by Justin La Grange
There's a certain point when you've been going to the gym long enough that you know you're a dirty gym rat, a dirty gym whore. It's like when you car doesn't feel new anymore or when you finally set into that comfortable zone with a friend/girlfriend that's no longer awkward -- that's not to say it still doesn't piss you off. It's the point when people who weren't made for the gym finally quit and those who were made for it get their Hollywood star and move fervently onward. It separates the men from the boys. It's when you own it, when you finally feel comfortable, when it's finally your place, when you're big enough, when your life begins to revolve around the gym, when you're pissed if you didn't have a premium session, when you're finally no longer a newbie. It's a point at which you become intensely neurotic and obsessive. It's when you can bench or curl next to a dumbass meathead and not feel uncomfortable -- prejudiced and loathing maybe -- but not uncomfortable. This acceptance into the gym elite club is unspoken by but known among its members, almost in a telepathic sense.
And pardon my sexism, but women are not entitled to this status (it's a guy thing), unless it's one of those one in a million muscular chicks or one of those chicks that can kick my ass. Fortunately, those exist on the Discovery Channel and not in my gym.
Anyway, there's a certain demeanor required for this status -- a certain way you get to comport yourself in a privileged fashion. But I've come to experience that this privilege comes with a few roadblocks. It's said that with great privilege comes great responsibility. And great responsibility requires dealing with major issues and said "roadblocks" along the way.
Roadblock 1 -- When your best is never enough.
God knows I've been pleased benching 45 plates on either side of the incline, benching 185 a few times, curling a 75 bar, and doing 45 Christian Bale gyro-situps. But along comes -- as usual -- some juiced hamhead doing double the weight right next to me, leaving me nonplussed. Leaving me with the realization that my performance is really just mediocre. And it's a vicious cycle, as I felt that way when I just started out looking at someone with my current performance, feel that way now, and will feel that way when I turn into a meathead and some Arnold mofo is there deadlifting 700 pounds. Again, it's a vicious ugly cycle that never ends.
Roadblock 2 -- Dealing with showers and locker room nudity.
So while my mom is sunbathing and carousing in Maui for what seems like weeks on end, I'm left tending to the house all alone (apart from my pervasive sexual exploits). Naturally, the water heater aqua-explodes and begins spewing water all over the place, and fearing that a gas explosion was next, I shut everything down manually in dramatic fashion, leaving me with no heat and hot water. One of you might furnish a solution involving taking a quasi-shower with cold water, but I do not live in a first-world country to take showers with cold water.
So, in a plotline that makes the desperation on Desperate Housewives look replete of non-desperation, I'm becoming desperate to take a shower and will go to desperate lengths to do so. Unfortunately, there's only one simple option -- the gym. The showers in the gym are configured in such a way that maximum exposure occurs, with tiny one-foot protruding stallwalls and showerheads lining the main walls on either side.
I'm not a prude -- if dared I'll run on a beach nude or to do something else outrageous. But when trolling around others nude is voluntary, it just seems so déclassé. The way that some guys shamelessly through their junk around is simply in bad taste. It's something the disgusting secular-progressive free-loving déclassé hippies of the 60's would do. If there's something that God spoke about more highly than being "natural", it was being modest.
There's this unwritten rule of gym etiquette that says when you're going to take a shower at the gym, you have to take it full monty from the lockers (which I don't like to use) into the shower area -- as much as I think this is a massive conspiracy devised by NAMBLA members, it must be followed nonetheless.
Why is there any construct -- outside of a bathhouse -- where male nudity is accepted and fostered? To be honest, I wouldn't be so bothered if there was an age and BMI limit, but that reality just doesn't exist. Actually, it's not too bad at 10-11pm when I go as some of the most hardcore guys go to work out at that time -- they just can't handle the amateurism and bullshit of the gymbeciles during the day.
As I've written in my previous gym posts, what's going on with other guys in the locker room doesn't go unnoticed, and it's not gay -- it's just guys trying to stack themselves up to the next guy. These dog-eat-dog comparisons create competition, and competition fosters insecurity. However, competition also fosters improvement. If Joe Meathead's biceps are making mine look doubly crappy, it's double the bicep workout next time. In other words, nudity has its plusses and minuses...but mostly minuses.
I'd talk about my shower, but let's leave the panties dry for now, shall we? Especially you Timone.
Roadblock #3 -- How smooth is too smooth?
Have you ever noticed that some of the best gym rats are smoother than a baby seal? That is no genetic accident. I admit there is some strange allure to this, and I'm not going to lie, but I'm somewhat a fan of manscaping, and openly endorse it for other guys too. As for the haters, all I can say is I've learned it comes with the territory and you need to shutup. You say no-scaping makes you a real man, but it just makes you irritating at the beach and in the showers, and probably with your chick. If you have to look at something -- and make the aforementioned roadblock #2 comparisons -- at least be somewhat ergonomically sound and presentable for others around you.
Yet, there is a perplexing point at which so smooth can go too far; when going too smooth just seems to remove your masculinity. And yet it is still so tempting. The devil inside your head goes, "Boy, my legs would look amazing and defined if there wasn't this hair visually distorting its contours. Everything would be so nice, clean, smooth, and symmetrical." Us OCD folks are big fans of symmetry.
However, if I had to choose between naturally being Mr. Bigglesworth Asian or Mr. Joe Monkey, I'd rather be Mr. Joe Monkey as you have the option of getting rid of what you want. There's nothing a razor or Vietnamese lady at a wax salon will not do. However Mr. Bigglesworth Asian has to relegate himself to a lifetime of hairless mediocrity and masculine estrangement -- there's nothing more creepy than an Asian guy who can't grow any hair on his legs. And then when Asians do happen to grow hair, it just doesn't come out right. It will always perplex me that a people sandwiched between India, the Middle East, and Russia cannot grow any body hair.
The point of my incoherent ramblings is that reaching gym rat status portends certain complexities arising -- physical and mental introspections, if you will. You learn more about yourself and your character through the nature of your gym life than you will anywhere else. You learn that the funny things and the outrageous things are life, and that's just how it goes.
You learn to balance self-worship and self-loathing.
You learn that at the end of the day, don't be a sellout, don't be a gymbecile, don't be a gym snob, don't be a gym queen. Be a gym rat.
Photo Source:
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