In this modern digital age of ours, there's a tremendous lack of physical activity, especially in our youth. When I was a kid I could've been satisfied literally running in a big circle in my cul-de-sac for hours. Nowadays my brothers (all four of 'em) get frustrated when the internet is slow. They audibly groan when their handheld device take too long translating data into a radio signal and beams it up into space so that they can watch a Let's Play Minecraft video on YouTube.
Now my three youngest brothers are actually pretty active in their own right, considering how often they like to swim on the weekends and that they all play sports through our local church (audible groan). But I think anyone could agree that there's an unhealthy dependence when a child starts crying because they can't find the iPad.
My father eventually noticed this unhealthy use of technology in our household and has begun encouraging physical activity by taking my brothers to the recreation center whenever able. My parents are crazy good parents, each of them working stressful jobs and juggling five human beings all the time, so of course it can't be often that they get to go to the rec center, but that rare Saturday afternoon when the planets align and everyone is available is when they all have colossal fun.
This past Saturday was such a day.
Since I'm staying with my family until I go back to school and, I'll be honest, I was getting a little pudgy, I decided to join them. Now when I'm living in New York, I walk everywhere. Everywhere. My girlfriend and I once walked, I'm not joking, 56 blocks so that we could eat at the only Dairy Queen in Manhattan. In hindsight walking three and a half miles so you can chow down on a basket of chicken strips seems a little counter intuitive, but try spending six bucks on a roundtrip subway ride and you'd understand where I'm coming from.
On top of my spike in walking and my ability to make a single slice of pizza last me six weeks, I became unhealthily skinny. Alas, I returned to Arizona and was pelted with home-cooked meals and fast food delicacies like Taco Bell family packs and animal fries from In-N-Out, so naturally a couple pounds were bound to sneak onto my bathroom scale. You can imagine how I was looking forward to using the exercise equipment at the rec center.
While my eight and ten year old brothers stayed downstairs to play ping pong and climb the rock wall, my 13 year old brother, father, and myself went upstairs to use the weight room. Since my brother was too young to use the equipment with adult supervision, he and my dad stayed together and I went and did my own thing.
Now going to the gym has become a phenomenally droll activity. You use the same equipment in the same way for the same amount of time, you either get tired or bored, and you leave. Since almost every visit to the gym for me is more or less the same, I've boiled it down to four archetypes of guys that you usually see at the gym:
1). The 20-something who once played/still plays a competitive contact sport, so they're nearly an Adonis.
2). The 20-something all grown up, which also breaks down into two subcategories:
a). With time they've gained a little bit of a belly and are working towards getting back the physique of their youth. Age range of 29-39.
b). They've never, ever stopped working out and their biceps are bigger than my waste. Almost always in their 60s.
3). The heavy-set guy who feels pressured by the film, modeling, and clothing industries to physically change himself entirely to win the approval of irrationally judgmental strangers.
4). And me.
I step up to grab two twenty-pound dumbbells and standing on either side of me are the first and second guy. The first guy, the 20-something, wore a local university T-shirt, which he had haphazardly cut the sleeves off to show off his arms. I'll be honest, I spent half my time sneaking side glances at this dude, not out of jealousy or praise, but simply because he was making such a dang spectacle of himself. When he was done with his twin 50-pounders, he set them back down on the rack in such a way that really shaped his triceps, and I know this because it took him TEN MINTES to sit them down. He then proceeded to pick up the 60-pounders (which, like, good for you, I guess) and I swear he was staring in the mirror giving himself the "f*** me" eyes.
Looking to my left and seeing the second guy was like looking into the first guys future. This dude was doing what could only be described as reenacting Kevin Harts bit in his hour special Kevin Hart: I'm a Grown Little Man where the guy won't use the bench press until he knew everyone was looking at him. And when everyone was looking at him, he started grunting excessively to ensure that he had all eyes and ears on him.
Now standing between Beebop and Rocksteady didn't sit very well for me, so after a couple of sets I went over to the cardio machines. Despite my history of little to no exercise, I have a pretty healthy heart. Try not to be intimidated, but I was on my middle school track and field team in 8th grade so I could hold my own on a simulated bike. The problem wasn't the machine or my inability to peddle, but it was another 20-something on the elliptical next to me.
This guy looked like Mark Wahlberg ate Mark Wahlberg, standing next to me at least. As I was pedaling, I could see out the corner of my eye that he kept glancing over at me and scoffing. Scoffing! He was literally getting annoyed that someone who isn't in tip top physical shape was trying to get in tip top physical shape. Now if he had done it once I would have thought he was just irritated with how loud I was playing Bring It On: The Musical (which would have made sense considering it was deafening), but he did it enough times where it looked like he wanted me to notice how much of a dick he was being. It was kind of like when you're in line to check out at the grocery store and the person behind you is getting annoyed at how long you're taking so they just sigh really loudly as a way of telling you how annoying you are. Not so that they would be able to confront you and have the opportunity to tell you off, but actually just for the sake of them knowing that you know that they're annoyed.
Around the fifth scoff, I got up and walked a few laps around the nearby track.
When I walk I tend to listen to solo piano playing so I give myself an opportunity to think aimlessly. My first thought was that I should have gone back to the dumbbell rack and thrown a 20-pounder at that guys' big stupid dumb face, but I thought better of it. I played my favorite Dustin O'Halloran album via Spotify and tried to wrap my mind around this dude.
The way I see it is that this guy needed guys like me at the gym. If you have a BMI of 25 and you're at the gym, what are you doing? It's like adding chocolate syrup to a carton of chocolate milk, you're good. The only real reason to go to the gym nowadays is to show muscular strangers how muscular you are. "You can lift a hundred pounds over your head? Well, I can lift TWO hundred." You can just as easily do a couple crunches and pushups in the privacy of your home. Whether we realize it or not, there's an underlying sense of competition. Even I was guilty of it. I felt just a little bit boastful about my ability to ride a simulated bike for as long as I was able, I couldn't help it. It more than explains the guy excessively grunting at the bench press. Then I realized this competitive atmosphere exists everywhere; the workplace, online, Starbucks. A small part of everyone wants to be the best dressed or the most successful or the most well-liked. What if the meathead was super not well-liked in his everyday life and he was overcompensating by working out at the gym and making me feel bad, thus making him even less well-liked. He needed a non-Adonis like me so he could compare his ability to someone else's. Beebop and Rocksteady needed me too. Without me there to struggle with a dumbbell next to them, they wouldn't have to be nearly as chauvinistic about their own upper body strength. Without me, there'd be no reason for fit guys to work out at the gym because there's nobody to impress.
A more comforting thought was that he was just annoyed at how loud my music was.
After a while I gave up entirely and went downstairs to play foosball with my brothers in the game room, that was a way more fun version of competitive.
