If you use a gym, you’re probably familiar with the personalities I’m going to talk about. They are in every gym on planet earth. It seems they were all born from the same mother.
What are they, you ask? Let me run them for you.
Cardio-nuts: These are members who come in about twice a day and run for a couple of hours on the treadmill, then another hour on the step machine, and finish with thirty minutes of recumbent cycling. All these exercises in a single session, usually between six and nine in the morning. But that’s just the morning shift – they come back at night for an hour of spinning. Why all this cardio? Do you feel guilty about something? A little more of the cardio pump and they’ll fit into the smallest crack in the wall! Being able to count every bone in your body just by looking in the mirror is not the healthiest option. Some suffer from anorexia or bulimia and constantly feel guilty or fear that they are overweight. They tend to take a proactive approach to their fear by exercising too much. Try telling them that overtraining has its drawbacks and they’ll give you the meanest look. Why bother? I just say, “it looks good!” and follow my happy and well cut path.
Massive Nuts: Now this one is common to all gyms. They hate cardio and spend most of their hours lifting weights, working to build the most massive body. Most of them are loners; they lift weights, for several hours, then they leave the gym. When you try to talk to them they are very nice, a bit shy, but often with very interesting stories.
Social nuts: They are, as their name suggests, the social butterflies of the gym. Everyone knows them, whether they like it or not. They look a lot like the characters on Cheers. You got it: everyone knows their names. Most of their time is spent trying to meet new people, forgetting the reason they’re really supposed to be in the gym, which is, sometimes I have to remind people, by working out. For social geeks, a good bombshell is the cell phone number of a beautiful gym member, female, in most cases.
Narcissistic nuts: You find them everywhere, even outside the gym. They always need to look beautiful for the mirror. They pump a specific muscle in the body and then have to pose and ask the mirror, “Who is the most beautiful of all?”. They flex their muscles a couple of times and then go back to exercising. Although they are mostly men, women do too. Oh yeah. They work out, feel a little sweat trickle down from their foreheads, and then head to the locker room to put on more makeup and dry their hair. After each set, they go back to the locker room and do it all over again. That is your ritual. It’s fun to watch!
Wackos eager to impress: This is quite an interesting personality, very suicidal. They want to impress their peers with the amount of weight they can lift or bench. Most of the time, they are new to the sport and want to lift more than they can in order to earn respect. Horrible way, but you can’t tell them anything. A wacko who wants to impress will put several hundred pounds on the bench press. Results? Backaches, pulled muscles, maybe even a trip to the ER
Ego-nuts: Not exactly the same as narcissist-nuts. This one is usually quite interesting, but sometimes quite annoying. Has anyone seen Pumping Iron with, well, the Governor of Califohhhhhnia? Yes! The famous Arnold Schwarzenegger. I can very well understand why Arnold took on this persona. Hell, he had the body to show for it. Impossible to find a body as perfect as hers these days. Well, today you can find the same self-centered guy in any gym. They constantly talk about themselves, about the new inch that appeared on their biceps, about last weekend’s conquest, etc. They can go on and on, and they usually do. Before you know it, you spend your training picking shit out of your ears. If you have time to burn, they can be quite fun. However, a couple of hours spent with a crazy ego, and you just might jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.
There are many more personal teases that you will find in the gym. Some have nicknames. Yes! They deserve them. Among personal trainers, you will hear the craziest names. Sometimes I laugh with some of them.
A friend in the business has earned the nickname “Three-Headed Gibson.” Why three heads? Well, reading a biology book, you will notice that all human beings have heads (in most cases), of course. But some have dedicated their lives to building what we call the trapezius, a muscle located on each side of the head, near the neck, which, when really pumped, tends to stick out very prominently. In my friend’s case, they are so large that they look like twin heads on either side of the one he was born from.
Another noteworthy nickname is “Eclipse”. This guy had a latissimus dorsi (“lats”, in the trade) so big that when he spread his wings, he blocked out the sun, like some kind of mythological beast! Other nicknames are given to those who deserve them. Nicknames are not similar to personal-e-tease, however they can be based on them.
You get my point. Now, let’s start with what everyone is waiting for. I will now move on to the main part of the article series. Welcome to our personal life.