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Ryan Perdio on death and dumbbells.
The pursuit of the body beautiful is a decidedly dicey quest, and the gym floor is a source of many intimate tales of hilarity and faux pas by those who are chasing it.
After all, this is the place you’re likely to see and experience things that you wouldn’t be inclined to witness outside the confines of your own privacy. And no, I’m not even talking about the salacious goings-on that really do happen.
In my many years of working out in various health clubs, I’ve heard and witnessed everything from the mildly amusing and the quite embarrassing through to the downright mortifying, perpetrated by a wildly varied and plentiful crowd of fitness fanatics.
Visions abound of normally meticulous individuals covered with sweat in all the wrong places, their faces contorted into unsightly grimaces, their labouring bodies clad in questionable choices in gym attire; not to mention the snigger-inducing sounds of grunts and moans that accompany their far-too-excessive efforts.
At my gym, one long-circling story is told of a former club member who, after a particularly hard session of high-impact aerobics, emerged from the studio with his pink bits unwittingly peeking out from his much too-short running shorts. Allegedly, he wasn’t Jewish.
Also oft told is the tale of the perky male cycle instructor who moaned much too loudly every time he pumped up and down his spin bike. It seemed too much stimulation from such simple-spirited exercise.
And once, when training with a buddy who had a cold, my face became the unfortunate target of his custard-coloured snot, expelled when he inadvertently exhaled far too forcefully on his last abdominal crunch.
I’ve never seen anyone turn so crimson so quickly.
Thus I vowed never to do anything to inspire such tales myself, lest I die of embarrassment. So far, I’ve been pretty lucky.
Until now.
Buoyed by the thoughts of impending warmer weather, I decided to kick-start my spring fitness quest by heading to the gym for a pre-dawn workout. This despite having not done any form of exercise throughout winter, and with a bloated morning stomach to boot.
And my routine? Lower body exercises. I should have known better.
There I was, geared up and ready to tackle my first set of 50-kilo barbell leg squats. Earphones in place, iPod playing loudly. It all occurred so suddenly, so surprisingly, that at first I wasn’t even sure it really happened - until I noticed the shocked faces staring at me.
On my way down for the squat, which I’d done hundreds of times before, I felt a bit of air pass from my gas-filled interior. A fart. Not able to hear anything but Fall Out Boy blaring in my ears, I hoped badly that it was the silent kind. One that no one else had heard.
When I looked up, it seemed that every pair of eyes in the gym had zeroed in on me. People who had previously been doing their own thing, minding their own business, had literally stopped in their tracks. Most were just staring. Some were smiling. One person had even started to snigger.
Eventually, they all resumed what they were doing as if nothing had happened, but not without my noticing that they were all giving me a significantly wider berth than before.
If only there’d been a doctor on the floor. He could have pronounced time of social death at 5:15 am.
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