Gym Anthropologist

It is possible that I will never fully understand the gym (yes, this does mean that I have started going to the gym again). While I know the gym is a good thing, I can't help but be struck by how odd a concept it really is. Of all the institutions modern society has created the gym is one of the more puzzling to me. As I know I have said before in a previous post I should be spending more energy on my workout then analyzing the gym culture but clearly I find the latter to be more entertaining. I should note that I don't think the gym is bad (despite how difficult it was to get me to go back), clearly being physically active and getting exercise is very important and when I go I really do feel better. My issue is more with the extremes that occur.

Firstly, the fact that in this modern society we are so inactive that we had to create a building where we could go to run around and lift heavy things truly speaks volumes. We have made exercise into a culture not just an activity. In Los Angeles you are in the minority if you do not have a gym membership and working out is a very common topic of conversion. As anyone who has spent a decent amount of time in a gym has probably seen there is a wide spectrum of participation in the gym culture. I would venture to put myself in the less involved end of that spectrum. I go to the gym, I do my shit and I get out. I do not hate the experience but I do not love it either. It makes me feel good in the long run but I do not go into some type of shock if I am not able to workout 5 times a week (hell, I never work out that often). My goal in going to the gym is fairly modest. Which offends the trainers there I came to find out during an evaluation by a trainer; when asked if I wanted 6-pack abs I said no, I was just there for a little weight loss and general over all fitness - he just stared at me as if I had just personally insulted him and wrote down 6-pack abs as one of my goals anyway.

While I am perfectly willing to accept that others are more ambitious then me, I still find the outright displays of vanity a little disturbing. Great, you want to work on your arms, that's cool. But is it really necessary to do that one particular (and I might add very weird looking) move 50 times to isolate that one specific muscle? Or the one time I watched a guy walk right up to the mirrored wall and flex, repeatedly for a good 3 minutes just looking himself over and admiring. There are many other examples and all are done as if it were something normal. Which, if you were wondering, it is not.

Obviously working out is a lesser of many, many evils that people could use to fill their time but it is the extremes that gym culture has come to that always strikes me as odd every time I walk through the doors. I blame my easily distracted (and judgemental) nature from allowing me to just zone out during my workout. I can't be sure if it's my lower end of the spectrum position that keeps me from feeling a part of the gym culture or my natural aversion to gym culture that keeps be at the end of the spectrum; either way my position allows me to comfortably observe what goes on around me. And if you are worried that I am being too harsh on the muscle heads and workout freaks don't worry, I'm sure if they were not blinded by the testosterone/adrenaline that is pumping through their veins they would be judging me too.