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Published on Thursday, 12 March 2009 03:36
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Written by John Romano
It's nice to have choices. So, like many muscle heads, I have more than one gym membership. Today, I wasn't too pressed for time so I went to the big gym (LA Fitness) because I wanted to train, do cardio and stop for a tan on my way home. And, owning up to the fact that it was beautiful day outside, my car had just been detailed, and it was full of gas; I decided to take the long way and drive along the beach to take in some of what south Florida is famous for.
The big gym is a little further out of the way than the other gym (The Zoo), but the Zoo has issues with cardio area hygiene. There are only two stair climbers there and the members who use them in the morning sweat so profusely that they leave a puddle around the base of the climber and sweat splattered all over the lower parts as well as covering the handles. No one mops it up and the member's little gratuitous swipe of a paper towel over the handles when they're done do little to squelch the aura of typhoid that hangs heavy over the machines (but it's another story). Bottom line; there's no way I'm using those things, and lately it's been too windy to do cardio out on the beach. So, mega gym was the choice today.
On my way there, my phone rang incessantly. I fielded one call after the other and I ended up sitting in the parking lot finishing up what I thought was my last call; however, just as I yanked on the gym door the phone rang again and I had to take the call . . . pacing back and forth in front of the sign-in kiosk, glancing up at the clock every few minutes watching my lazy morning turn into a rush.
I finally got off the phone, got signed in (which was another ordeal because I lost that little bar-coded thingy that goes on your key chain). What a pain in the ass! By the time I made it back to where the Roman chairs are located so I could warm-up with hyperextensions, the clock showed very little time left to do what I had set out to do, and I began to curse the drive along the beach for the precious time it had eaten up.
There are two Roman chairs at LA Fitness; both of which were taken up by a pair who, if I didn't know better, had moved in and decided to live on them. Monopolizing machines is a pet peeve of mine; especially when the hour is late and there shouldn't be one person on there. Today there were two. The matter was further exacerbated by the fact that not only were there two people monopolizing the equipment; they were doing some useless exercise. Both members were a good 20 pounds overweight, and they were doing four-sided core moves with a dumbbell - right and left side bends; and sit-ups and hypers in a continuous rotation that seemed as utterly endless as it was useless. I've seen these two in that gym for well over a year now and they look exactly the same, if not worse, as they did when they started. You'd think it would dawn on them that if they're trying to reduce their love handles, maybe they shouldn't be dragging a dumbbell up and down with each movement? Ya think?
After 15 minutes of trying to get on one of those machines I felt like screaming,"You idiots! Can't you tell you're wasting your time? Can't you tell that for the last year those movements have done nothing but make your waist bigger?!" Ughhh..... I was losing my mind. I had already finished four sets of hanging leg raises and wanted to get on with my workout and hit my low back. As it was, so much time was wasted that I was going to lose out on the tan. So I stood there, about six feet from where these two retards were doing their mindless midsection thickening exercises, and one of them starts shooting me dirty looks! Are you kidding me right now? Then she gets up, leaves her towel, gym bag, dumbbell, and the rest of her encampment at the base of the Roman chair, and walks - slowly - over to the water fountain for a drink (in spite of the fact that she had brought a bottle of some kind of red liquid with her when she moved in). She turns to walk back to the Roman chair and gives me another look that would have wilted a candlestick. She climbed back on, hooked her feet under the pad, and settled in for another round. "How many useless fucking sets are you going to do??!!" I shouted with my inner voice.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, one of the chairs opened up. I jumped in, did three sets, sharing the chair with another dude who was equally incensed over the delay, and got off of while Ms Barrel Waist was still deep into her waist expanding program with the dumbbell. I shot her a look back that would have made a trucker blush wondering where the hell someone learns to do something like that. Do the trainers teach them that shit? I mean, come on, you're in gym. It's where people lift weights to grow - to get bigger. What does she think the end result is going to be to the side of her waist if she's doing multiple sets with weights? Every other part of your body "grows" when you lift weights, but that one area (her waist) is supposed to shrink? I mean, come on!
Is it just me or does this bother anyone else?
