Gyms are filled with wonderful characters, and today I want to pay tribute to them.
From the guy at reception who snorts pre-workout while telling the gym staff he doesn’t have a problem, to the old man who walks around the locker rooms trying to start conversations while bottom-half naked.
But for every awesome gym persona, there’s another which will really grind your gears.
How many of my seven character archetypes also exist in YOUR gym?
1. The Sales Rep
Whenever the person on the adjacent treadmill says “Hi!”, I give them about 5-seconds to confirm which side of the stranger/danger scale they belong on.
In an ideal world they’ll be a really nice person and you’ll give each other friendly nods of approval every time you cross paths in the gym from now.
But we don’t live in an ideal world, do we?
No. We live in a world where ass-hats like Gwyneth Paltrow sell expensive diamond-encrusted rocks which customers are supposed to shove up their hoo-haa in order to “enhance their feeling of calm”.
So yes, it turns out your new treadmill pal is a fucking Herbalife rep, and the 15-minute conversation you had was actually a screening process.
By the end of your current workout you’ve heard how Jayne is living her #dreamlife scamming money out of people who are too polite to say no, and you’ve got a pamphlet on all her products under your arm.
By the end of your current workout you’ve heard several tales about how Jayne is living her #bestlife scamming money out of people, and the only thing heavier than the thick “information pamphlet” she’s forced on you is the feeling of frustration that you didn’t tell her to fuck off.
You’ll spend the next few weeks training at the most awkward times of day just to avoid being ambushed again.
Well done.
How to spot the sales rep:
She’s in the cardio area with a full face of make-up, ready to pounce on her next unsuspecting victim customer.
2. The Model
This character struts around the gym with a selfie-to-sets ratio of 5:1.
They’ll do anything to convince their social media audience that they’re training hard (except train hard) by posing for a series of professional-grade photographs in front of a wide range of machines and barbells.
Oh, and I should also mention that this character is usually a guy.
Yep, a few years ago while I was on shift at a local gym I watched three grown-ass men waste 30-minutes taking photos on a Pec Deck trying to find the best angle to make them appear more muscular. Ironically if they had spent more time using the machine they wouldn’t have needed a magical angle, because they would simply be more muscular!
Women can be guilty of this one too, of course. Heck, a friend of mine recently started dating a girl from his gym and at our last catch-up he told me she looked completely different to the images which they upload on social media, uttering the immortal line “If she ever goes missing, the milk carton people are fucked” which had me laughing for days.
How to spot the model:
If it’s a woman she’ll be doing “Instagram squats” (duck pout, butt out, booty cam phone), and if it’s a man he will be in the locker room fighting over the mirror that makes us all look shredded.
3. The Askhole
Breaking all kinds of unwritten gym rules, this guy will think nothing of gesturing for you to remove your headphones while you’re stuck under a bar to ask some bullshit question about how many set you do for biceps.
Don’t worry, it’s not personal.
He’ll walk around the whole gym, interrogating anyone who he deems to be “in shape” in order to discover their secret… and then he’ll ignore all of it and carry on doing whatever the fuck he was doing in the first place!
That’s classic Askhole behaviour.
This gym character is a distant relative of another cool persona; The Teacher. Unlike his more inquisitive cousin, The Teacher stalks the gym floor like a lion, looking for weak antelope to lecture on how they’re “doing everything wrong” and need to train exactly how he trains “otherwise you’ll get nowhere, mate”, despite looking no fucking different to any of the people he’s lecturing.
How to spot the askhole:
He’ll find you. That’s his whole thing.
4. The Lifer
This guy is “training for life!”
His workout resembles the scene from Spider-Man 2 where Peter Parker stops the train, you know?
Because why do push ups when you can do a:
- Wall-mounted zero gravity press?
- With a Swiss ball between your ankles?
- While using your free hand to curl a dumbbell?
- Which is on fire?
Fuck, even his shoelaces are resistance bands.
I’ve developed a somewhat love/hate relationship with this persona, because I enjoy watching them train, but I dislike how the term “functional fitness” is used as an excuse to over-complicate things which don’t need to be over-complicated.
You see, at its core an exercise is “functional” if it helps you to reach your goal. So if you want to get bigger arms then a set of basic biceps curls would be a very functional choice indeed, just like how a set of heavy hang cleans would be perfect for a basketball player looking to improve his/her vertical leap.
It doesn’t have to be fancy, it’s all relative.
How to spot the lifer:
He’s the Coldplay-looking dude wearing those crazy five-finger shows, loitering in the abs section like a GTA side-quest character waiting for people to interact.
5. The Bag Man
Yep, this guy lugs a big bag around the gym.
The fuck is in there?
It’s usually supplements, because The Bag Man has fallen victim to the money suck that is fitness magazines. These outdated paperback motherfuckers have told him he can look like Mr. Olympia if he takes all the exact same supps (without mentioning the main one he uses) and, as such, his huge bag is rammed with pre-workouts, post-workouts, intra-workouts, and so many pills he rattles when he fucking walks.
He’s usually hanging around the power racks with another cool gym persona; The Gadget Guy. This bloke is to the tech industry what his buddy is to the supplement industry, as he bounces into the gym wearing enough electrical contraptions to battle Jean-Claude Van Damme on the set of Universal Soldier.
6. The Bus
The red face… the crazy eyes… the epic noise…
“SSSSssssSSSSssss!”
I first encountered this character some 25 year ago, and I remember it vividly. While readying myself for a set of 2.5kg lateral raises (shut it!) the man on the adjacent bench released a hiss so deafening I believed the number 12 bus had just pulled up inside the gym.
Nobody knows the true origin of this ultra-manly sound, but it’s safe to say it came from “the school of life”, which is what he’s put in the education section of his Facebook profile.
He often trains alongside The Screamer, a guy who classes his ego as a muscle group which must be trained every single day. For these two lads it’s not really about lifting heavy weights as much as it’s about others knowing they’re lifting heavy weights.
So stand back, listen up, and enjoy the show!
How to spot the bus:
Remove your earbuds and listen up, but watch out for The Askhole when you do!
7. The Shirt Lifter
We’ll finish with my favourite gym character.
Look man, I respect that you have abs and I appreciate the sacrifice that goes into it.
But either you suffer from a rare behavioural condition which forces you to lift your shirt and wipe your brow every single time a woman walks past or you’re just a massive cock-taboggan. My money’s on the latter.
Russ’ Final Thoughts
That’s my list.
If you have some which I’ve missed, please drop them in the comments below and I’ll take a look.
And the next time you find yourself getting bored during morning cardio, I recommend ditching Netflix on your phone and investing in some good old fashioned “people watching”, which is where I wrote this whole post. You’ll notice that these weird and wonderful characters exist in almost every gym all over the world.
Heck, maybe my Granda was right when he told me:
“Always remember you’re unique, just like everyone else.”
– Jimmy McKie
