The Gym

A perfect place for a people watcher like myself is the gym. It is just so interesting to watch people in their different capacities and different ranges of fitness, or lack there of. Going to start off with the obvious, the gym rat. The male version is a guy with bulging, glistening muscles, who knows how to work each machine and spends most of his time looking in the mirror as he lifts weights and watches his muscles bulge. The girl version is that tiny little perfect looking woman from 18-40 (but never looks close to 40 thanks to so much tanning and gym time) They have on their tight spandex workout top and tight but flattering only on them shorts or carpi's. They spend their time being stared at and talking to others of their rank as they make everything in the gym look easy to do.

Muscle heads are quite a bit like the gym rat but they are so much more fun, they think they are hot and are there to be watched. They think that as they add one more of those clinking weights to the bar that they are impressing the people around them, guys and girls alike. They move that little key in the machine to the heaviest weight available and then strain and sweat as they do 10 reps, there are a few that are so obvious that they do more or try harder when a girl is around. I have only seen two women in this genre, thankfully.

Then there are the talkers, the people that come to the gym together or meet there to get on an elliptical or any other such machine and go on and on, hardly breaking a sweat. This is guys and girls alike, guys more stand around in groups and talk taking up space. And many of this people take the full amount of time on these machines, making life very annoying for others.

I think I fall into this next group but I hope that I don't. The new people, people who have very little to no gym experience. You often first see these people reading the instructions on a machine or going through a personal training session to learn how everything works. Most are either somewhat overweight or very overweight, some know how to dress correctly and then some have no idea what they are doing. They don't last very long on the elliptical or treadmill either (I know I didn't at first). But have to give them props for being there and doing what they can. This category also includes the new year years resolutioners who promised themselves that they would go to the gym from then on out, they will taper off over the next few months, but not me!

Some of the groups are much smaller, the old people, this is self explanatory. Some of the old people are impressive and I hope to be like them one day, then there are some the make you go "Hmmmmm". The weird little old man in jeans on the elliptical next to me, "hmmmm". The teenagers are just obnoxious, well to me anyway, taking up space and this group at certain times it not small, they take over the locker room and the machines. There are teams from Olathe schools that get to go work out at certain times and then a few teenagers that come and act like they are cool, wonder what the age and rules are regarding them.

The locker room is a whole different world, feels like back to high school, searching for an open locker and space for yourself. There are the people not worried at all about changing clothes and then there are the people who go in a bathroom stall to change, really, we are not looking, well I know I am not. There are the girls that primp before going out to work out, I have even seen some re-applying makeup before their workout, what are they really there for? Ok that is all I have for now but I will keep observing.