Oh Alice, This Isn’t Wonderland. It’s The Gym!

03 When We Swam

My friend Trevor works at LA Fitness and today while he put me through a painful bootcamp workout, he told me he liked my blog, but he was disappointed because I never write about the gym.  I thought what?  Of course I must, I’m here everyday.  But he’s right.  I think it’s one of those things I feel like is off limits because no one is at their best working out.  I sweat so much it’s gross.  It’s like celebrities without makeup or Tyra without her weave.  It’s not that the material is not there.  The crazies at the gym are no different than crazies anywhere else…except they have on stranger attire and are always in some sort of embarrassing position.  Some of them wear spandex (including me on occasion) and they resemble the woman in this physical fitness ad from the Racetrack gas station on Highway 10.  If you zoom in on this picture by the way, it’s like they tried to make a boobalicious superhero to sell beverages, but decided to keep it real and show you, you will be a little flabby if you eat at the gas station.  She’s got a weird belly area (in a different position a terrible camel-toe) and up close her right boob is not the same size as her left boob and is kind of out of place.  So Racetrack keeps it real with their customers.  That girl in the left corner also “powers up” with a frozen slushie.  You can see that it is working because she is squeezing her arm where a muscle should be.  If you just walk around and do that, this signals to others that you are fit.  It’s like a fraternal secret handshake.

Gym people come in all forms.  There are regular people who do regular things.  But they aren’t for this blog.  There are the matching, pretty, I have a rich husband types with perfectly sculpted bodies, big fake boobs, fake smiles, and they manage to run on the treadmill reading US weekly.  Then there are the regular looking people in T-shirts and workout shorts or pants who are pretty competent, but they either do all weights or all cardio.  It’s like doing both would be like mixing bleach and ammonia.  Then there are the out of shape people working hard.  The older ladies that take the aquafit class.  And then…..

There are the weird people.  They either 1) Can’t dress themselves, 2) Think the gym is clothing optional, 3) Don’t wear shoes (this one lady takes off her sneakers mid run and runs barefoot.  Which grosses me out.), 4) Sit in chairs and just stare at other people (Jake you know the guy I’m talking about) 5) Make bizarre noises when they are working out.  This includes singing out of key on the stair master to Tejano songs.  They are like students in a giant college lecture hall who think you can’t see them if they sit in the back row.  Everyone can see you!  And please continue to be weird for my enjoyment.  Because I felt it unethical to take pictures of people at their worst I will simply describe them.

Strange Woman–This person thinks she should be naked, but she shouldn’t.  She has an intense angry expression on her face every time I see her.  I think this is to signal that she means business at the gym.  She wears weird terry cloth pants that leave her stomach area out and it’s not good.  She has the bad tattoos (you know like barbed wire, green butterflies, or as trevor saw the other day a big blue ribbon with PBB for Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.  The last one shocks me.  If you had to tattoo a beer on you, wouldn’t you pick a good one?  I thought well, maybe it has sentimental meaning like that’s what she was drinking when she lost her virginity or got knocked up with her first child.)

The Laughing Guy–This guy is supremely awesome.  He is an African American man with these awesome pirate dreadlocks and he wears a weight belt for his back and I swear the last time I saw him he had on a fanny pack in the front.  Some people grunt when they lift weights or moan in pain.  This guy laughs like Dr. Hibbert from The Simpsons.  He giggles when he brings them up and when he sets them down.  Then at the end of his set he lets out this contagious boom laughter.

The girls in the locker room–I’ve worked out at 3 gyms in DFW:  The UTA gym, Express Fitness and now LA fitness.  It is guaranteed at every one of these gyms there was some kind of bizarre girl in the locker room.  However, UTA stands out in my mind.  Once there was a girl sobbing and her friend was trying to console her and her nipples were bleeding and her breasts looks like they had been attacked by a shovel.  I was like ohhhh look away.  Turns out she had had them done, and started working out too soon.  The second set of girls were upset about how fat they were (because 100lbs is just too much).  So one girl hands the other girl a laxative and she takes it and immediately weighs herself and goes “Nothing happened I still weigh 100 lbs.”  Ohhh just wait.  I thought about speaking up, but decided that situation is best learned through experience.  At LA fitness, women who get ready bring an army of tools.  One lady had all of her makeup and hair appliances (she had like 3, I know one was a hairdryer, one was a straightener, but I have no idea what the third one did).  She was applying her fake eye lashes taking up the whole counter and was of course naked.  Like apparently you can’t do your hair in underwear and bra.  That’s just too much to ask for.

The jump rope kids–this is not typical of every gym, but at my gym a team of jump ropers practice.  And let me just say that they are weird in an awesome way.  It’s like you got served with jump ropes.  Back flips. Front hand stands.  One of them has knee braces on both knees, which signals to me that this is a serious sport.  I did Jump Rope for Heart as a kid, but I was chunky and could never have learned the routines they do.  Jake, my other friendly trainer, was attracting their attention when he was doing box jumps.  They were all all swoony.

I learned recently that box jumps are where you take a stair stepper and put it up on risers and make it higher and higher and jump on it.  While I was mid jump, Jake made a comment that it would be hard to do the exercise without arms.  Laughing while doing box jumps is dangerous.  I hit my face and totally just ate it.  Trevor made that joke again today when I was unprepared.  It’s not fair guys.  I’m going to laugh and then I’m going to fall, because unlike the laughing guy, I fall when I laugh.

Then there is a series of whiny, lazy people, who you wonder why they even came to the gym if they didn’t want to do anything.  We all have those moments.  Since Trevor worked me out so hard today I almost died, I explained that I would never make myself work that hard.  It’s like your body says no no no.  That’s too much.  And my inner redneck gay man voice plays in my head and says “Sweetie, wouldn’t you rather just get some Braums and watch Bravo?”

I’ll admit I am a tad obsessed with fitness.  But short of stabbing yourself or getting a shot of pure adrenaline, nothing gives you a high like exercise endorphins.  That’s probably the main reason I go.  And people all say, oh I just go to be healthy.  Those people are liars.  They go because they want to look hot and get high off exercise.  We all know when you say you want to be healthy, you mean I want to look good naked.

Keep it coming LA Fitness.  I’m watching you.   And if you want to some kickass trainers go see Trevor and Jake.  They’ll get you in shape.