Take It Easy

What is it about the gym that brings out the weirdness in people? From elderly ladies wearing sports bras and skin tight shorts to muscle-bound guys with chalk all over their hands sounding like they’re giving birth to twins over in the bench press area, the situation has gotten completely out of control. There is a bizarre sense of comfort that seems to overtake people in the gym. I can’t even speak to the atrocities of the locker rooms, as I swore off entering them many years ago after running across one too many naked guys in no hurry to change that status.

Umm, no sir, this actually isn't okay.

The last time I was at the Y, while diligently plodding through my treadmill-based workout more appropriate for a man about 20 years my senior, I found myself next to a guy running backwards on the treadmill. I’ll definitely admit to being entertained, waiting (hoping) for the scene to turn into an outtake from that OK Go video. But mostly I was just left wondering how this guy was pulling it off with a straight face. If I could release myself, like the rest of my gym mates seem to have done, from the concerns of appearance and protocol, I would show up with those oversized Bose headphones that are marketed for blocking out noise on airplanes. Forget the nuisance of jet engines and screaming babies, how do I block out the grunts coming from the guy with about 60 pounds too much loaded onto the leg press machine? Even more importantly, how do I block out the view of the inappropriately sized running shorts in action on the rowing machine in front of me?
Has it always been this way? In the 1920s, when guys played golf and tennis in suits and ties, did they still gather in gyms, strip down to their wife beaters, and scream at each other while somebody cranked up the tunes on the victrola? Somewhere along the way society decided to confer safe zone status to gyms. Much like sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants, the gyms of America opened their arms to the masses looking to wear inappropriate clothing and make primal sounds not even meant for the bedroom.
All I know is that it’s time someone took a stand. Is it too much to ask for people to remember that they are still in a public place? If you want to go crazy in isolation at your house, they make some great workout products for you. I hear the Total Gym XL is phenomenal. What are you, better than Chuck Norris? Or perhaps I should just embrace the situation, strip down in the locker room, casually throw some talcum powder on my nether regions, grab a spotter, throw a couple of 25-pound weights on the bar, and set free my inner workout beast.