YMCA Distractions

When I'm working out with the free weights at the YMCA, I try to minimize the grunting by internalizing the intensity.  Most of the noise I make is from exhaling with each rep, finishing the last rep sometimes with a hint of a grunt, and sometimes accidentally setting the weight back a little loudly.

So while I'm not perfect, I think my gym etiquette is probably good enough to not lose my membership if I belonged at Planet Fitness. At the YMCA today, the fellows around me all would have had their memberships revoked.

The funny thing is, while all of them were plenty strong for the average guy, they were not the gym-rat types one might expect these noises to be coming from.

Well, maybe one of them didn't make a gym-rat-type noise: he was singing aloud to his iPod.  Badly. And like Rusty Griswold said to his parents about their rendition of "Mockingbird," I wanted to say to the guy, "That sounds made-up!"

An other guy grunted with every rep.  Dude, the tenth rep where it was life-or-death to get that bar off your chest, I can understand. But reps one through nine?  Please.

The third guy slammed the Smith Machine weights down after each set as if the last rep made his arms fall off.  There's an old adage that I subscribe to that goes like this: If you have to drop the weight, it was too heavy for you.

I would cut the guys some slack, because I certainly would not want any footage of some of my weight-room antics from my young adult years.  It was mostly walking around with imaginary lats, but other things as well that I still try to forget.

These guys, however, are much older than my 21-year-old self.  One of them, in fact, is older than my 47-year-old self.  I'll try to figure out how old the song he was singing is next time we cross cables...er, paths.

Early money has it being an '80s hair-metal song.