Tampering With The Fitness: Treadmills are a good run spoiled

        In the rush to attract as many potential buyers as possible, most mid-level to high-end golf communities offer such add-ons as tennis courts, Olympic-sized swimming pools and fitness centers with equipment that would make the New York Athletic Club jealous.  Developers know that many of us baby boomers lust for the fitness of our youth and plan to do something about it once we get out of the rat race of careers and into our golden years.  The reality is, however, that most of us will opt for a round of golf rather than 90 minutes on the cardio machine.

        Baby boomer hard bodies (and wannabes) are a small minority of golf community residents, but that hasn’t

stopped developers from stocking up their fitness centers with banks of wall television monitors and the most modern (and expensive) ellipticals, exercise bikes, free weights and treadmills.

        It’s the treadmills that get me (as well as the TVs).  I don’t begrudge a fellow boomer his or her exercise, and I wish I had the discipline to join them, but there is something ironic about treadmills in a planned community’s fitness center.  Isn’t it the “treadmill” aspects of our lives that we are trying to escape by moving to a place of beauty and tranquility (and golf)?   Isn’t it just as beneficial physically, but much more mentally rewarding, to walk or run through our coastal community, past marsh and live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, or across the highest point in our Blue Ridge community with its 50-mile long mountain vistas, than pounding a strip of vulcanized rubber at the same boring pace, over and over, with CNN on the wall, reminding of us of how much our stock portfolio has lost or how many lives have been ruined by the latest unnatural disaster?

        Dear Developers:  Lose the treadmills and dedicate the space to mental fitness centers.  Some of us could use it…before and after our rounds of golf.

The 3,000-acre community of Spring Island, near Beaufort, SC, has opened a $5 million, 12,000-square-foot Sports Complex to complement its outstanding Arnold Palmer Design golf course, Old Tabby Links.  The new complex includes tennis courts, a large pool, croquet court and fitness center, as well as an Outfitter Center where residents and their guests can pick up fishing and kayaking equipment.  At eventual full build out, Spring Island will be home to just 410 families. 

Photo courtesy of Spring Island.