By Ben
My fellow Americans, first off congrats on another day of not allowing these colors to run! Correct me if I’m wrong (completely rhetorical statement because what I am about to say is 100% right), but we are hands down the best country in the world. We have free speech, countless rags to riches stories, and baseball. But, we also have the fattest population in the world. There’s nothing more American than apple pie, there’s also nothing more American than going for your 6th serving of that same Apple Pie. Even though a huge portion of our population looks like the dinner table at the Klumps, America is home to a ton of people with gym memberships. The gym is full of interesting characters; big, small, fat, fit, hot, and not. So without further ado, I bring to you the ten worst guys you’ll undoubtedly see at your local gym or health club.
We’ve all seen this clown. He either works out with his blue tooth permanently attached to his ear, or he uses his Blackberry/iPhone in order to listen to his sweet beats. When he gets an incoming call, look out because he will not forward to voicemail, nor will he wait til after his workout to return this call, but he will answer that call right now as if he is in the privacy of his own home. The conversations vary in topic, but you can be sure of one thing, it’s going to be one loud conversation. Apparently the guy on the other line is funnier than Dave Chappelle because our guy at the gym cannot stop bellowing with laughter. Listen buddy, it’s time to stop working out that voice box of yours and it’s time to get your flabby mid section over to the elliptical.
You may not see this guy, but you will definitely hear him. This guy wants everyone in the gym to know how hard he is working whether he is on the squat rack, the bench press, or repping bicep curls with the massive 20 LB bar bells. This guy sounds like a silver back gorilla that got stuck in a minivan and now can’t get out. I think the next time I see “the grunter” at the gym, I’m going to give him a Mark Mosley-esque kick right between the uprights. Let’s see what kind of sounds this hippo during mating season makes after I’ve rearranged his baby makers with my size 10.5 Nikes.
This is essentially two separate people who have one common characteristic, and that is the smell ruminating out of his area and polluting the rest of the gym. The first guy is typically foreign born and unfamiliar with our American tradition of deodorant. His refusal to swipe a little Old Spice under his armpits is compensated by his intoxicating aroma of cologne. I mean this guy must have a great plumber, because he smells like his shower head spews nothing but AXE.
The other odorous idiot that can be seen at a gym near you is the “drag bunter” also referred to as the “crop duster”. This guy farts in one area and then begins to walk around the gym thus spreading this putrid stench all over the facility. It’s bad enough to contaminate one section of the gym, but to expose the rest of us to your pre-workout meal of los nachos grandes is just cruel and unusual. This guy totally tries to play it off like it wasn’t him. He will make an "ew-what-the-heck-is-that-smell" kind of face at you, as if to say “it certainly wasn’t me!” Yea right buddy, if you didn’t fart then Timothy McVeigh got robbed by never receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. Jackass. Next time ease up on the chalupas before you come to the gym before you infect us with your nasty flatulence.
I do not hate on the guy who sweats at the gym. We all sweat at the gym, I mean if you don’t sweat when doing physical activity then either you lack sweat glands or you are just not working hard enough. It’s the people who sweat profusely and then “forget” to wipe down the bench, machine, or treadmill they just turned into Lake Erie. I was waiting for the leg press machine, which was being used by larger than average guy who was sweating worse than Herbert in a police lineup being conducted by Chris Griffin. Well this guy finished his set and moved on to the next machine without wiping down the machine. I swear the leg press looked like New Orleans after the levies broke. No matter how much you’ve perspired, no matter what machine, bench, or treadmill you used, you should ALWAYS wipe it down for the next person. Anything else is just flat out Un-American.
Everyone is listening to something while they workout at the gym. Most of us have iPods, a chunk of us have blackberries, and if you look around you might even see someone rocking their socks off with a discman. These mini boom boxes have completely changed the game when it comes to working out whether you’re slinging steel or running on the treadmill (and I can’t forget those who like to ellipticallize). The beauty of using headphones is that only YOU can hear what you’re listening to and you aren’t infringing on anyone else’s ears. I can be pounding out bicep curls while Avril Lavigne sings sweet innocent lyrics into my ear and you would never know, unless I was the d-bag known around gym circles as the “cover artist”. This guy needs to make it everyone’s business as to what he is listening to. He sings along to every song that comes across his playlist, that I can only imagine is named “Joey’s Sick Gym Beatz” or “Richie’s Iron Tossin Tunes”. Since his headphones are in he can’t tell how loud he is singing, and it seems like he is working on his next failed audition for American Idol. I’d really like to kick this guy right in his little Pavarottis and force him to hit the high notes.
Have you ever been in the zone, getting your work out on, when you are rudely interrupted by a complete stranger who feels it is his place to correct you on what you’re doing and tell you “a better way to fire on that muscle”? This person generally does not work at the gym, nor are they a certified personal trainer. In fact for the most part these dudes are not in the best shape themselves and therefore should not be giving anyone tips on working out. I mean if I wanted tips on how to pack on 20 unwanted pounds in my hip and muffin top region, I might ask this person for advice. No one is safe from these morons, I repeat no one. I would love to kick this guy right in the Lou Ferrigno’s and say, “Ok what you want to do now is put a bag of ice on those bad boys and leave me the heck alone!”
4) MIRROR GUY
Can we all admit that it was a very novel idea to put mirrors in gyms, but as my mother always said “give an inch and some people take a mile.” That is precisely what has happened at gyms and health clubs around our beautiful country. There are habitual abusers of the mirrors who check themselves out and flex. Mirrors can be a great thing because you can glance at them to check your form and make sure you are conducting your reps correctly. But if I have to see one more guy check out his muscles, pop a zit, or work on his “facebook facial poses”, then I’m gonna have to smash his face into said mirror. Mirrors can also be great for checking out the girl across the gym too…OH crap I just gave away one of my secrets! Well played reader, well played.
I don’t know if many of you are like me, but when I go to the gym I’m all business. I bring my hard hat, my lunch pail, and my blue collar and get after it. I do not want to be interrupted, disturbed, or essentially bothered. I do not mean to sound like a crass dick, but after a long day of putting up with nurses and the like, I just want to release my stress and frustrations on some weights. But after going to the gym frequently you start to see the same people over and over (especially if it’s the neighborhood club) and you start to develop cordial relationships. I’m all about being polite and exchanging pleasantries, but as I said before…I’m there on a business trip. But this guy seems to think its happy hour at the local watering hole. So when he strolls over with that "how the heck are ya?" smile, you politely pop out ONE earbud because this says “I’m willing to engage you and acknowledge your prescence, but I got 2 more sets of lat pull downs to focus my attention on.” WARNING: You are signing your own death certificate if you remove both earbuds. But in reality it does not matter how many earbuds you take out with this guy because he is in full on “Chatty-Kathy” mode. So throughout his ramblings about his take on the Nats pitching rotation (which couldn’t be more wrong) you start to try and make your way back to your machine to attempt to signal the end of your interest in his nonsense. But he keeps on going! You have now meandered your way back to your machine and have placed your hands on the bar as if to say "look compadre I'd like to wail on this pull down bar now", and yet he still has not grasped your unsubtle hint. You are now pumping out reps and he is still smacking his gums. The best way to end this conversation is to give him a quick kick to his Barbara Walters. The only breaking news on his docket will be what hides under his pockets. HEYO!
THIS. GUY. IS. BRUTAL. No woman is safe from his eerie stares, unwanted smiles/winks, and awkward convos. This guy generally does not touch a weight because he thinks he’s at a bar on a Saturday night. The creeper has a couple of levels, and the first is the “game-spitter” who goes out of his way to “mack chicks” at the gym. I have witnessed that the gym is not the best place to pick up girls for a bevy of reasons, but the main one is that common times for people to be at the gym is early in the morning before work or in the evening after a long day of work. Either way many women are not feeling their sexiest and would rather not be disrupted from their work outs. Women are literally hit on everywhere they go, the grocery store, the Laundromat, or the kitchen (too masogenistic?). Guys are relentless, we know no boundaries. I am willing to bet that if one of us walked into a bathroom while a chick was “taking her talents to South Beach” we would still take advantage of that opportunity to spit some game. The gym is no different. I once saw a girl WITH her headphones in doing her thang on an elliptical and this guy walked right up and started chatting her up. She could not have looked less interested and that did not stop this guy. But here’s the kicker: she started to try and hit the guy with the arm rails, and he started bobbing and weaving like he was in the ring with Mike Tyson (1980’s Tyson of course). This still did not stop his incessant advances. Please stop sir, you are only embarrassing yourself.
The other level of creeper is the “starer”, and this guy is generally a certain ethnicity which I shall not name because this blog does not spread stereotypes (take that with a grain of salt). But if you have seen this guy at your local health club, which I know you have, then you know exactly who I’m talking about. I mean this guy doesn’t just stare…he gawks. His eyes lock on a hunny and they do not leave said hunny til he thinks it’s enough. Brutal. This guy ups and downs a girl like old people staring at a piece of art. Now I’m not going to lie to you guys and say I’m above checking out the ladies at the gym, but I am discreet. I’m like a Navy Seal in the way I check out girls. I will not give away my secrets, but just know ladies that Ima lookin’, and Ima likin’!
I get it, times have changed and with that so have the styles. Shorts length has increased as the years have gone by, but everyone is loyal to their styles especially old guys. When these men were young whipper snappers (I think that’s how they talk) shorts were exactly that, short. Short-shorts have many problems, but the main one is that they don’t leave much to the imagination. Short-shorts look fantastic on women, so ladies keep hiking em up. But men? Now that’s a horse of a different color. Upper man leg is one of the grossest and most repulsive creations on God’s green earth. Trust me I have to look at two of them every morning in the shower (you’re welcome for the mental image ladies and gents!). Upper man legs are hairy, pale, and sometimes veiny. And the older they get, the more destructive to society they become. Upper man legs should be reserved for their beholders, and their beholder’s lady. Yet despite all of this there is still a major problem with short-shorts that I have not addressed and this can only be compared to the sign you see when driving through the mountains. The younger generation has grown up with Nike and Under Armour and their glorious invention of compression shorts. The older generation isn’t to savvy on this. Nothing is worse than seeing an old guy doing his thing on the bench press and his Martin Solveig and his Dragonette’s pop out to say Hello. Other places in the gym to avoid when there is an older gentlemen wearing a pair of banana-hammocks are pull up bars, machines with a high rise seat causing the gentleman to spread out his legs, and basically any weight, mat, or ball that involves working on abs. If you’ve been reading this list intently then you can assume what my solution to this problem is…kick him right in his Congressman Weiner and the Congressman’s Interns.
I hope you enjoyed my list of the Top 10 Worst Guys at the Gym, but I also hope you’ve learned a thing or two. If you are not one of these 10 butthole surfers, then I hope you have learned how to keep your eye out. And if you are one of these drains on society, maybe it’s time to stop what you’re doing and reassess the situation. And finally, being an owner of two gentle giants known as mis juevos, I do not condone kicking any man in the groupons. (you can literally put an S on the end of anything and substitute that word for balls. Seriously. Try it). Unless you are kicking one of these ten aforementioned morons who even Lindsey Lohan wouldn’t bang.
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