Fitness centers, recreation centers, or what used to just be called gyms have always been a mystery to me. I was once mesmerized by the Bally’s commercials that filled expensive air time right after the new year when I was a teenager, had heard coworkers speak about the culture, amenities and routines, and would often slow my car outside the grand windows of the Gold’s Gym in Philly to see if I could catch a glimpse of the strange creatures that sweated behind the glass. Fitness, the kind pursued intentionally inside an air conditioned building and not while having fun playing sports outside never made sense to me. That was until I attempted to live through the last of four consecutive Ohio winters while at college—rain, ice snow and clouds—not an ounce of sun from Thanksgiving to Spring Break. The lack of sunlight was like an energy sponge—I slept late and stayed up later. I found the gym accidentely while roaming the campus late at night. I sat in the sauna naked, took a cold shower and realized that I hadn’t felt that good in months.

I began sneaking into the gym at odd times of the day when I knew all the athletes would either be on the field or eating together in the dinning hall. Alone on the rubber mats I had no idea what I was doing. Put weights on a bar and lift it until my muscles hurt. Repeat on another machine until another group of muscles ached. Run on the treadmill as fast as I could on the steepest incline until I felt like throwing up. Sit in sauna until sweat no longer smells like cheap beer. Shower and walk to class. It was a solitary endeavor that in the end was the single thing that kept me sane in college. I walked out of the gym feeling like I had accomplished something. The best part was it worked as great justification for spending the rest of the day smoking cigarettes and the night drinking beer. “I ran a mile today” would circle my mind again and again as I pulled another smoke out of the pack.

When I moved to the SLC in April it didn’t take me long to fork over 30 bucks of hard earned money each month to become another member at 24 Hour Fitness Sport, a sprawling complex that includes more than enough for someone with such a meager background in fitness. My membership includes unlimited access to a sauna, steam room, hot tub, pool, basketball court and sprawling area of free weights, nautilus and cardio machines. Used to being alone in a cramped weight room as I had in college, it took me a couple of dozen visits to get used to the grandeur of my new gym. It was soon apparent that my membership was more than just access to the thousand and one different ways to burn calories and build muscle. When I signed the dotted line on the bottom of my contract I was in truth entering a magical kingdom where ruling kings and queens walked through the larger throngs of peasants. The royalty of 24 Hour Fitness come when it is most busy, during the only hours when most peasants can afford to spare an hour or two of their already busy lives. Dressed in accentuating spandex, cut off shirts and skin-tight tank tops they make sure always to stay within the gaze of one wall of mirrors enclose the great hall. They intimidate without their eyes—a simple flex of the deltoid or bicep after a serious set of pull ups is enough to send the mind of the peasant to a time in the future when they too will be able to look in the mirror and smile quietly at their own muscles.

These kings of fitness are not only on a first name basis with much of the staff, which aides in the procuring of the name of the girl in the spandex on the rowing machine, but are also blessed with frequent visits from their personal trainer. Bishops and church elders come to ensure that the monarchy is on the right path. The king may have just spent the summer bulking his chicken legs—until a single visit from his trainer reminds him that he has neglected his back—and so they chat about five or six quick exercise to bring definition to the latissmus dorsi. Whether or not the king or queen had one or a dozen sessions with a trainer in the past, gurus curious to see the progress they have made continually interrupt them during their routine. The whole place is about progress, or as 24 Hour likes to put it, “Solutions.” Solutions are what the trainer is calculating in his head as he watches a star pupil sweat liters of water on the bike. The trainers are obviously looking to add to his or her already impressive commission that day, but this goes unnoticed to the king and queens—they know that there is always work to be done. After all, they don’t live at the gym like the staff.

The personal trainers who roam the floor dress in red or white polypro t-shirts tailored to highlight their most taught muscles. Like stock brokers in a room full of broke college students they make sure to just barely catch your eye, enough to peak your curiosity so that when you begin thinking “Man I really NEED muscles like him” and “I really need my girlfriend to look like THAT,” you are sure that these are ideas rooted in your own subconscious and not a mere product of the environment.

The trainers come in all shapes and sizes—tall and thin, short and stalky, but they all carry the same swagger. They are gatekeepers and holders of the secrets of eternal good looks, wealth and prosperity. All this is yours at the introductory price of $230 for an hour session. Huddled during around their desks during the morning they crouch, eyeing with wet lips each person who walks through the door. We are antelope waking past hungry lions and tigers. They remain however in the shadow of the white board above them which clearly defines their jobs as salesmen. One of them is clearly good at his job, making frequent trips to his black Mercedes SLK coupe that he parks on the street in front of the gym. Everyone who passes by on their way through the great glass doors begins to believe that when we are ripped and toned like the hard working trainer we will also be driving $60,000 sports cars and all getting laid. Some far off dream that drives us to do one extra set of sit ups or to spend an extra three minutes on the Stair Climber.

The man who talks to himself as he listens to his headphones is sitting on the steps that lead to the yoga studio watching the whole charade unfold. I stand in the corner between the bicep curl and lat machines watching a man behind me complete a set of some fifty pull ups without so much as a grimace. He finally lets his feet fall to the floor and with a quick shake of his hands is off to destroy his delts with free weights. I can’t help but smile at what I have gotten myself into.