JUST SAYING
BY RAUL HERNANDEZ
The whole notion that women are inherently weaker than men is just false.
It’s noticeable from my front-row seats at the gym.
My twice-weekly High Intensity Training (HIT) sessions with Beth at Santa Barbara’s Gold’s Gym are challenging.
Brutal is a better word.
An hour-long session will make you sweat, ache, and breathe heavily.
A dozen or so folks usually make up the midday sessions, and most are regulars. And the so-called weaker sex—females—make up about 90% of the participants.
Many people who participate usually go for a session or two.
Then there are the regulars.
Beth has two outstanding female students, Ana and Lena, who are physically and mentally fit and run at a breakneck pace. Everyone else attempts to do the same, but it’s tough.
In a positive sense, I despise Beth. I call her training classes torture time.
I joined the class because the cycling instructor at Golds, Seth, was sick one day.
On that particular day in January 2019, I had to get my blood flowing. So I decided to try Beth’s class.
It was usually packed with forty to fifty students crammed into each session—pre-COVID-19—with women routinely making up 80% of the participants.
Rigorous aerobic classes weren’t new to me. So why not?
In 2017, as a member of LA Fitness in Ventura, I attended boot camp sessions taught by Kalvin Henry three times a week, including on Saturdays.
My objective was to attend 130 sessions. I logged 118 classes in a year.
Tragically, in January 2018, in Montecito, California, there was a mudslide that killed 23 people and severed Highway 101. My home in Santa Barbara is on Highway 101, which connects the city to Ventura.
While repairs were being made to the highway, I strolled into Gold’s Gym, and in the end, I joined Gold’s.
I still have the Kalvin Boot Camp T-shirt, however. It states, in part: “Kalvin’s 100-Club Member. Kore by Kalvin”
Read about Kore by Kavin Boot Camp;
It’s no surprise that women also made up about 80% of Kalvin’s classes.
I was a few minutes late the first time I walked into Beth’s class.
While the other students waited a few minutes for Beth to begin stretching out the class, she grinned, cleared a path, and assisted me in getting situated there.
A few minutes later, Beth turned it to eleven, as if a starter’s pistol had been fired. She hopped from one exercise to the next —squatting, lunges, push-ups, weightlifting, arm swinging, and squats using the plastic plank, elastic bans, and medicine balls.
It was all done effortlessly under a booming beat.
She was flawless the whole time, offering precise directions while talking to the class throughout the session and serving generous smiles.
Classmates’ affectionate nickname for her is “No Breaks Beth.”
I second-guessed my choice to join her class after 20 minutes.
“Lord, please make her stop,” I thought while trying to keep up and drenched with sweat.
However, I returned for a year the following week. I kept track of all my activities at Gold’s throughout the week on a wall calendar. Each Friday, I noted, “HIT-Beth.”
I racked up a year of Fridays—all in a row. I was proud of my accomplishments.
Beth rewarded my accomplishment by giving me a small wall calendar for the following year—but COVID shut down gyms, including Gold’s.
Beth left and returned in 2023.
In 2024, sadly, it will be another story.
Regrettably, all workout classes at Gold’s Gym in Downtown Santa Barbara will only be eliminated around March 2024, except for the cycling classes.
The owners and management decided to remodel the workout area only and use the entire room to put more weightlifting equipment in there.
Over 80 percent of the upstairs and downstairs are packed with weightlifting equipment.
So, Beth, along with other Golds downtown trainers, will have to find new gyms or training centers.
As a trainer, Beth is invaluable. She is more suited to management and can be an instructor or motivator.
Eliminating Gold Gym’s downtown training courses was a major deal killer for some members who said they would leave and join another gym.
I will still be doing the rowing machine and trying to find another aerobic exercise class. My workout critics, in tow, will continue to ask, “What are you trying to prove?”
Nothing.Well, sort of.
My goal is long-term. It’s to keep my sugar levels and weight down. I am a Type II diabetic.
High blood pressure, heart disease, and, in rare cases, cirrhosis of the liver all contributed to the deaths of some family members.
Of all the training instructors throughout the years, my favorites are Kalvin and Beth.
The women who regularly attend Beth’s class inspire me. It’s Beth who motivates and inspires the most.
Recently, I told her that she missed her calling in life.
“What is that?”
“You should have been a Navy Seal instructor,” I said with a smile.
She grinned.