"I feel like your're eye ballin me dawg"

                The gym is a great place to not only get your fitness on but also a great people watching place. For myself, I use it more to get a little blast session in to keep myself in tip-top physical form. But recently, I have noticed a lot more people watchers at the gym and a lot of people not doing their lifts correctly (younger guys and obviously young girls). The worst part for me is, sometimes I feel that because of my stature, people kinda eyeball me while I am working out. Let’s cut into this steak and get to the center of it.

                For those readers that don’t know me personally, I am 6’3’’, 180-190 lbs. I am nowhere near a body builder or a professional weight lifter but I can say that working out is one of the top 5 things I enjoy doing the most. Ask anyone and they will say, during the week, I can be found at the gym at the same time every night. Am I obsessed? I would say…moderately. But the amount I work-out is not what I am concerned with right now. It is the people at the gym and their habits.

                Don’t get me wrong, for my size I can put up a decent amount of weight. At the same time, I am no Johnny Bravo or no “bro” at the gym with my new haircut, just a regular weight lifter with better eating regiments than most people. I think that my physical size and the amount of weight I can lift kind of shocks some people at the gym. About 75% of the people that workout around the same time I do are physically bigger and have “bigger” limbs than myself. Nothing wrong with that, it just isn’t for me. Here is where I am getting into the main point of this post.

                Most of the time I am in there, I feel that people are bird doggin me because I venture past the 50 lb dumbbell range. When I go and pick up the 100 lb dumbbells to do flat press, I have the feeling that people consider me crazy.

                “This skinny white boy is thinking he can lift that? Yeah, right. What a clown.”

                That’s what I imagine in my head people saying. Especially the beef daddies in there at night. Not only that, I will go and do a set of pull ups after. Then I really feel people are watching. And there are two specific examples of this.

1.       There are two men who are exercising at the same general time I do during the week. Obviously they are in much better shape than me. These guys are fit and do very excellent workouts and when working out with a partner, you can achieve greater results. “Its science.” “I read it, in a book.” But somehow it always seems that what I am currently working (body part) always puts me right next to them. As a matter of fact I actually witness a guy watch me do a set of lateral pull downs…literally watched me the entire time. Ever since then, I always get this feeling they are just peepin my workouts. Why you ask yourself? I have no idea. Maybe they are getting ideas? Maybe because I shouldn’t be lifting such high weight and they think I’m looney? I don’t know the answers to this. This is just a more often than not occurrence.

2.       This next one happened a few weeks ago. I will call this guy “dreamy eyes”. So I am walking up to the gym, per usual when you are in the parking lot. Like any other time I open the door and noticed someone behind me. So I stepped to the side and held it open. It doesn’t matter who it was, I was just brought up to hold doors open. Well as a matter of fact it was a guy, about 5’5’’, and he looks up at me with the so called “dreamy eyes” and said “thanks.” Now there is nothing wrong here. I hope people would say thanks when I hold doors regardless of gender. Actually women are the worst about it. Ladies, take notes.

a.       So I continue with my workout as usual and obviously have to use the restroom a few times throughout my workout. For guys, as everyone knows, our locker/restroom/shower room is nothing compared to women’s. Where ever you go, men always have subpar standards when it comes to restrooms. It’s a fact and it’s something that is just accepted. Well I go to relieve myself after one of my sets. Well I noticed someone was walking out of the stall area, which has a door on it. So I opened it and who do you think it was? Dreamy eyes. He looks up at me, because I am almost an entire foot taller than him, and says “thank you”. But he is using that same look that babes do when they are really feeling a guy. After that I kind of brushed it off again. No big deal right? Well I saw him out on the weight floor doing whatever lift he was and what do you know I kept noticing looks being shot my way. Maybe I was too nice? Maybe I should only hold doors for women? Who am I to say?

Now on to the next topic, wrongful lifting forms. This comes easy for me because I have friends who constantly pound it into my head that I am doing it wrong and that it should be done like this. But the other night I look over at this girl and I literally stop what I am doing and just shake my head. Not to her obviously, I am not a jerk like everyone thinks. But simply because the way she is using the machine she is on is going to end up hurting herself. I really wanted to go up to her and say:

“Hey good job on being in the gym and working out, but watching you do this machine is really detrimental to my workout because I am worried you are going to injure yourself. Please let me help you so that you can come back again another day”

                But would I ever say that to someone? Probably not. Who am I to give fitness advice? I am obviously not a personal trainer, nor have I ever studied, more than reading books, upon the subject. My friends don’t even take fitness advice from me. Who am I to tell the girl wearing an ankle brace to stop doing weighted step ups? Maybe she wants to break her ankle again. I don’t know these things. But it sure does bother me.

                The gym is a good medium to meet people, if you are comfortable doing so, and it is also one of the many places offered in the world to better yourself. But for me, while “bettering myself,” it comes with a lot to think about while using the facility. It has never been so bad but it certainly is interesting enough for me to sit and think about.

DeeG