The first thing you notice when you step onto the machine is gravity. The floor slowly begins to sink from underneath your feet—the one thing we trust the most has become unstable. The floor is the floor is the floor. You must bring the earth up to greet your body, as if for once you have control of the ground beneath your feet. This, of course, taxes your muscles, taxes your heart. You are Atlas in reverse.
Your heart rate rises. While walking on a treadmill or using an elliptical machine, it is ideal to keep your heart rate low in order to burn fat. If your body senses a struggle, it feels as it is prey—you are running for your life. You are sinking. Your body will take hold of your muscles and eat them, as they provide the most fuel. You will feel sick. The staircases keep rotating.
While going for a run in the park, you pass people; you pass trees. The pavement ahead is the pavement ahead. On the mechanism that does not move, ponytails swish out of reach as women walk past you. A friend waves on the way to get a drink of water and continues walking. Lanny Potts, the inventor of the Stairmaster, once had a dream where he was exercising on the moon. Look at the scale. Look how little I weigh here. When I was a child, I too had dreams about being on the moon, but instead of considering the effects that the loss of gravity has on movement, I considered isolation: there is no one here. There is no one to talk to. You can only explore for so long before wondering what the world is doing without you.