Power burn

The aesthetics of muscles are complicated, with the gender divide a significant factor.

- BY MARC WILSON

The Thursday routine involves alarm clock, coffee, quick game of online scrabble with my wife, and hurriedly finishing off this column. It's hurried because Thursday is the day we head to the gym before work for a session with our personal trainer, Hamish. Hamish spends 45 minutes encouraging us to lift slightly heavier weights, for slightly more reps, than we would voluntarily choose. We feel virtuous, and a little sore.

Gyms are fascinating places. I mean, I find most places fascinating if they have people in them, but gyms are different again. There are the close-moving huddles of young people clustered around the leg press or the hip drive. There are the regulars working through their routines, week in and week out. Some write down their reps and weights in little notebooks, some record them in their smartphone apps. They are generally doing the same thing but often for different reasons.