5 People in Every Gym

Coming to a gym near you.

Aug 15, 2024

1. The Muscly Old Codger

It is written into every gym’s business model, that each location must have 1 age-defyingly jacked old man.

Never two.

If another yoked-out fogey shows, they settle it onsite with a steady-as-you-go battle to the death - the only conclusion of a car-park scuffle in their age category.

The sinewy old fox slinks about the place. Listen out for that skin-tight Lycra catsuit squeaking into view. Although, Lycra is only as tight as the skin to which it clings. Where theirs has slackened away from the body in bunched folds.

This veiny git is fired cautiously up to a safe BPM on a jolty morning cocktail of pre-workout and Statins. He stands smug as a glowing example of human perseverance - reflecting our inadequacies back at us in the sheen of his gristly triceps.

A dick-swinging pensioner with the resting test-levels of a state-sponsored Russian vaulter. Sexagenerian in age and nature. Always with a full head of lustrous grey hair and a randy twinkle in his best eye.

Yet to retire from the mating pool, he chats away with the female gym staff, playing the harmless, neutered old man. When no doubt this red-blooded old-timer has a dick harder than half his step-grandson’s generation

2. Gym Friends

Of all the wonderful ways human lives can become entwined, a gym friendship is undoubtedly the worst.

Nobody has a gripe with friend-friends pooling together their motivation, petrol and life expectancies. But gym friends are not that.

Gym friends are empty bonds that exist entirely on exercising in the same large room and stating one of three muscle groups:

“Here he is - what you on today?”
“Chest, mate. You?”
“Back.”
“Niiice.”

Well, see ya in a rest day’s time then.

Have you ever taken part in - or overhead - a gym convo that held a micro-shred of interest?

Nobody is panting out rare wisdoms between sets. There’s nothing to talk about in a gym, but the gym itself, which is really nothing to talk about.

Never is there a greater deficit of interest than between: a person reciting their workout routine and their captive audience. The meticulous chronicling of how one foot was put in front of another, until it could be put no more.

Behold, the all-too-common phenomenon of two pudgy brers exchanging the same advice from the most-watched podcast on the planet.

3. The Meathead

The worst assumptions of the proudly weak are kind of true. Gyms are a bunch of growling slabheads hoisting things aloft for social status. All that dick and weight measuring is not out in the open, but, as lame as it is to admit, the undercurrent of competitiveness is there alright.

Gym brahs size up each other’s bra size in the mirrored wall. Always taking note of a rival’s social credit score, which is displayed on the end of their dumbbell. The average jockey douche can’t share a machine without entering into a meaningless showdown - one they’ll risk snapping an elbow tendon to win.

4. The Beefcake

There is always one bloke who, over the years, has slowly built their body into a bizarre rock formation. They creak around the place, leaving a trail of deflated teenage boys in their wake. Occupying three machines at a time out of the implicit threat.

Bulging out of a string vest, like butcher’s twine. Borderline clothing that only conceals the outermost tips of their granite man-boobs. A torso held in place with a fortified belt, as they’ve grown too strong for their own not-unsubstantial skeleton.

Muscular past the point of athleticism or attractiveness. A body no longer fit for any part of life between sets. The circumference of their thighs make them exempt from certain sexual positions. So wide they’re pumping away towards two early graves.