Ah, the gym.
A place where one can go and lose oneself in the various repetitions, grunts, and the occasional squeaker upon trying to lift heavy all in the name of self improvement.
First of all, the screamers.
It is somewhat unsettling to be minding ones business in the corner (peering like the confused monkey that I can be at some of the contraptions that they have in the gym) when all of a sudden, there erupts from the other side of the gym what sounds like someone just dropped several thousand pounds of weight directly on their nuts. Repeatedly. And slowly, to boot. If you have to scream like you are giving birth right there on the bench, you are probably lifting a wee bit too much, champ. Last lift of a particularly heavy weight, okay, I guess. But every stinking time? Actually a good reminder to me to focus on form and not so much the weight.
Only slightly less uncomfortable (to me, anyways) are the orgasma-women. They scream too, just doesn't come across as the dying-moose call of the men. Yeah, yeah, all men are dogs, I know. Woof.
Another kinda/sorta pet peeve in regards to the ladies are the outfits. A lot of women like to dress down, glance in the mirror, and check out their form. I'm cool with that (woof!), but the closest I have ever come to killing myself in the gym was the result of one of those aforementioned ladies.
One of the things that I like to do is something called a pyramid. Take an exercise, start off low weight and low rep. Not looking for any records here, just going slow and focusing on doing the exercise correctly. During several more sets, gradually increase the weight until you are barely making the target number of repetitions. Then, go down the pyramid until you reach your starting weight. Looks really manly when you are tempted to scream like the goobers above when you are struggling with the 10lb curl, let me tell you. Anyways, one day I was doing military presses I think it was, and was getting ready to lift the heavy (for me) weight. Wrapping my fingers around the bar I was staring at the ground between my feet concentrating on my breathing, not screaming like a wounded moose, and the burger I was going to get later. At the moment when I began the first repetition, I looked up...
...right at the crotch of the sweet little hotness that had taken the 'porno-max 3000' machine. I dunno what the actual name of the thing is, but it is the one that you sit in the chair, adjust the resistance to the desired level, and proceed to open and close your legs to your little hearts content. Any Marines here might picture it as 'Hello Dollies', but in the sitting position. A pretty good exercise for the thighs, but completely ... hmmm ... distracting to other lifters. Especially moi, as I was situated pretty much directly in front of her.
I had nothing, nada, bupkis. The bar wasn't moving more than thee inches, or more or less directly above me. I had no spotter for that particular exercise, and as I did not relish dropping any amount of iron on my nugget (or nuggets, for that matter) I set the weight down and tried to focus on anywhere but straight ahead. It didn't help that she was very in shape, toned, wearing some shorty shorts, and a top that showed her somewhat er... perky, but I did my best. (Really, I did. Who wants to be that creepy guy in the gym ogling every which way?) Several attempt to lift, a reduction in weight, and a couple of near drops later, I gave up on that exercise and waited for her to finish.
That was a long set.
