Pumping Irony

Growing up, my father owned a small weight set that he kept in the basement of our twin family home outside of Philly. Every so often he would head downstairs and, after quickly crushing the teams of big black bugs that ran frantically for cover at the flush of light, would go to work with his weights.

I watched him with a vague sense of confusion. It was explained to me that weightlifting affected muscle growth, which made sense, but what did a medical student need with bigger muscles? This was valuable time he was squandering, stupidly lifting those weights up and down, up and down; grimacing and sweating, breathing violently. What was wrong with him? His face would redden and contort ghoulishly – not unlike the frequent occasions when his children managed to cheese him off with our own brand of idiocy – and I’d wonder, if he was so intent on laboring, why he didn’t just rake leaves or clean the garage (like it was suggested when our parents mistook our detective agency for idle time). At least then a goal you could put a figure on would be accomplished. But this, this was pointless. Had he been training to compete in a sport or for some cinderblock hauling job you could understand, but what was he doing at the hospital all day, lugging around corpses? There was only so much strength you needed to squash big black bugs, although since my habit was the shriek in terror at the sight of them and hysterically flee the scene, I suppose I can really only offer that belief in theory.

Years later, of course, I would find myself not only physically exerting myself just as he had, logging otherwise precious time straining and sweating and repeatedly raising and lowering metal plates for no real quantifiable reason outside of vanity, but paying money for the privilege. Being a type of person generally averse to manual labor, investing a solid portion of my meager coffers into a gym membership that enabled me to bust my hump on a regular basic was a textbook study in irony.

Then came a cruel, unfortunate pairing: my late twenties and nouveau fatherhood. The former dialed my metabolism all the way back from Supercharged: wash 5-topping pizzas down with buckets of beer and lose weight to Why are you eating that cupcake you know it will go straight to your gut you fat ass… and the latter ensured any scant free time I chanced upon was spent on phone ordering take-out, as my wife and I were too perpetually exhausted to even consider the logistics of putting together a healthy meal. When you have a new baby, you tend not to sit down to meals so much as you stand in front of the refrigerator and swallow whole the first thing your shaky hand reaches, savaging leftovers like a zebra carcass on the African plains. In no time I went from being in great shape to being in shape to being a shape. Like a six foot, two inch pear.

After knocking one too many objects over with my distended ass, I realized I had to do something about the situation before my daily routine was continually punctuated by demands for the Truffle Shuffle, and I lumbered back to the gym.

* * *

Maybe it was because of the hiatus, and I was seeing things with new eyes. Maybe it was because I was older and crankier. Whatever the case, my return to the gym brought to my attention an assortment of maddening fitness center idiosyncrasies. Some I had always been annoyed by, while others I’d never noticed – probably because I was guilty of them myself; still others, formerly parked on the periphery of my radar, became glaring. There they were, a catalogue of etiquette abominations irritating me at each workout. So, as I ever so slowly worked my way from the ranks of the obese, I began to catalogue these gym peccadilloes. The following represents an open list (contributed to by Tom):

1. How, during the first couple weeks of working out, the excruciating agony that tears through each muscle fiber in your body with even the smallest movement is such that you want to either break down and sob or obtain a morphine drip. Or both.
2. When people don’t allow a buffer elliptical machine when affording one is possible. There’s a string of 50 empty Precors, and they select the one right next to you.
3. Excessive nakedness in the locker room. Being disrobed as a consequence of heading to or from the shower is one thing, but let’s not overdo it. Is it necessary to freely parade around in all your splendor, genitalia flapping this way and that, with no endgame in sight? The old man who rigorously toweled off his nether region one day in the manner most people floss their teeth – six inches from my face – was unpleasant, to say the least.
4. People who spend two hours in the gym yet accomplish no apparent work aside from the occasional lackluster set of curls or five-minute treadmill stroll, and instead busy themselves walking around aimlessly, looking at themselves in the mirror and striking up unwanted conversations.
5. Overhearing a personal trainer tell a client, “A common mistake people make is to perform the exercise this way…” and reflecting on the fact that I am currently executing the common mistake.
6. Using gym mirrors to spy on people, and making eye contact with someone who is spying on me.
7. When someone asks for a spot, forcing me into a choice between awkward silence and insincere, uninspired encouragement while the person strains mightily . “You can do it” – sigh – “C’mon.”
8. When I use a weight machine after a smaller guy who I naturally assumed I could dominate, but then having to reduce the weight he was using.
9. The fact that I sweat like a typhoon; and the potent, cloying aroma of my unwashed gym clothes two hours after a workout. (And the theatrical face Carolina makes when getting a whiff of me or my clothes.)
10. When I’m leaving the gym and wave goodbye to the person at the desk, but the person isn’t paying attention and only notices as I’m awkwardly retracting the wave.
11. People who do supersets, using two or even three machines simultaneously, causing me to feel reluctant to jump in on one of the machines they’ve monopolized – even though they might not be present at the time. Really have the bicep area cornered, don’t you? Should the rest of us just clear the gym so you can have free reign over everything?
12. Meatheads who growl, groan, and grunt when lifting. Quiet down, meatheads. This is neither a zoo nor a brothel. Are you in child labor?
13. Meatheads who casually leave weight stacked on the equipment after use. Who do you think is going to replace that, you stupid meatheads?
14. Meatheads in general.
15. People who use more weight than they should, demonstrating terrible form as they struggle through a whopping two reps, then look around to see who was looking. Great job.
16. Dying of thirst and waiting for the meathead to fill up his gallon jug at the water fountain.
17. Because of ill-placed equipment, you’re forced to look directly at someone else while lifting, thus causing your set to be extremely less productive and extremely more awkward and uncomfortable.
18. The one girl who works out in the barbell area glowering at you when you steal a peek at her, and then catching her menacing glare again when you turn and see her in the mirror.
19. Feeling a measure of pride and satisfaction at your noticeably improving physique, then seeing some tanned, strapping Adonis with zero percent body fat strut by, and knowing you will need a strict diet, a tanning bed, 6 workouts a week, liposuction, and the actual fountain of youth to look that good.
20. The guy who needs to change straps/hooks/levers/etc to do some bizarre pro-level, twisting action weight pull that works his quadratus plantae muscle. (Hated on general principle but also frustrating as you have no idea how to put it back to normal, thus the machine is rendered useless.)
21. When you’re on the elliptical and the nitwit who had just finished beside you is wildly spraying disinfectant directly into your breathing zone.
22. The guy who finishes his 20 minute cardio cycle and stands there panting ferociously like he’s just completed a triathlon, taking an occasional violent slurp of water. Settle down, Balboa.

Perhaps I could go on. I suppose I could fatten the list by a few pet peeves. But isn’t that how it starts? A little more here, an unnecessary extra there, and the next thing you know…