Some Thoughts on Gyms

I've been going to the gym for awhile now on a regular basis. Well, awhile for me, since I am allergic to exercise.

It's true. Every time I exercise I end up breathing really heavy and sweating a lot and by the time it passes I'm all achy and sore. Look it up. Sounds like an allergy to me.

Anyway, the gym I go to isn't really all that bad, but I think it could stand some improvements.

Thoughts that occurred to me while working out...

• The stereotype about muscle bound behemoth that lives in the corner of the gym apparently is unfounded. There are some guys I see in there that could obviously inflict a lot of bare-knuckled damage to me, no doubt. For the most part the people I've seen there are toned...moderately muscled, some of them...but none of them look like they could lift a Buick.
• Other clients don't stare as much as I thought they would at the Fat Guy (tm)
• I thought that the stereotype was for hot dressed-for-pilates women to hang out at the gym. Maybe that's just in LA. I'm glad for that, actually...less embarrassing.
• I figured there were gym people and people who loathe the gym; I'd go and find people who were at home with all the protocols and etiquette that I'd have no idea about. Turns out that my reading clued me into the basics of things like spraying equipment down after using it with their spray-bottles of stinky crap. Nope. Other people often use the machines and move on without a second thought.
• Gyms aren't too forward with offering help. Supposedly my gym offers trainers and special programs and even special services for clients with one-year contracts (which I have). For the most part they leave you alone. I don't know how I feel about that...irritated? Or glad they leave me alone and not make me feel quite so stupid around others that seem to know what they're doing? Hmm...
• If I ran the gym: one, no typos on signs. Equipment is spelled "equipment". Not "equiptment". Maybe that's why other patrons aren't wiping down the "equiptment" after use. Two: offer a policy where if you're new you can wear some colored armband as an indicator that you're looking for feedback on what the heck you're doing.
• I hate the TV's on the sports networks. It's nice when I'm there on the slow days (I always try going on the slow days, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday) and NCIS is on. But usually they have something on ESPN. Two of the TV's have a radio transmitter so you can listen quietly, but another babbles on about Michael Vick loud enough to infringe on my iPod.
• Use an iPod! I listen to podcasts and audiobooks while trying to pull my arms out of the sockets. At the end I'll slam on some movie scores...lately I've found the score to the Transformers movie and Iron Man to work really well at squeezing out the last mile from my dripping flesh before hobbling out of the building.
• If you have an iPod, get an armband. Sucks when it falls out of your pocket or bounces against you with each freakin' step you take on the 'mill. Elastic armbands are in the neighborhood of $20 for most iPods
• Don't get a Zune. That's not a gym thing. I just don't like them.
• Remember, once you extend your muscles and lift a pile of weights up, you didn't reach an achievement until you gently return said pile of really heavy weight back down to the point where they're supported by the Earth.
• Don't use the machine I'm going to next. Not that you'd know which one that is, but it annoys me. Safest thing for you to do is leave until I'm done. People don't seem to abide by this rule of thumb though.
• Don't sit at a machine or bench and stare at the TV. It makes me want to poke you with a barbell without warning.
• Stop chomping gum with your mouth open like some kind of deranged cow. I keep having this obsessive fantasy that you'll trip and choke while on the treadmill while smacking your lips with your incessant open-mawed chomping. Don't worry if you do, though...I'll save you by poking you with a barbell without warning.
• Turns out there really is a machine called the "butt blaster", and it has nothing to do with passing gas. At least it's not supposed to. I don't use it.
• I take secret pride in maxing out one of the machines (my lower back exercise is set to 200 pounds for 15 reps...I think I can add ten more pounds to it and that's the upper limit). Turns out fat people have latent strength in their legs and back, unless you blow them out.

That's pretty much everything that's occurred to me lately while at the gym. I've stuck with it since I am trying to make a goal of improving my strength levels and my parents paid a year membership for me as a gift, and I've been doing really well with going every other day (okay, I don't go Friday and Saturday, so there's a three day interval there).

I still don't like exercising. But at least I'm catching up on my podcasts...I'll change my mind when I am able to lift the front of a VW Beetle.