Which way to the weight room…?

This summer I’ve gotten back into the weight room to try and correct my, shall we say, disproportionate musculature. In the process, I was reintroduced to all the reasons I can’t stand the gym and a lot of the regulars there.

First off, who wears nothing but a form-fitting Under Armour shirt to the gym? What possible purpose could this serve, aside from blatant narcissism? Not only that, but the whole point of Under Armour (at least the type I seen worn at the gym) is to wick moisture away from the body. I, for one, can say that I do not particularly like the thought of using a machine that someone wearing Under Armour has used. Sweat is an obvious byproduct of any physical activity, and I don’t want to lay down into a pool of it on the bench, thank you very much.

A whole lot of gym-goers, particularly the guys with ginormous upper bodies, wear pants to the gym. Why would you wear pants? Especially if you’re wearing an Under Armour shirt? If the idea is to stay cool, why wear Under Armour with pants? Oh, that’s right, the idea isn’t to stay cool - it’s to show off to everyone else how ripped you are. Why else go to the gym? In my eyes, the pants thing has another aspect of it - most guys that have ripped upper bodies have Callista Flockhart legs. Yesterday I even saw a guy with one of his pant legs rolled up (not both… one), the only reason for which, it appeared, was to show off some tattoo he had on his ankle. Maybe he’s part of a gym gang - HelWell’s Angels or something.

What really makes the gym an absurd hive of narcissism is the mirrors on the wall. Surely, this serves a purpose in that people can monitor their form as they work out. But inevitably, you see that one grossly overmuscled guy staring at his biceps as he does curls. My six-year-old godson could curl with near-perfect form after a thirty second explanation. There is no way you’re watching your form, you fucking bozo, so why not look around at all the girls you’re trying to impress instead of proving to everyone else how much of a narcissistic clown you are.

The final thing that irks me at the gym is the noise in general. First of all, the HelWel music is always the most ridiculous music you could possibly think of. For example, in my beginning swimming class (BEGINNING swimming), they had the OAR song “Love and Memory” (at least I think that’s what it’s called) playing. In case you don’t know the lyrics, here is the part worth noting: "Drowning deep inside your water / Drowning deep inside your sound / Love me faster than the devil / Run me straight into the ground / Drowning deep inside your water / Drown in love and memories." The word "drowning" is mentioned in four of the six lines of the chorus, and this is played at the pool around people just learning how to swim, some of whom actually are afraid of drowning. Pretty funny, but typical of the awful HelWel music.

The second part of this category is the grunting. People love to grunt like a warthog in heat for really no reason. While I was still playing football I did a lot of weight, especially squats and cleans and what have you. NEVER did I make any absurd grunting, and neither did most of my teammates. But inevitably, some grad student with the brains of a potted plant decides it’s important to make their presence felt by letting out a whole chorus of meatcalls over the course of their workout. Shut your word hole you rutabega! Have some discipline! And stop making the rest of us feel like we’re in a goddamn monkey house.