With 30 squats, free subway
Many times, while I move weights in the UB Esports gym, that venue that will one day be demolished to build the new Clínic, I contemplate the feats of the instructors there, phenomena like Rodrigo or David Tornay, who is a prodigy of muscles, angles and symmetries and is well-versed in the subject and every day offers me advice on sets, weights, nutrition and rest.
On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, a dozen passionate seniors enter the room, look for David Tornay, and then ask him:
The problem would be the queues at the ticket machine; hundreds of passengers lined up, waiting their turn...–Shall we start now or what?
"Warm up on the treadmill or the stationary bike and come on, we'll get started," he answers.
And a little while later, there they all are, instructor and hard-working students, passing the medicine ball around, stretching the elastic bands, and practicing sit-ups on the mat.
Looking at the group, I think to myself: “If only we all showed this willingness…”
Image of UB Esports, on Barcelona's Diagonal
Xavier Cervera(...)
The other day, David Tornay opened Instagram and said to me:
–Actually, this should be the future.
And he showed me a video: in the footage, captured in 2014, on the eve of the Sochi Winter Games, a man in a suit was practicing squats in front of a ticket machine in the Moscow metro. If the guy could do 30 reps in two minutes, the machine would give him a free ride, courtesy of the Kremlin.
“Yes, this should be the future,” David Tornay insisted, shrugging his shoulders. “The future should be less medication and more exercise.”
"The problem is the lines that would form at the machine, right? I imagine hundreds of travelers waiting in line," I replied.
"Yeah..." the man nodded, I suppose catching the irony.
Read alsoThe Kremlin project lasted only a few weeks: just as the Sochi Games were closing, the squat-counting machine was dismantled.
(Years later, those same Games would end up going down the drain, courtesy of the Russian state's doping scam, an appendage in the sea of nonsense in which the Putin administration has been immersed in recent years.)
So no one does squats in front of a metro ticket machine anymore. Not in Moscow or anywhere else. It's a shame because exercise releases toxins and tempers bad moods, and prevents us from elbowing each other when the car gets crowded and a passenger jabs their elbow into our sides.
lavanguardia
