It’s time to get off the treadmill when the fat lady smiles. : In the Land of Giants

I work out a little once in a while. On afternoons when I have nothing better to do, I go down to the Pritikin gym in Sherman Oaks and spend about 27 minutes offering symbolic commitment to good health, much as a born-again Christian might pray for redemption after a lifetime of sin.

First I get on the treadmill. There are dozens of them in a wide circle, most occupied by flabby, middle-aged people who have been driven to walking in place by some form of medical disaster or by a mid-life surge of lust. They want to be good-looking and sexy and maybe, you know, attract a starlet or something for the last time. Fat chance.

I am motivated more by health considerations than by lust, although I do not believe I have either the interest or the tenacity to prolong my life through exercise. The jury is still out on lust.

I walk on the treadmill only until I begin to feel like a damned chipmunk in a cage or until I realize I have been staring unintentionally at a fat lady across the room who is beginning to smile at me seductively.

I always say it’s time to get off the treadmill when the fat lady smiles, so I wander over to a section of the gym that features weights and Nautilus-type equipment, which is the point of this whole essay. The most I mess with is 25 pounds, and, by the time I am done exercising, I can barely raise my arms.

So now let’s go to the weight room of a real gym, Racquetball World of Canoga Park, wherein a stunt man named Jack Wright is working out on something called a “simulated bent-over rowing machine.”

With each thrust, he lifts 250 pounds off the floor, and he does that for God knows how long, all the time apologizing because he usually lifts 275 pounds.

“I’m really beat up today,” he says, meaning he is exhausted.

He doesn’t look it.

The man is built like an inverted pyramid. He has a 58-inch chest and a 32-inch waist and muscles that bulge in places where I didn’t even know a man was supposed to have muscles.

“I know how it is,” I say, thinking about the 25 pounds I strain to raise an inch off the floor. “I’m a weight man myself.”

I am in a land of giants, both male and female, trying to appear as though I am as fit as anyone, but I give up after a while. A man can only hold his stomach in for so long before losing consciousness. Also, it’s hard to look fit when you’re short.

“You get tired easier when you get older,” Wright says, still pumping away.

I am amazed he can pump and talk at the same time. Once in a while at Pritikin someone will say something to me when I am out of breath on the treadmill, and all I can do in response is form words with my mouth and hope they can read lips. Some of them think I am handicapped.

Jack, by the way, is only 30, which is a milestone I can recall only if I concentrate. He has been body-conscious most of his life.

Nine years ago he bench-pressed 554 pounds when he was competing in the Strongest Man Contest and has also been national arm wrestling champ twice.

“I am really embarrassed,” Jack is saying as he pulls 110 pounds at the triceps rope-extension machine. “I usually do a lot more.”

I don’t know what to say so I just shrug. I feel encouraged after treadmilling if I am still able to walk to my car.

He works for a while, then smiles and says, “I’m going to have to get back in shape before I wrestle bears again.”

I am, of course, instantly intrigued.

“How do you do that?” I ask.

“The animals are trained for film,” he says.

“Not that. How can you smile and lift 110 pounds at the same time?”

Jack looks at me a little perplexed. Humor has no place in physical fitness. “Never mind,” I say, “just tell me about the bears.”

They are 600-pound black bears and he wrestles them for movies and for TV commercials.

“I got smacked in the ribs once by a bear,” he says. “I was out of action for three weeks.”

Jack’s last role as a stunt man was a two-minute part in a Sylvester Stallone movie about arm wrestling.

“How did you like working with Stallone?” I ask. I am tempted to add, “as opposed to bears,” but do not.

“It was OK. They sent me a check for $5,200 and then later wanted $16 back as ‘overpay.’ Stallone gets $12 million and they want $16 back from me? No way, Jose.”

We are at the seated pulley rowing machine, where Jack is hoisting 200 pounds with each pull and, of course, apologizing for not hoisting 300 pounds.

I realize as I watch that we have nothing physical in common, so I ask him what he eats in an effort to establish at least primitive rapport.

“Ice cream,” he says. “I love ice cream. And my mom makes the best cheesecake. God,” he says, his eyes becoming watery, “how I love her cheesecake.”

I leave him on that note and head down to a cowboy place called the Longhorn Saloon where they are fresh out of ice cream and cheesecake but, as fate would have it, they are overstocked on vodka and vermouth, so I have me a little martini instead.

I bar-press the olive 15 times, however, before I even take a sip of the martini. I believe that’s a record.