornings. With her blonde hair tied into a bun, she is stronger than the strongest man. They help each other with back squats. Bending their knees, their backs are straight, their feet apart, their buttocks taut. She stands right behind the other woman, looking at her, sniffing her scent. She knows nothing about her, only how strong she is. When she has the bar on her shoulders and bends deeply through her knees, but fails to lift it, she feels the woman’s breath on her neck – a sensuous pleasure. The blonde gives her a hand, but she still needs to give it her all. She moans when they manage to peak together.
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Fitness No:
7
Boxing, Kralingse Plaslaan
He is sixty years old and is fit and strong. The pace of his powerful blows is high and, while he hasn’t fought a match in years, he could still knock someone out. Since the first lockdown, they have been training outside, near the lock at the Kralingse Plas lake. Bob, the trainer, has a Porsche Carrera. Its bonnet is open and the speaker in the boot plays Eminem. There are usually eight of them sparring for an hour.
Apart from an iron condition, he has beautiful, slightly wavy grey hair. On Sunday mornings, he sees this woman walking her dog. It’s a terrier. She looks at him too, although he is perhaps twenty years older. What role does age play in love? What makes someone attractive? He’s convinced it is the quick moves, the swishing of boxing gloves, the dancing of feet. He used to own two clubs in Ibiza, had tills full of money and countless girlfriends. Now he would be happy with a wife and a terrier. He hits harder when she walks by, moves faster. He dances for her.