ANTI FITNESS
An overlooked aspect of the new fitness revolution with the public is an “anti-fitness” habit that has infected all of our routines at the gym. Typically, one works a set of repetitions and then rests before performing another set of reps to achieve hypertrophy of (or part of) a muscle group to achieve strength and increased size. Then, one continues to other sets.
Imagine getting a great workout for an hour, then approaching another weight station and having to stop because a fellow gym member is sitting there texting or even having a phone conversation. One would think that that person could have taken space anywhere else.
It appears that today’s gyms allow members to turn physical exercise stations into texting or phone chat stations. These are not typical rest breaks. Complaints to gym management seem to have no effect or desire to post rules against this behavior and refuse to train staff to inform members of the detriment of sitting on equipment “playing with their phones.”
Are home gyms the only way to get a serious uninterrupted workout?
Only gym management can decide whether their facility caters to the casual or the serious users, but not both.
Randy Zaucha | Felton
CAT SHOT
On January 27 at 8:30pm, Murray the cat was shot dead by a person with a firearm on a quiet street in the Beach Hill section of Santa Cruz on Younger Road. The cat staggered back to its owner’s door, and was immediately rushed to an emergency hospital. Elizabeth Postovit, the pet’s owner, discovered Murray was wounded and bleeding profusely. The vet said he had sustained a gunshot wound to the chest and that it was the first time they had encountered a pet wounded by a firearm in Santa Cruz County.
He was given plasma, blood transfusions and a chest tube in an attempt to save his life. But by the next day, it was clear that the wounds and damage to his vital organs were too severe and the difficult decision was made to put Murray down. The incident has been reported to the Santa Cruz police and animal control.
According to Postovit, no gunshots were heard that night and there’s a possibility that the killer used a silencer. The vet who had experience treating cats with gunshot wounds in Washington, D.C., suspects it could be a neighbor since the animal never wandered further than the front lawn or a backyard to the immediate right or left of her home.
Although this is either a random or targeted shooting of a pet and not a human we feel it warrants local coverage both for its violent senselessness and as a public service to alert the community that there is someone shooting at neighborhood animals.
David Koeppel
