Note: This chapter was partially inspired by Power Glove's song Maximum Potential. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdcskfqXH5I

>Day Maximum Potential in Equestria

>You are Carnelian: bat pony, assistant carpenter, and entrepreneur.
>And right now you are thinking that death would be a sweet, sweet release from what you are experiencing.
>Yesterday you told your closest friend, Anon, that you were concerned that you were gaining weight.
>Probably all that rich, delicious cow blood you’ve been drinking lately.
>Pinkie had managed to overhear your little confession and had taken it upon herself to help you out.
>Honestly though? She’s probably the last pony you would ask for diet advice.
>For goodness’ sakes, the ‘diet shake’ she came up with probably had several thousand calories in it!
>And you drank the whole thing.
>You really need to learn some self-control. 
>After her failure as a dietician, Pinkie went out to recruit you a personal trainer.
>Again, the last pony that you would have picked was selected by Pinkie.
>Rainbow Dash.
>The athletic pegasus had jumped at the chance to be your coach.
>She claimed that she owed you for what had happened in whitetail woods during the last camping trip you had all gone on together.
>Now, it is six in the morning and you’re not sure if Rainbow Dash meant that she owed you a favor or some kind of sadistic payback.
>“C’mon Nel, pump those wings! You can do it!”
>Right now the mad-mare has you doing something called ‘ascenders’.
>It‘s an exercise where a flyer is supposed to lift themselves strait off the ground as fast as they can until they reach a certain altitude.
>Then they get back down to the ground and do it all over again.
>Your altitude mark is Rainbow’s cloud home.
>Straining and sweating (and cursing under your breath a bit) you manage to touch the bottom of her cloud house with your outstretched hoof.
>You let out a gasp and glide back down to the ground below.
>“Alright, that’s ten! Good job!” your trainer enthuses.
>She hands you a sport’s bottle and you start sucking down water like there’s no tomorrow.
>“Whoa, whoa, easy! Drink it too fast and you’ll get a cramp.” she cautions.
“I’ve already got a cramp.”
>“Oh, no! Where at? We’ll stretch it out.”
“My whole body.”
>Rainbow Dash starts to chuckle, the monster.
>“Oh, Nel, I know it’s hard at first but you’ll feel soooo much better when we’re all done. Trust me.”
>She grins and you admit it’s kind of hard to resist her enthusiasm.
>“Alright, break’s over. Now let’s do some cantering to work those legs!”
>You whimper and look over at Anon who has been doing some exercises of his own.
>When Dash came to get you this morning he had tagged along.
>While you had been doing Dash’s regiment, he had been hoisting his body up over a tree branch.
>Something called pull-ups.
>They looked just as horrible as ascenders.
>He walks over to you, and Rainbow tells him that you are going to go running.
>You hope that he will say something to get you out of it.
>Something like, “Oh, hey, we really got to get going. Gotta get ready for work and all that.”
>Instead he just nods and says he’ll join you.
>Traitor.
>As you canter down the road back towards Ponyville you look up and see the dawn sky.
>It’s a mix of pink and lavender.
>The birds sing their morning songs.
>The smell of dew on the grass fills your nostrils.
>It really is a beautiful morning.
>Now if only your lungs weren’t on fire.
>Rainbow snaps you out of your thoughts.
>“Man Anon, you’re in pretty good shape.”
>“Of course! I get up every morning around this time and do my workout routine. Got to stay in shape if you want to slay monsters.”
>“Tell me about it. I’m always trying to get my friends to work out with me. I’m all, ‘How can we save the world if you guys can’t even gallop an eight minute mile?’. ” 
>She snickers. “Applejack’s the only one who really keeps up with me. Well, most of the time that is.”
>Wait, did she just say that she expects you to run a mile in under eight minutes?
>Oh, hay no.
>It’s like you’re back in gym class as a filly.
>You hated gym class as a filly.
>While you try to figure out a way to gracefully fire Dash as your trainer the three of you make your way through a back alley of Ponyville.
>Dash calls a halt and you stop in front a rather plain looking building.
>You look up and see a sign next to the door.
>The plain letters spell out ‘Maximum Potential Gym’.
>Great, now you will have a proper venue for this torture.
>Rainbow opens the door and ushers you inside.
>“I figured that I’d get another pony to help out with your weight training. This guys an old friend of mine.”
>Fantastic. Weight training.
>Sure enough, you look around at the various ponies working out on the equipment scattered about.
>You wonder idly who this friend of Dash's is and just how insane he's going to be when a sudden cry startles you.
>“YEAH!!!"
>Sweet jumping jacks! 
>You turn to see where that yell came from.
>On the other side of the gym you see a pony struggling to lift a weightlifting bar all the way up.
>And spotting him is the most massive pony you have ever seen!
>“Come on, one more set! You got this! Yeah!” the spotter cries.
>The struggling pony finally manages to get the bar all the way up and gasps in relief as he sets it back on the stand.
>You really hope that the pony who was spotting him isn't who Rainbow Dash wants you to meet.
>“Snowflake” Rainbow calls out. “Over here!”
>The spotter starts walking your way. 
>Great.
>He is a white stallion with a short cropped blond mane and beady red eyes.
>The most noticeable thing about him though is that his proportions are ridiculous.
>His upper body and haunches are nothing but slabs of rippling muscle sitting on top of his short legs.
>And on his back are…
>Wings?
>Oh, goodness. 
>This stallion is a pegasus. 
>Can he even fly with wings that tiny?
>You take one look at his mean looking mug and decide that you don’t want to have anything to with this pony.
>“Hey Snowflake.” Rainbow waves. “How’s it hangin’?”
>He just grunts and nods at the mare.
>Then he turns to look at you.
>His surprisingly critical eyes give you the once over and you can’t help but feel that he is weighing you in his mind. 
>“You’re Carnelian?”
“U-uh, yes.”
>“And you want to get fit?”
“I… I suppose.”
>“Why?”
“Huh?”
>“Why do you want to get fit?”
“Um, well because… I guess…” you trail off.
>To be honest, you don’t want to kill yourself.
>You just want to shed a few pounds.
>The snowy mountain snorts, “Think about it for bit.”
>He turns to Rainbow and asks what she has been having you do all morning.
>After she rattles off all of the punishments that she has inflicted on you Snowflake start shaking his head in a disappointed manner.
>Super.
>This walking lump of muscle probably thinks that Dash has been going too easy on you.
>You are just about ready to walk out and tell them to forget it.
>“Rainbow, that’s way too much for a first session.”
>Huh?
>The suddenly sensible stallion chides your trainer.
>“See Dash, she’s not an athlete. You got to start her out gradually.”
>“I-I know that. I just thought, y’know…”
>“I know what you were thinking. You were hyped to have a training buddy. I keep telling you that you always go overboard.”
>Wow. This uber-buff stallion is calling out Rainbow Dash for going overboard?
>You can’t even imagine what kind of nutso training she must do on her own.
>Snowflake turns your way.
>“Look, fitness is like anything in life. You gotta have goals or you won’t end up achieving anything. So lemme ask again. Why do you want to get fit? Why are you here?”
>Your first impulse is to tell Mr. Muscle that you’re here because Rainbow dragged you here.
>But you decide to just say the plain truth.
“I just want to lose some weight so I’ll fit in dresses better.”
>Snowflake nods his head in approval.
>“Alright, I can work with that. We get plenty o’ mares in here that have that exact same goal.”
>He goes over to a table and picks up a clipboard.
>“We’ll get some measurement and come up with a schedule for you. But let me tell something before you start. Your goal is wrong.”
“What?”
>“Oh sure, getting to a good weight is what you want to do. But you also want to make sure you do it for the right reasons. Check this out.”
>You follow the buff powderpuff over to a wall that has a ton of pictures hanging all over it.
>The photos all show ponies standing around exercise equipment or doing poses to show off their bodies for the camera.
>“These are some of the success stories that have come out of this gym.”
>He points to one picture in particular.
>“Check out this little guy.”
>You peer at the faded photo and see a scrawny little pegasus.
>He is so thin that he looks like a strong breeze could blow him away and the colt’s white coat and long blond mane make just seem to add to his frail demeanor.
>Wait, white coat and…
>You turn in disbelief towards the slab o’ muscle standing beside you.
>“I was a pretty scrawny little runt, huh?”
>All you can do is gape open-mouthed.
>“When I was a colt I got picked on a lot. Like, a LOT a lot. So I decided to do something about it. I started working out. I was gonna show those jerks. When I got strong I’d show them who was boss.”
>He looks down at himself. “But you know, something happened. As I got fit I saw that my life got better. I felt better. Things got easier for me and I wasn’t so mad at the jerks who messed with me. That’s when I figured out that being fit made me happy. That’s when I got this bad boy right here.”
>You both look down at his cutie mark.
>The barbell on his flank ripples impressively.
>“See, when you’re born you get this wonderful body. It’s really great! But if you don’t take care of it then it will tell you that it’s unhappy. You’ll be tired and cranky. You might even get sad ‘cause things seem too hard. But if you’re fit then your body’ll be happy. And that’ll make you happy.” He gestures at the room around him.
>“I wanted to share that happiness with other ponies. So I started this gym. Some ponies say I go way overboard with my own fitness and maybe I do. But it makes me happy.  And it also makes me happy when I can help others reach their true potential. That’s where this gym’s name comes from.”
“Maximum potential.” you mutter.
>“Exactly.” 
>He points back at the picture of him as a colt.
>“If you want to get fit just so you can wear some clothes then you’ll probably fail. Sure you’ll lose the pounds to begin with, but it won’t last. But if you exercise because you enjoy it? Before you know it you'll be all 'Yeah!' and you'll look forward to your work out sessions.”
>You think about what this fitness-philosopher has just told you.
>Fitness making you happy?
>Reaching your potential?
>You have always considered exercise to be a tool of oppression used by evil gym coaches to make non-athletic colts and fillies feel bad about themselves.
>Could it be that there is something here worth pursuing?
>The white weightlifter acts as though he can sense your concerns.
>“I know this will probably be new for you. Most ponies go their whole lives never knowing that exercise can make them feel better about life. It’ll be challenging. But I promise you that it’s worth it.”
>He gives you an expectant look. “What do you say? Do you want to reach your true potential?”
>If some pony had told you yesterday that you could actually be inspired by a speech about fitness and exercise, you would have told them to take a long walk off a short pier.
>But something about what this strange pony has told you just seems to click. 
>You know that you will never be an athlete like Rainbow Dash.
>For one thing you simply don’t have the time to train like she does.
>But maybe, just maybe, you can get some of the happiness that this buff blonde is talking about?
>You look him square in the eyes and smile.
“Alright. I’ll give it a try.”
>He grins and you realize that it's the first happy expression that you have actually seen on the power pegasus's face.
>You both walk over to where your friends have been waiting for you.
>“So, uh, you get everything figured out. Is everything cool?”
>You turn to your new trainer and you give each other a small nod.
“Yeah!”

Fin.