Archive for the ‘Gym Tales’ Category
Let’s face it – sometimes exercising can get monotonous. While that round-and-round motion on the elliptical or the thump-thump-thump on the treadmill or up-and-down-up-and-down on the Stairmaster can have a liberating, hypnotic and transcendent quality, your mind needs some stimulation. At least mine does. (Since I work out in the evenings, my coffee/caffeine high has already worn off at this point.)
If you’ve learned anything about me from reading my blog so far, I’m sure you’ve recognized that I’m a) quirky, b) resourceful, c) mischievous, and d) sexy. Using the combined power of the first three (the fourth one is a nice-to-have but irrelevant here), I’ve created a few titillating “Gym Whims” (patents pending) that I use for entertainment while exercising in my rhythmic trance. Feel free to borrow them, but just give proper credit when you get caught or noticed. And by proper I mean blame Obama.
Wonky Pedal Punk’d
Occasionally one of the pedals on an elliptical machine comes loose and begins to slide around. The sliding is usually accompanied by a very noticeable thumping and slapping noise.
A couple of weeks ago I made my way upstairs to get my 30 minutes of aerobic exercise in, but the floor was packed. It was the day after Independence Day so I’m sure all these peeps were working off the copious piles of barbeque, hamburgers, and potato salad they consumed over a six-hour period.
I managed to locate one lone machine that was not currently hosting a large, sweaty man/woman (to dispel your confusion I mean either/or, not hermaphrodite). I hopped on, put the pedals in motion, and there it was: slide-thump-slap, slide-thump-slap. Just great. The grinning dude next to me finished up and headed for the stairs so I immediately took his vacancy.
This is when my fun began. Less than five minutes after I switched machines, Victim #1 approached. Sauna-Suit-Sally rustled up to the machine in her full-body, NASA-grade, silver reflective outfit. She grabbed the stationary handles to steady herself before hoisting her sizable buttocks one-by-one up onto the pedals. When she finally got the thing into motion, the slide-thump-slap, slide-thump-slap action had her lurching all over the place like a drunk sailor in a riding the perfect storm. She stopped to evaluate what the heck was going on, couldn’t really figure it out, and finally hoisted each (sizable) buttock down off the machine.
A few minutes later, Victim #2 ambled over. He’s a regular at my gym and I call him Monkey Arms. Not so much because of their length (although they are a bit longer than on most men his height) but because of what he does with them on the elliptical. These machines have two sets of handles – one is stationary, the other set moves back and forth with the pedal motion. When Monkey Arms gets going, he goes fast – those arms fling back and forth with such wild abandon that you think they’re gonna come loose from their sockets. At the same time, he sports a sort of constipated grimace on his face while snake-like sounds escape from his lips with each exhale: Ssssssss…
This video clip comes pretty close to illustrating Monkey Arms in all his glory.
I could hardly control the smile starting to eclipse my face as I anticipated the spectacle I was about to witness. Really, the entertainment value doesn’t get much better. Monkey Arms hopped onto the crippled machine, grabbed the moving handles, and revved it into high gear:
Slide-thump-slap-grimace-ssss-slide-thump-slap-grimace-ssss-slide-thump-slap-grimace-ssss
It took a full two minutes (I timed it) for Monkey Arms to realize that something was not right. He popped an earbud out, leaned over to me, and asked, “Is there something wrong with this machine?” I shrugged and turned my head so I wouldn’t get caught with the impossible-to-contain huge grin on my face. I guess Monkey Arms decided that there was something indeed wrong with the machine and he left for a different tree-top.
A total of five victims learned about the broken machine the hard way. I got more amused with each new episode, and felt like a kid with the giggles in church. It was awesome. Some might say epic. I won’t say “epic” because I think it’s a cheesy thing to say. But some might. Could I have been a compassionate, helpful, generous person and warned these victims before they made fools of themselves? No I could not. That would have violated the rules of my Gym Whims, drastically reduced my entertainment value, and cheated you out of using this nifty diversion at the gym when your iPod’s battery runs out.
Stay tuned for more Gym Whims for your edification and pleasure.
What do you do at the gym to keep from getting bored?
Letting It All Hang Out at the Gym: #9 (Zechariah Brewer Guest Post )
Today’s Gym Tales post was written by my buddy, Zechariah Brewer. Z and I have never met in person, but I am a great judge of character and can tell you a few things about him even though our interaction has consisted entirely of trading inane comments on Twitter and each other’s blogs:
- He was suspiciously doubtful as a child and unusually quiet
- He deleted his Facebook account a while back because it “wasted his time,” but has since reinstated it (like a dog returning to its vomit)
- He has a blog dedicated to “Life after Facebook.” I’m anxious to see how he reconciles this mess.
Z needs some new friends on Facebook since he made quite a few enemies when he deleted the thousands from his previous account. Send him a friend request here. Tell your friends and their friends to friend Mr. Z. It’s the ironic thing to do.
The University Rec Center
If your local gym manager told you that your gym had tens of thousands of active members, how busy would you expect it to be? What if I told you that some of those members weren’t even aware they were members?
That’s how it rolls at a university rec center. Here’s how the typical fee structure breaks down:
- Students pay a nominal fee (probably less per semester than you’d pay for one month at the Y or LA Fitness).
- Faculty and alumni get a rate that’s cheaper than your average gym, but not as good as students.
- “Friends of Alumni” (a/k/a everyone else) pay a fee similar to what you fork over at your local mass-market gym.
If you spent some time in college but prioritized sleeping over fitness, or if you’ve never been to college at all, you probably need some explanation of the pros and cons of the rec center.
The Pros
- If you’re a student, it’s really cheap.
- Even if you’re in the “Friends of Alumni” category, it still may be cheaper for you than any other kind of gym membership.
- University Rec centers tend to have more resources available (due to the students who pay for it and don’t use it) such as a pool, a greater assortment of fitness classes, and several basketball/volleyball courts.
The Cons
Really, there’s just one con: the people who share the rec center space with you. Here are several that you should be aware of, most of whom you would never meet in a regular gym:
1. The Kid With a New Toy
I worked at my school’s rec center for a year and couldn’t help but notice that our busiest time of year was the first week of classes in the fall. The school had thousands of incoming freshmen and transfer students who had just discovered they had a real-life gym to use. After that first week, however, we never saw them again. You’ll recognize these guys because they come in, immediately try to max out on bench press, then walk around trying out all the machines for 30 minutes.
2. The Spring Breaker
You can expect things to get busy for the first half of the Spring semester. Tons of guys will come in trying to fast-track a beach body, then mysteriously disappear the day school returns from Spring Break. These guys can be recognized by their workout routine that specifically targets pecs, biceps, and maybe abs.
3. The Ringer
Sometimes, university athletes sneak into the rec center undercover to boost their ego by taking advantage of average schmucks like the rest of us. This activity is proportional to the number of games their team has recently lost. Occasionally, though, you might find yourself shooting hoops with a really skilled athlete. And maybe, just maybe, you can claim that at least one of the 700,000 shots they threw over your head didn’t go in because you blocked it.
A university gym is one of the best resources for a college student if you take full advantage of it. Seriously, less than $100 a year for gym access? Heck yes indeed! It’s a good place to unwind, and your college experience is enhanced by actually seeing your classmates outside of biology class. Plus, the people-watching is superb!
What other types of gyms have unique people groups? Who else is there in the University Rec Center that’s you won’t see anywhere else? Do you have a workout partner right now? Because I don’t…
Occasionally I forget my iPod when I go to the gym, and sometimes the battery dies on me mid-workout. I’ve found that observing and listening to conversations around me is every bit as entertaining as Adele or Whitesnake. Entertaining? Most certainly. Disturbing? A little. I may have to switch gyms soon.Read the whole Letting It All Hang Out at the Gym series here.
Five things I’ve overheard at the gym but wish I hadn’t:
- “Dude! You gotta start wearing something under those or I’m not gonna spot you anymore.” [BTW, inspiration for the title of this series.]
- “Ugh. I gotta get these shoes off. My feet itch like crazy! You showering now too?”
- “OMG I’ve got to stop using that pec fly machine – it’s making my boobs too big.”
- “I’m not going anywhere near that free weights area – it sounds like a bunch of monkeys in heat.”
- “Are you hitting the shower now?” “No, I’m going out with Ashley. She likes me this way.”
What have you overhead at the gym that made your skin crawl?
In my last gym post, I talked about categories (tribes) of folks you encounter in the gym. Today’s focus is on a few specific individuals that I see pretty regularly at LA Fitness and have become very difficult to ignore. For the most part they’ll remain anonymous except for the snappy nickname I’ve given them.
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It’s time again for True Confessions.
(Random but somewhat-related parenthetical anecdote: I’ve never been a fan of Truth-or-Dare. I usually choose the dare because the truth hurts. My pride. But while the truth hurts, sometimes the dares can get you into much more trouble. I once had to drink an 8 oz. mixture of milk, vinegar, cottage cheese, and three big squirts of red food coloring. My digestive tract was abnormal for a week and my doctor tested me for a bleeding ulcer.)
Anyway, where was I going with all that? Oh yeah – my confession: I haven’t been to the gym in about three weeks. Life got busy, I traveled out of town for a week, then I got a miserable headcold and spent most of a week cowering and whimpering in a fetal position on my couch. But this week – baby I’m back!
When I walked into LA Fitness on Monday, it felt like a different gym. The machines and stuff were the same, but the freak-count was ratcheted up several notches. Looking back over the last few months, I can recognize certain patterns of gym use and types of clientele:
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