Monday, September 1, 2008

Get Out of my Gym



Any loyal follower to this blog - if there are any - will know that myself and Tewks are loyal Crossfitters: this inevitably means a woman on each arm and frequent visits to the gym. I've been going to the gym for about 6 months now, and the characters I find never cease to amaze me ... most of them legitmately there to improve their lives and fitness level: but some there to take up space and treat the gym as a hang out ... I've managed to subset those that annoy me into the following categories:

#1: Runway Fitness

Do we honestly live in a society where sweating, grunting, and wearing a simple pair of shorts and t-shirt to the gym isn't perceived as the right way to do things?

There's a guy at my gym who wears a polar fleece over his long sleeve Under Armor T Shirt which is tucked into his Nike trackpants ... of course, with a cell phone clipped to his waist. He's fat and barely exercises ... I've contemplated throwing a dumbell at his head just to get him moving.

#2: Cell Phone Usage

Usually the same people decked out in hundreds of dollars worth of gym garb in #1. We all see how cool you are ... how you have so many friends and you couldn't possibly take 45 minutes out of your busy day to work out hard at the risk of a communication breakdown. From the looks of the riff raff doing the texting, I'm sure the messages read something like this:

^$$^BiGBoi^$$^: Yo babe! @ gym pumpin'. Hang out at mall l8r? Lata fine thang!

**BayBPhat**: Hey sxy! C U thurr! XOXOX

#3: Non Crossfitters

Working out should be a journey in increasing your overall physical preparedness ... if you or a friend were ever really in trouble you could rely on your training to see you through it. For example ... if Tewks and I were going on a man run in the forest and a 335 LB log fell on him (couldn't be any heavier than that though) I could lift it off of him. There would never be a situation where you had to execute a tricep extension to save someone's life: never.

#4: Urban Music

Gangster beats don't lend themselves well to pumping iron ... the only time they've ever helped me is when I grind up behind some drunk girl at the bar ... but at the gym? Give me a heavy guitar riff over UNTS-UNTS-UNTS-UNTS...

#5: Socializing

Oh... I'm sorry... you're using that chin up bar? It's hard to tell when you're talking to your fat friend... who's also not using the chin up bar.

#6: Out of Shape Personal Trainers

Honestly... there's one of these at my gym... the typical out of shape guy who you only see working out his chest and his arms... and this is the guy who you're paying $60/hour to get you into shape? The guy can't even run 400M ... but yeah... look at that bench press total... very impressive.

#7: People That Don't Squat Correctly

A full squat is getting your ass below parallel to your knees. Yeah... I could squat 300lbs too if by "squat" you mean lower my hips 3 inches.

#8: Incompetent Receptionists

We get it ... you hate your job: and you probably should - after all, you're going to be stuck in $10/hour hell for the rest of your life. But all I want is for you to take my gym card and give it back to me after I'm done working out... I've had my membership card lost twice because the complex alphabetizing filing system is just too complicated for the tart who failed Grade Nine.