It has been some time since I breathed the testosterone-and-sweat air of a fitness gym frequented by young men. Now, paying a visit at long last, I couldn't help thinking that the young women there - and there were a few looking as fit and muscular as Kelly Holmes - were probably in acute danger of unplanned motherhood simply by osmosis.
What was I doing in a gym? That's exactly it: most gyms are off-limits not only to me as a tetraplegic, but to a whole range of disabled people. Precisely the constituency, you might think, most in need of them. But Sheffield Hallam University has a gym that's part of a project called the Inclusive Fitness Initiative (IFI), whose aim is to change this by feeding more than £5m in grants to around 150 non-commercial gyms in England so they can make themselves usable by disabled people.
I wanted to see if this would work for me, so that five years after breaking my neck I would be able to get back on something like a weight machine or exercise bike.
Apparently research had revealed that for disabled people there are four main deterrents to going to a gym: they can't actually get in, the equipment is impossible for them to use, the staff don't know how to deal with them, and disabled people themselves don't know what good effects fitness could have on their various conditions. (What can I say to this last one except: really?)
So how is Sheffield Hallam's IFI attempt doing? Even after the wreckage of privatisation, Sheffield still has a fairly decent bus service, and Sheffield Hallam being in the centre of town, it is practically a door to door bus ride for me. The gym has disabled parking too (tick).
I went up the ramp and through the automatic door (tick) to reception, where I was met by Pete Cholerton, fitness development manager. Cholerton was extremely muscular, clad in red and black, bald of head and with a grin splitting his face from ear to ear - a curious mixture of intimidation and welcome. He had a slightly disconcerting habit of bending sideways from the waist so that his head was level with mine. It didn't look comfortable and it would have been better for both of us if he had sat down.
The equipment looked impressive, big, black, monumental - like something out of a Terminator film. I couldn't see how it was different from the usual stuff until it was pointed out that brightly coloured signs had been added to help people with learning difficulties, and raised, braille-like, instructions for the unsighted. Most pieces required the disabled person to be able to walk, or at least to transfer to, a seat on the machine; but there were weight machines and bikes whose seats had been removed so you could use them from a wheelchair.
The weights room proper, where serious bodybuilding takes place, was downstairs, accessible by two Perspex-sided lifts arranged in a dogleg (tick). One young giant heaving cartwheels of steel couldn't take his eyes off me - but then nor could I take my eyes off him. It wouldn't do to be too sensitive among all these beautiful young people. (Come to think of it, he might have been eyeing up the young Australian woman who is my PA. Statuesque is the adjective that springs to mind.)
There was also a disabled changing room and toilet (tick, tick) but when it came to the gym itself I had a number of problems. It was crowded with equipment - if half a dozen wheelchairs arrived there would likely be a traffic jam. Nor did I see any out-of-condition fat people earnestly puffing along as I was used to in my old gym, and no older people at all. Even unfit able-bodied people might find it daunting to enter. Cholerton said the gym had avoided promoting itself to established sportspeople, disabled or not, so as to avoid too much of a jockstrap image, but ...
The visit was disappointing for me because I wasn't there only as a journalist, but as a potential user and, apart from one exercise bike, there was little I could use. When it came to the bike I would have needed to bring my own Velcro gloves so my hands could have been "glued" to the handles; Cholerton promised to follow this up. Tetraplegics like me need more specialised equipment than that available here and we need physiotherapists on hand.
So, 6/10 for the Sheffield Hallam gym - 20 disabled members so far, though unfortunately, I saw none, and a target of 200 (hmm!) at between £100-£200 per annum. More power to their IFI elbow - but my search continues.
