I didn’t realize just how awful the gym (or more accurately, the people in it) is until my trip to the local WSC last night.
Figure 1: Hell Hole
There’s some fairly ridiculous egotistical behavior that goes on when people work out, but for the most part I’ve been willing to overlook the flaws of others ever since what I did during The Incident*. Then last night I saw something that set me over the fucking edge:
I was taking a rest from a set of burpees (which I was performing on the same mats I vomited on a year ago) and gazing blankly over the railing. There was a relatively scrawny white dude running at about 7mph on a treadmill when a dude bearing an eerie likeness to Mario Lopez jumps on the treadmill next to him and turns the fucking thing up to like 15mph. He is running on his heels and making an incredible amount of noise. I turn away and do another set of burpees to the rhythmic tune of Mario Lopez destroying his knees. After resting for 30 seconds and getting ready to start another set, I see Mario Lopez bring his treadmill to a halt, turn to the little white guy and say, I shit you not:
“You need to pick up the pace, buddy! You’re gonna be a waif forever at that speed, DUDE.”
…and walks away. I nearly vomited again.
Seeing this asshole reminded me of all the different types of people in the gym that need to die, and I’m going to list them all right here and right now before I lose my fucking mind.
Asshole #1: Spin Top
This is the guy who is 300lbs of solid muscle from the waist up and is 15lbs of bone and tendon below the waist, thus giving him the appearance of a spin top. In spite of his femoral shortcomings, this motherfucker thinks he’s the baddest guy in the gym because he can bench press twice his own weight for reps. He wants you to ignore the fact that his legs are buckling under the weight of his massive torso (and narcissism), which is why he’s always a.) sitting down looking at himself in the mirror and b.) wearing long pants.
Figure 2: Everybody’s seen this guy
Asshole #2: The Man Moaner/Screamer
Every now and again you’ll get a guy in the gym who simply must let everyone know just how difficult each and every rep is. That’s when you’ll be minding your own business and hear some idiot bleat out “uuuuuuuuUUUUNNNNNNNNHHHHHHHHHH” like somebody’s shoving a pineapple up his ass and he’s kinda enjoying it. That’s the Man Moaner.
Then there’s the guy who sounds like he’s having a pineapple shoved up his ass, but he isn’t enjoying it at all. That’s when you hear the “AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” of the Man Screamer. This asshole is usually wearing one of those stupid leather weight belts, a raggedy baseball cap worn backwards, a severely undersized wifebeater that’s struggling to cling to his body, and really really really tight biker shorts. You’ll also notice the blood vessels in his neck, forehead, and forearms to be inordinately large, which is why women often mistake his penis for a ramen noodle.
Figure 3: Man Screamer
Asshole #3: Leather Girl
This is the white girl with an inordinate amount of muscle and orange skin with the texture of an old leather wallet. All these chicks look the same: between 5’4″ and 5″8″, thin muscular build, orange skin, freckles, Underarmour workout gear consisting of the tummy-revealing top and tight pants that flare out to bell bottoms at the mid-calf, etc. They’re almost always brunette, but you’ll get the occasional blond and even redhead.
Figure 4: Her dick is bigger than mine
You are convinced that these chicks LIVE in the gym, because everytime you’re there…they’re there. They will be there when you arrive, and they will be there when you leave. When you come back three hours later because you left something in a locker, they’re STILL there. When you drive past the gym on the way to work in the morning, they’re hanging dormant by the ankles from the building’s rafters waiting for the gym to open. If you’re a guy you briefly think about trying to have sex with one of them. But then you realize that she kinda looks like a man, and she probably feels like sandpaper on the inside.
Asshole #4: Unnecessary Stretching Girl
There’s always that motherfucking chick in the gym contorting her body into positions that are as senseless as they are impractical. Typcially, these poses are flagrantly sexual, and the guys in the gym have to fight themselves to keep from ogling her and thinking about how she’d look in that pose naked and on top of you.
Figure 5: You cruel fuck
This girl is not a gymnast, she is not in training to become a gymnast, nor does she even know what gymnastics is. All she’s doing is placing her butt and vagina into positions that make you say “hmmm…” and waiting for the opportunity to catch you checking her out so she can get indignant and pretend to have no idea why you would possibly be staring at her.
Asshole #5: The Bold and the Bare-Chested
You don’t usually see this in public/membership gyms, but if you’re like me and have a private gym in your condo, then chances are you’re going to see some fucker on the equipment with his goddamn shirt off. For some reason, it’s never the hot chicks with the big boobies that exercise bare chested – it’s always some nasty old dude with leathery skin and more hair on his chest than any normal man has on his entire head and body.
Figure 6: Struttin’ to a gym near you
These people leave a cubic meter of sweat on whatever machine they were using. They wipe themselves off with a towel, but never EVER the equipment. Guess they figure a little man juice marinating on the recumbent bike will make everyone else stronger. I’m going to start putting itching powder, sulfuric acid, and leeches all over the equipment in my gym. Bare skin will be punished quickly and with extreme prejudice.
*About a year ago I was in training for the powwow season and decided to do the Spartan Workout – a weightlifting regimen modeled after that used by the guys that starred in the movie ’300′. It was about 11pm and the gym was virtually deserted when I’d just finished my second set of 100 straight excruciating reps of heavy compound exercises, and my body officially told me to go fuck myself. I knew I was going to throw up, but between me and the bathroom was a good 10 yards, a stairwell, and another 20 yards in the opposite direction. Ever so gingerly, I sprinted to the stairs and flew down the stairs as fast as I could without jiggling my stomach. I failed. At the bottom of the stairs I threw up in my mouth but somehow managed to swallow it. I made it about halfway to the bathroom before my stomach decided to re-heave the vomit I’d just swallowed…and then some. This time it was more than I could hold in my mouth. I vomited all over the rubber mats in the stretching area of the Capitol Hill WSC and, since I was still running, a good amount of it wound up on my pants and shirt. I went to the bathroom, cleaned up as best I could, and tried to walk out of the gym with a big stupid smile on my face like nothing happened. I spent the next six weeks training at home out of fear of being recognized.
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