Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Gym Poseurs

Men: If you’re making loud grunting and strangling noises as you work out on the weight machines, you’re a LOSER. That goes double if you drop your weight afterwards, rather than set it quietly back into place. If you have to drop it each and every time, then it was too heavy for you to begin with.

If you think people are impressed by all your noisy carryings-on, guess again. Some of us know a lot more about weight lifting than you, and we’re laughing at you, not with you. Real weight lifters use free weights and don’t have to bellow like an extra in a caveman movie every time they lift more than twenty pounds.

Ladies: Talk on the phone or use the cardio equipment. If you feel you must do both, choose a time when no one else is waiting to use the equipment. Some of us are trying to get a real workout, okay? And it’s hard to believe you’re serious when you’re giggling and chatting while ambling along on the elliptical machine at, what was that. . . 30 steps per minute?

Get off the machine and come back when you’re ready to put the phone away and sweat a little. Okay, honey?

Yeah, gym poseurs really get on my nerves some days. Why is it so hard for some people to come in quietly, do an honest workout without making a big production of it, and go home?

Recent Workouts
Monday: 30 minute elliptical
Tuesday: 4 mile run
Wednesday: 30 minute elliptical, 10 minute stairmaster

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

At my gym we have the girls/women I call "gym sluts," who wear next to nothing in trendy colors with trendy shoes and exercise in a manner which prominently displays all of their barely-covered parts. Yeah, I so want to see your thong-clad buttcrack when you bend over.

Then there are the beefed-up teenage boys (or college students home on break) who stand around and watch each other lift weights. Often they are wearing floppy tank tops to better show off their muscles or something no shirts at all. After a particularly weighty lift they all give each other fist bumps and butt-slaps. I think they're all secretly gay.

Then there's the "Old Farts Club," a group of retired men who walk on four or five adjoining treadmills (depending on how many Old Farts are there that morning) and chit chat endlessly.

I love the gym. Always something to see.

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

To be fair, I don't usually mind the old guys. There's a lot of them at the Downtown Y, which is another gym I go to. Usually they know their way around the equipment and they don't try to show off or needlessly hog the machines. And I'm glad they're staying in shape.

But every now and then, one will decide that a particular weight machine is a fine place to sit and watch TV, or that it's okay to backstroke or breaststroke in the hyper-narrow lanes of the pool, when we're already two to a lane and bumping up against the ropes.

I wonder if there are any gyms that require a Common Sense/Common Courtesy test before they let you in?

Vickie said...

OMG, you've read my mind of late! I switched gyms last year just for these very reasons, and fortunately the new one isn't too bad. Except for the slobbering weight lifting fool who shows up coincidentally every time I want to do weights. Who, as you say drops the weights like they were hot potatoes. And who sounds like a rabid dog. And the only other thing that REALLY bugs me is when I am upstairs in the shower and I hear all this thudding below, like the building is caving in, of people who constantly drop the weights.

Sarah said...

Totally agree on the girls that chat on the phone while strolling (yes, strolling) on the elliptical machine. If you're just going to walk -- go outside!

DK & The Fluffies said...

and please no pee in the pool!

LauraHinNJ said...

Oh thanks for the laugh! I don't go to a gym, but I can just imagine!

Una said...

Hahahahaha! It's been so long since I've been to the gym, I forgot all that. It does break up the monotony though! :)