I will own up to the fact that in an attempt to fend off what other people believe to be inevitable (but which my generation knows to be a myth), I occasionally find myself at a gym. I am not a fanatic about this, as I am an adherent of the Power of 10, which is basically slow motion weight training. I won’t go into the details, but the basic idea is that you complete a workout in 20–25 minutes and then take 3–7 days off to let your muscles recover. The key is to spend around 2 minutes at each station and then take only 1 minute between stations.
I have adjusted the times during which I go to the gym so as I can avoid traffic jams at the stations. Still, there are occasional times that I find myself waiting on a machine for someone to finish their workout. Obviously, I don’t begrudge other people the intermittent use of my machines, but there are categories of people that simply drive me crazy.
iPod Can’t Hear You
- Almost everyone in the gym is plugged into their iPods. It is, apparently, currently impossible to workout without a soundtrack. They blissfully monopolize their machines while the plaintive cries of patrons begging to “work in” go unheeded.
The Reader
- This person will run through one set of repetitions and then sit on the machine reading a magazine until they are ready for their second set. They sometimes appear to be quite absorbed in the story. When the reader has a iPod, all hope is lost.
The Chatterer
- Groups of them congregate around a machine and share their life stories. Apparently the chair on the hip abductor machine is more comfortable than that at the Starbucks next door.
The Endless Set
- These fellows are on a new workout regimen with as yet undiscovered benefits. Using low weights, they will work the machine for 5 minutes at a time. I lose count of the repetitions after 50. When you ask to “work in,” they respond “I only have one more set.”
The Wet Guy
- I probably don’t need to go into details here. It is generally better to get to a machine before his workout begins. Preferably a few hours before.
The Sigher
- This is the fellow, generally not in the best of shape, who, while blocking access to my locker, will, like clockwork, emit a vocalization that sounds halfway between a throttled goose and a mouth fart every 20 seconds. This noise serves to alert all within the metro area of the difficulty of his workout.