Personalities in gyms are a lot like cover songs in piano bars. No matter which one of the thousands of ramshackle venues you stagger into, you’re guaranteed to hear the same slurred rendition of Brown Eyed Girl before the night is over.
For the past several months I’ve been cataloging and classifying the sundry characters that frequent my gym. Scores of them enter and exit every hour. Some are so regular that I could tell you with atomic accuracy exactly what muscle groups they’re scheduled to exercise on a given day. Others are purely transient – business travelers staying at nearby hotels, or guilt-fraught gluttons atoning for holiday gorges. But at the end of the day, no matter how many hundreds I observe, they’re all just isotopes of five basic stereotypes. Whether you realize it or not, you’re already familiar with these stereotypical characters, because they’re the same ones that populate your own gym.
In fact, statistics dictate that you probably are one of these characters.
And if that’s the case, I have some advice for you.
THE EXHIBITIONIST
You spot her as soon as she walks into the room. She’s flaunting a tank-top-slash-sports-bra that disappears somewhere between her midriff and indecent exposure. There’s an inane message – “PINK,” probably – plastered in capital letters across the seat of her child-sized Soffe shorts. Her sole purpose in life is to distract nearby male gymgoers who might otherwise have been busy grinding out sets of crunches with hopes that one day she might stare at them. The women in the gym are ogling her too, but with vitriol, because they know that she owes her Disney princess physique to good genes, a coke habit, and a regiment of self-induced vomiting.
How to spot an Exhibitionist: Don’t worry. You won’t have to try hard. Take a gander at that machine that women use to exercise spreading their legs. You know the one I’m talking about. Oh, and if your gym has a women’s-only section, don’t bother peeking. You won’t find her in there.
Advice for Exhibitionists: I’ve got a few questions. For example: Who told you that your pajamas were appropriate workout attire? Also: Can I help you stretch? Please?
THE RESOLUTIONER
You may believe that it’s steady, $40-a-month memberships like yours that keep your gym profitable. But the truth is that your gym operates more like an H&R Block. Every January it rounds up countless human cattle whose fickle New Year’s weight loss resolutions are bound to last about as long as a four-year-old’s pet goldfish. You’ll spot these types plenty in January. But their appearances will gradually taper off, until about March or so when they’ll have convinced themselves that if they just take the stairs at work or watch their Jane Fonda workout tapes once a week then there’s no real need for squats and dips and treadmills.
How to Spot a Resolutioner: They’ll be the ones in the brand new, brightly colored Nike sweat suits with the matching water bottles reading the instructional labels on the Nautilus machines.
Advice for Resolutioners: I have nothing but kind words for you. Your perennial failure subsidizes the cost of my gym membership. I look forward to seeing you next year.
THE CONVERSATIONALIST
No one’s more obnoxious than the guy who treats your gym like it’s a Rotary Club or a cocktail party. Sure, he says he needs a spotter. But what he really wants is to be your friend. Before you know it you’re shaking hands. Exchanging names. He tells you about his job. Asks about yours. All of a sudden you’ve spent what should have been a 30-second break between sets chitchatting about trivial bullshit for half an hour. And when there’s no one left for this sweaty social butterfly to badger, rest assured that he’ll sprawl out on a bench, break out a cell phone, and boast loudly to some poor soul about how “swoll” his lats feel.
How to spot a Conversationalist: They’ll spot you.
Advice for Conversationlists: Find a singles bar. Join a book club. But for Christ’s sake, when I’m curling a barbell with a pair of headphones buried in my ears it means I want to listen to Dr. Dre – not to you.
THE GRUNTER
Actually no, that middle-age bald guy exercising in the corner is not passing a kidney stone. He is hefting a couple of slightly heavy dumbbells, and he’s going to make damn sure you know about it. Because in his book, a workout’s not a success until he’s ruptured a blood vessel in his neck and sprayed spittle all over the mirror in front of him. Re-rack your weights? Not this stud. That’s for the birds. And why practice good form when you can just throw out your back?
How to spot a Grunter: He’s like a backwards thunderstorm: you’ll hear him before you see him.
Advice for Grunters: You may believe that your “breathing techniques” help you tack a few extra reps onto a tough set. But I’ve got a better idea: lift less weight. Jackass.
THE LOCKER ROOM LOITERER
Some people just enjoy being naked. That’s cool when you’re sipping late-night cocktails in a Jacuzzi among coed friends. And it’s okay around the showers in the locker room. But when your idea of a solid workout is half-an-hour nude in the steam room, fifteen clothes-free minutes in the sauna, and a long dip in the hot tub au naturel, well, everyone’s seen more than their fair share of your junk. (By the way, are there loiterers like this in women’s locker rooms? If so, I’d like to propose a trade.)
How to spot a Locker Room Loiterer: Try your hardest not to. Wear a blindfold, if you have to.
Advice for Locker Room Loiterers:In most states you can’t smoke a cigarette in a public place because it irritates (and poisons) non-smokers. Next time you’re in my locker room, please think of your penis as the most carcinogenic cigarette ever manufactured. No, I don’t have a light. And neither does anyone else.