Was in johor the past 2 weeks for my semester break and while managing the gym and visiting various gyms around johor i couldnt help but notice the diffrent characters iv seen my four years of being in the industry, here's a compilation:
The Model
The most common gym lurker. As the name implies, this guy works on muscles to show off at the bar, with purpose of impressing chicks and to brag tht he goes to the gym to "workout". Usually, it's a young guy between 15-25 years old, who's at the gym working on every upper body muscle he can see from the front. But cant squat, bench or deadlift anything beyond 135 pounds.(and hes been like this for years and years) They are always saying tht they "dont want to get to big" but when they see a really big guy start assuming it must be the use of roids the suppliments he uses or genetics.
Their routine consists of endless curls, bench presses, pushdowns and seated presses. Once in a while, you see him throw in a few lat pulldowns and set after set of crunches just for fun.
The Baby Sitter/ The Meditator
How many times have you been pounding through a workout and you look up to see the next piece of equipment you need in order to continue the barrage of punishment currently being used? To keep your intensity, you bypass the desired equipment for now and decide to come back to it later. Finally later arrives and you look up and the piece of equipment is STILL in-use by the SAME person! Okay, you say to yourself, I'll come back to it.
Later,you turn to check if the equipment you need is yet available. Again, the same person is sitting there. To top it off, they are either sitting on the equipment staring into thin air (thus earning them the title "the meditator") or they've been having a conversation with someone else for the past 15 minutes! These are what I refer to as "Baby Sitters". They feel the need to baby sit equipment for long periods of time. when you politely ask to work-in, they look up and say, "I have 2 more sets and it's all yours". Knowing they could have completed 20 sets in the amount of time they had been sitting idle.
When im working out i usually just avoid them altogether and do something else but when i get complains about them ill often insist that they move on to other exercises. So, if you are in search of a really good baby-sitter, you may want to start at your local gym. I'm sure you'll find several qualified experts!
The reporter
This type of guy is rare and is often well disguised, but you don't want to run into him. This guy wants to discuss how much you lift lifting, what you eat eat, what you drink, what you wear, how you breathe,what music you listen to, how you do your laundry, what you feed your dog, yada yada yada... pretty much anything and everything about your life with you, often in great detail and the worst part is they love to do it while you are training. They want to know everything about you and your workout but seldom ever follow it they ask and ask and ASK about often very obvious infomation over and over again to the extend where you start to feel like a celeberity being hounded by the paparazzi.
Now, I have nothing against conversation, especially workout talk, but this guy doesn't know when to stop and turns a one-hour workout into two. Hey...if you wanna talk, talk in the locker room or better yet invite the man for a drink and then ask away....you have 15 hours a day to ask whatever you want so don't pick my workout time to do it.
Mr. Scream
No matter what weight this guy is using, or what rep he's on, he feels the need to share his pain with us.What makes it even more astonishing is that this person will be lifting a small amount of weight. I've had and have the privilege to experience quite a few occasions where the "Screamer" has made his presence known. I always remember something I was told when I first started training. I was having a conversation with a lady who was training next to me when a screamer yelled at the top of his lungs. Trying to suppress my laughter, she turns to me and says, "You know, I always heard that the noises a person makes while training are the same ones they make while in bed".
A certain amount of noise is understandable, and even expected on certain movements (i.e., squats), but nobody wants to hear you yell through 4 sets of pushdowns. He screams with every single rep of the workout heck..he may even scream during his warm ups just to get attention.
Rack And Roller
This has to be seen to be believed: this guy goes to the dumbbell rack, picks the heaviest dumbbells off the rack (dumbells which probably weight more than him), places them on the floor and then rolls them to whatever bench he's working on. He then attempts to lift the dumbells (which is a seriously sorry sight to behold) and fails which results in him muttering to himself. He's under the impression that everyone cares how much he's lifting, and wants us to know that any other day he could have made the lift. If you see this, make sure to avoid eye contact, otherwise you'll end up hearing a lengthy, bullsh*t explanation for the travesty you have just witnessed.
When he's done, he rolls them back. It's a good thing too... I mean I wouldn't want him to exert himself. Especially funny when they're hex dumbbells!
The Hurler
Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with puking. This guy feels the need to launch any weight he's just finished using, especially dumbbells, onto the floor which makes a HUGE boom which can be heard thru out the gym which gets the attention of everyone. Not only is this a hazard for anyone near him, it breaks down the dumbbells and the floor and can be totally irritating.
Losing control when lowering weights might happen once in awhile, but launching the weights so everyone can look and see how much you used is pathetic.
The Tag Team
This is one the the most funny and quite often seen incidences in the gym, i first saw this in a gym in Batu Pahat which consisted of an old guy (around his 60's and) and a younger guy (around his 20's). The team, as the name implies, is actually two guys working together to lift the same weight.
This is almost always on the bench press, where one guy loads the bar up and his friend helps him pull every rep after the second one. The younger guy practically got the bicep workout of his life "assisting" the older guy with his "benchpress".
I've even seen instances where two guys helped one guy on all of his reps. Rhetorical question time: If you need help in every rep to bench 400 lbs, do you really bench 400?
The Entourage
Another one that borders on cliché: You've seen the group of guys - lifting together. They almost always congregate at the bench or preacher station. They hog up this area without seeming to do any work. They love to praise each other and talk about the "heavy" weight they've just lifted and are very defensive should any one of their members be under seige.
They're more interested in what party they're going to or which chick they're trying to score with. Lord help you if you want to bench when they're around.
The Scholar
I see guys carry bodybuilding mags around the gym all the time. Usually they're trying to follow some bullshit 30-set routine; I feel bad for them but it doesn't really bother me. What irritates me is the guy reading a book in between sets.
You shouldn't be able to talk between sets, much less have the ability to read a book. I mean, if you're not going to put real effort in, then why bother in the first place? Last time I checked, there were no studies showing that reading Men's Health which training is anabolic. And DO NOT try and gimme tht kinda bulls*it advice while im wroking out..
Desperado
Hoho.. im sure almost every gym has at least one of these guys, whose sole purpose at the gym is to search for someone to rub up against. His habits of constantly leering at, hitting on, or "accidentally" bumping into the female members make him a nuisance. One of these days he's going to bump the wrong girl and end up with a 25 lb plate sticking in the side of his head.
The Coffee Drinkers
You have to train in the morning to notice this fine breed of gym goer. You know the guys and gals that just sit in the juice bar sipping on their Latte carrying on a nice little conversation with their fellow coffee drinkers while you are busting your butt. They will do 1 set every 10 minutes. If you train in Fitness First you will notice them at the juice bar sometimes with green tea or any of the carbonated drinks they offer (hmm...i wonder how the drinking a litre of coke before your workout can be good when you wanna burn fat..)
The Flirting Bimbo
All you guys know who she is. She is one of the hottest girls in the gym but she is also the most annoying. She is the one that comes up to you after you have just blasted out a set of squats from hell and bats her eyes at you then proceeds to ask you "can you please come take these plates off the leg press, they are just too heavy for me". Which is fine once, twice or even three times but after some time you just feel like telling her "Hell no, what do I look like, your personal trainer?" You know how moody one can be after doing a set of brutal squats.
The Bodybuilder wannabe
Nothing annoys me more than while I am in the middle of a set and this poor excuse for a physique comes over and offers his unwanted advice. Always critiquing the way you are training and that his way is so much better. Im not against giving useful advice but Hey buddy, if your advice is the best why don't you look any better than what you do. Unless you've got a body with something to prove, weight more than 275 pounds ripped and have a whole string of competitions pls get lost, besides if i wanted your advice..id ask...
To bear the storms that life may share;
To walk where only lions dare.
