A Healthy Dose of Shame

Despite the fact that we are the fattest nation in its fattest era, a robust health and fitness industry has provided us with greater access to the technology and know-how we can use to keep ourselves in good shape than we’ve ever had before. We have dozens of diets, devices and drugs, all designed to make and keep us thin, strong and generally looking good naked. There is, perhaps, no better indication of this than the rise of the franchised super health club. In communities and neighborhoods both small and large, rich and poor, monolithic fitness centers have been propped up. These churches of physical betterment offer the latest pieces of fitness equipment, a bevy of personal training experts, and an environment engineered specifically to motivate us sweat and push away those extra pounds and puny muscles. Unfortunately, it seems that a few of my fellow gym patrons appear bent on dressing or behaving in such a way as to leave little doubt as to why, amidst all these agents for self-improvement, we’re still a nation of fat slobs.

The Tank Top Brigade

Let me just say, I get it. I understand how flattering a fitted tank top can be for a guy. I’ve personally been wearing them for undershirts for most of my adult life. However, they’re just that: underwear. I can’t honestly think of a good reason for a grown man to wear one of these shirts by itself - including in the gym. And yet, I see dozens of men wearing these to work out in. And strangely enough, they’re often paired with oversized shorts or pants. But I’m willing to give this entire ensemble a pass, because there’s a new breed of tank top (if you can even call it that) that’s to the tank top, what the tank top is to the t-shirt. I’m speaking, of course, of the giant sleeve-hole t-shirt, or the douche top.

This shirt is commonly executed by first taking the sleeves off of a regular t-shirt and cutting out the neck. This allows, ostensibly, for greater visual access to one’s guns (because if you wear a shirt like this, you invariably refer to your arms as “guns”) and enough space to show off a little pec-cleavage (and perhaps some stylish neck jewelry). But the next step really takes it up a notch. You cut the sleeve holes open down to the very bottom the shirt, leaving just enough fabric to hold the shirt together. This gives much more liberal access for admirers to your entire upper body, and if you’ve done it right just a peek of nipple from time to time. After all, people are at the gym to get motivated, and what greater motivation than being able to see your sculpted torso, right?

Wrong.

Honestly, in addition to a dress code which would allow anyone wearing something like this in a health club to be immediately removed, this sort of apparel should constitute legal grounds to take someone outside and beat them with a dull shovel. No one wearing a douche top will contribute anything valuable to the world, and will likely spend the majority of their days preying on young women with self-esteem issues or, once they’re too old, telling stories of how they did. I’ll bet a year’s salary that Levi Johnston has a drawer full of these. Do us all a favor and put on a damned t-shirt. If anyone wants to see more, they’ll ask.

The Screamers

Lifting weights is a brilliantly visceral experience. Anyone who’s done it for a while can tell you about the rush you get when you push something impossibly heavy through a range of motion for the first time. There’s probably some sort of endorphin/adrenaline science that can explain it - but all I know is that its reliable bliss, which is often in short supply. Additionally, because of the intensity of the experience, its often difficult to appear at one’s absolute best. Some of the scariest faces I’ve ever seen have been on people lifting. And sometimes, the experience is so intense that the occasional grunt is involuntarily let out. Usually, this involves enough weight that its completely understandable. However, there are a precious few people who feel compelled to actually scream while lifting weights, or grunt so loudly that it may as well be screaming. And by “loud”, I mean, loud enough that I can hear despite the fact that I have my earphones in and my iPod at the highest volume I can stand.

For the most part, these weight room chodes aren’t lifting enough to warrant a good sweat, let alone any accompanying noise. And yet, they’re compelled to make sure everyone within earshot understands that they’re exerting themselves into even greater sculptitude, and we really ought to pay attention. For the few of them who are actually trying to lift something challenging, they’re doing it in the least effective way possible, or hardly lifting it at all - screaming all the while, just to make certain we’ve all taken a good look at precisely what they’ve racked up. In addition, these are the same jerk-offs who feel compelled to drop whatever they do manage to lift in the loudest way they can muster, so that if I failed to notice the screaming, there’s no way I’ll miss the dumbbells hitting the floor from two feet up.

A few important notes here:

1. If I came to gym to hear people working out, I wouldn’t have headphones in. And strangely enough, the vast majority of other patrons have them on as well. Take a hint: we don’t want to hear you.
2. Rest assured that if someone does rack up and lift something impressive, I’ll notice.
3. Invariably, every person I’ve seen do something I’d qualify as “impressive” in a gym has done it with hardly a sound. To put it in simple terms: they let the weight do the talking.

That’s the only thing in the gym that I want to listen to, so shut up and lift.

Pretty Angry Girls

From the looks of it, there’s something really bad going on at the gym for almost every girl there. Because I haven’t seen that many pissed off girls in one place since the prom queen announcement. Honestly, what is it, ladies?! I mean, I can understand the need for a plaintive stare at a nightclub, but at the gym? Despite the fact that I’m always at the gym wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, headphones in and focused on my own workout, whenever I glance at a female gym patron (not counting any I showed up with) they look at me as though they recognize my face from the sex offender registry (for the record, they don’t). Now keep in mind I’m not leering or even attempting to initiate any sort of conversation, I’m just looking around the gym because staring straight ahead was something I had my fill of at military school. And yet, I’m forced to make a point of looking into obviously empty space to avoid hearing someone’s rape whistle and getting pepper sprayed while I’m making my way to the lat pulldown machine.

Is that really necessary? Look, I know there are guys at the gym who can be a little lecherous. But if you’ve been paying attention, they’re really not that hard to spot. Aside from the groups mentioned above, anyone wearing Under Armor (or anything skin tight for that matter), anyone wearing a necklace you can see, or anyone flexing in the mirror are safe to give your “look” to. For the rest of us, we’re just trying to get a decent workout in without being distracted by bad shirts and gratuitous yelling.

Additionally, if you show up to the gym with your hair and make-up done, in an outfit that looks like it costs more than your annual membership dues and showing more skin and cleavage than you do when you go to Vegas, having to deal with a little smarm just sort of seems fair, doesn’t it?

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It’s not as though I expect the crowd at my local gym to look like a Bally’s Fitness Center commercial. I’m not sure I’d even want to go a gym like that (or else someone there might end up writing a piece like this about me). I’m just looking for a little less “crazy” in my workout facility. What’s more, no matter what someone looks like, if they’re in there seriously trying to improve themselves, far be it from me to give them any hell about being a work in progress. That’s what being there is all about, anyways. Unfortunately, too often it seems like many of the folks that show up really need work in the one area the gym can’t help them with, a severely underdeveloped sense of shame.