Ted - That Personal Fitness Trainer at World Gym Palm Springs

In this picture. Ted. He looks like a Nice Guy. He really does. And he really is. Except....

...when he gets your Furry Bear Butt into his 'G-Force' exercise class at World Gym in Palm Springs, California.

Welcome to Ted G's House-Of-Dues. It's then when he turns into THE Palm Springs personal trainer from hell that you'll love to hate. Because he'll make you do pushups. And dumbbell squats and combination fly and press moves until your muscles hurt real good. And then he'll run your ass around the gym's track in case your heart-rate was beginning to settle down - which is not allowed.

You have to go back into the fitness class room after your laps since the hour isn't over. That was just a refreshing jog between the NEXT set of exercises you'll be doing. You do need to do MORE exercise because you are a fat, hairy Bear who got out of shape and are now paying the price for your carbo-loading misspent months of inactivity.

He said he'd 'Go easy on me, sorta a little bit, but don't get used to it' for the first two weeks so that my body has time to freak-out and suffer and adjust. That is to say, I can't wait till the next class. This coming Thursday, 10am.

Muscle And Fur Induced Depression

Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words. 

There. I said it. And now I feel depressed.

A New Sport - Whisker Wars - Beard Team USA

Just when you thought there really hasn't been a new sport invented since, uh, the Hackey-Sack... Our bearded bretheren are going after it with a vengeance.

Clothes may 'Make the Man' - but if you remove those - a man's whiskers are all he has left to style, or hide behind. And then you have those who grow it to show it. Hence the World Beard and Moustache Championships going on this month in Norway.

American BEARD OLYMPIAN and the author of The Facial Hair Handbook- Jack Passion seems likely to be serving up a face full of 'U Can't Touch This' again in 2011.

Team USA stole a lot of titles last year - and from this video - you can see they're hellbent to do it again. 

Steven Michael's Gay Blog - Big MuscleBears - http://ping.fm/BGzPq

Fitness vs Fatness - Back On The Treadmill

Hmm. Daily exercise and I still got fat over the summer here in the
Northwoods. I blame the pot-pies and cheese nachos. Swimming every day just
isn't enough, what with being over 50 and all. Back to Calif I go, back to
another round of MuscleBear wanna-be at the gym for months on end. I swear
this fat is going to MELT off me. Just like pot-pie gravy runs off a spoon
or like cheese drips down from piping hot nachos. I'll just MELT off the
fat!

Eye On BeachPie : Hello-Kitty Death Crew Wanna-Be MuscleBear Beach

Water-Rat-Bears

People seem to seem to be genetically encoded to either love swimming or hate it: Either strip down and dive in at any opportunity - or to merely observe from the dry safety of the pools edge or the terra-firma of the sandy beach. Either ya love the water like an otter - or hate it like a cat hates being thrown off the deep end.

Maybe modesty has something to do with this: Big hairy guys who just don't feel like taking their shirts off in general, let alone showing off their Fat 'N' Fur all glistening and matted down and wet in such public places. It's a shame really: 1. To not feel accepting or comfortable in one's own body such-as-it-is. Or, 2. To take advantage of the truly impact-free, full-body stretching and workout that swimming does like no other fitness activity. Or, 3. Not to know the freedom being a Speedo Bear can bring to your self image.

Me? I'm a WATER-RAT by nature, 100%. So even when I don't have the will to torture myself with ROUTINE activity like weight-lifting and aerobics implies - swimming remains the best all-round way to stay connected and aware of the rest of my clearly aging bones. It's summer. Get out there. DIVE IN!