My gym membership is to Bally Total Fitness Gyms, the mega-commercial nation-wide fitness club. Silver and I chose Bally because of the childcare facilities (that most clubs have). At Bally we can drop off Lori for up to 2-hours while we go do our gym thang. Very convenient.

Bally gyms are interesting. The clientele is a diverse mixture of cardio bunnies, bench pressing meatheads, machine using fanatics, vegan yogis, etc. All ages (14 and up, anyway), all sexes (and sexual preferences), all income brackets, various ethnicities, and unique personalities... Bally is an interesting and diverse social microcosm.

Usually, I'm oblivious to all this craziness around me, as I tend to shuffle around in a quasi-daze of fatigue at the gym. But every now and then I can't help but notice things... thing that make me go, "Hmm, that is freaky. I should blog about that." When push comes to blog, I usually forget or I have something else to write about. Well today, I'm making up for lost ground.

half-shirt guy
There is this guy who works out in a half t-shirt thingy. It's like a t-shirt that's 10-inches too short. It's like, "Hey, look at my belly!" Bad fashion, if you ask me. The only time in the history of the universe that a half t-shirt looked acceptable was in Rocky III on a totally shredded Sly Stallone.

biker short guy(s)
Why do some guys feel like they must wear tight spandex bicycle shorts for lifting weights? It's like, "Hey, look at my package!"

gym attire in general
Half t-shirts and bicycle shorts are subsets of larger gym fashion phenomenon that baffles me. People wear crazy stuff to the gym, like super-expensive brand-name color-coordinated outfits. To me gym attire is old sweatpants and a stained t-shirt. How hard is that?

makeup
One last comment on gym style: A lot of girls, Silver included, will put on makeup and meticulously style their hair for the gym. I don't get it; it's a gym not a nightclub.

crappy music
My gym pipes in completely inappropriate music. Think Sarah McLachlan and Phil Collins. Nothing against either artist or their genres, but it's not the type of music that gets me energized.

headphone singer
Given the poor choice of non-offensive, bland, moody music, I understand why people jam out on their mp3 players. But... there is this one guy who insists upon singing aloud to whatever the fuck he's listening to. Dude, nobody wants to hear your terrible wannabe Ashanti falsetto mixing with the piped in Cher; it’s irritating and distracting.

lateral flies in the squat rack
I have seen inconsiderate people perform lateral dumbbell raises in the squat racks. I'm serious. Can you believe it? Err... okay... see, squat racks are designed to help people load hundreds of pounds upon their shoulder and safely squat the weight. Really, the only place one can perform squats are in the racks (or squat cages, which are slightly different but the same principles apply). Now a dumbbell lateral raise is an exercise where one holds a dumbbell in each hand and raises the arms out to the side like a T. This is a relatively light exercise (most people can't lift more than 30-lbs in each hand) and it can be performed anyfuckingwhere... so get out of my squat racks!

weight belts
You know those belts that UPS guys wear for extra back support? Maybe you've seen people use them at the gym, too. I've heard they help protect the back on those heavy deadlifts and standing military presses. I can understand the use, especially if you have back problems. But there's this tall, wiry, and totally healthy looking kid who insists upon using them on those cardio machines that mimic cross-country skiing. How is a back brace going to help you slide your feet back and forth? Seems silly to me, but then again I've never used a weight belt so I don't really know.

tanning booths
I knew it was a bad omen when Bally put tanning booths in my gym.

punching bags
A week after the tanning booths were installed, Bally took out my beloved punching bags. I'm not sure if I dig this trend.

parking lot vultures
People come to the gym to actively exert themselves, yet I've seen people circle the parking lot until that prime front-row spot opened up.

washing hands
I shudder when I see guys take a piss then not wash their hands. I mean, those guys are going to go grab dumbbells and barbells that I might end up using. C'mon, for the love of all things sanitary, wash your fucking hands.

spit
You know what's more disgusting than the above paragraph? Getting sprayed with spit. I was lying on a bench doing some dumbbell pectoral flies, and there was this guy standing behind me struggling with some barbell curls. On his last rep this guy lets out a, "Phhht-Arrrrgh!" which resulted in a spray of saliva raining down upon my upturned face.

grosser than that even...
You know what's more disgusting than the above paragraph? The ringworm on my right should, which I'm positive I got from some non-handwashing dildo at the gym.

cardio pornstar
At my gym there is this cardio instructor that moans and groans like a pornstar getting nailed by a 12-inch cock. She prances around her step aerobics class with one of those hands-free microphone headsets, shouting standard aerobics phrases. "Oh, that feels good!" "Change positions in 3... 2... 1..." "That burn feels so good!" "Go deeper, and deeper, and deeper..." "Stretch it out!" "Go up, and up, and higher, and higher..." Mix up those phrases with moans and groans and you have a perfect overdub for a Vivid Video production.

return your fucking weights
Why can't people return the fucking weights when they're done?
...and so it was written, shenry at 3/17/2005 10:13:00 AM.
...and so it was appended with .