“People say that losing weight is no walk in the park. When I hear that I think, yeah, that's the problem.”

It takes somebody who is clearly lacking in common sense and normality to want to go to the weight room and punish their bodies. It takes a special kind of crazy. If you are this crazy, you have surely noticed that the weight room is like the circus. There are multiple sorts of crazies there, all doing something to either impress you or make you laugh. These people range from the fake to the shy, the pushy people, the ever present lazies, and the rarest of them all: the hard workers. These are the people of the weight room, and while they do what they do in wildly different and often times annoying manners, they’re going to be there whether you like it or not.

To start with, there are the shy people. These people are shy because simply being in the weight room does not mean that you look like you belong in the weight room. This is evident on both extremes. You’re sure to find that both thin, attractive women, and large, obscene looking men will be sadly shuffling about the weight room, tentatively deciding what to do next. Once these poor people make a decision, feeling that almost certainly somebody will be breathing down their necks, staring at them, or waiting to use the equipment they’re using, they proceed to get their sets and repetitions in as fast as they possibly can so they can get out of the weight room made an observatory. The thin and attractive woman, probably clad in revealing workout clothes, has a painfully obvious reason to get out of there and never come back. The large and obscene looking man, who is undoubtedly wearing either an old t-shirt, stained hoodie, or most annoyingly, very expensive workout shirt wants to get out of there to both escape from the line of sight of those weird healthy people, and to brag to their friends about how they “knocked those reps out, yo.” These two types of people, attractive women and fat guys, are prime examples of what it’s like to be a shy person in a weight room.

Next up are people of the opposite sort, but of far more annoyance. These are the pushy people. In particular there is the fitness obsessed people who worship push-ups and sit-ups, and the preachers, those who seem to go to the gym only to preach everything they know about working out to people who went there to actually work out. These people are absolute nightmares; it must certainly be their goal to make sure you’re totally insecure about every little move you make. Preachers will, in all seriousness, watch you do every single repetition on a set, come up to you after you’re done and say something along the lines of: “Don’t do pull-ups man, chin-ups are the way to go!” or “Maybe you should use a lower weight, it looks like you’re having trouble handling that,” or “Don’t use a double pronated grip on your deadlift bro, it’s better to go half and half so you maximize the anaerobic strength in your posterior chain!” and of course your mind is screaming bloody murder- “Shut up you freak! You’re a monster! I’ve made poops that are more helpful than you!” You do not follow up on these thoughts though; instead you simply smile and say- “Thank you, that’ll help.” The fitness obsessed are almost as bad though, as they’re well known to tap their foot and roll their eyes impatiently as you finish up on the machine they need to get on, because in their twisted minds, if the time between their sets vary in the slightest, by god will they get diabetes. These people of the weight room, the obsessed, the preachers, the obsessed preachers, are oh-so annoying, but they are just another aspect of the ruthless world of weightlifting.

A third option on the menu of weight room strangers are the weirdos. These are the people who show up to the gym that is probably full of equipment they will never have at their homes and proceed to not touch anything. Anybody who shows up to a weight room to do Tai Chi, or sit around and talk with the other people who sit around seem to have a loose connection somewhere. In a room full of people punishing their bodies, listening to high intensity music, sweating, or in peculiar cases, bleeding, it just seems downright inappropriate to be doing Tai Chi, an ancient Chinese ritual that is coined as “the gentle way to fight stress.” If you’re in a weight room doing Tai Chi, you may as well go to the nearest slaughterhouse and order a salad. Even more heinous than this though, are the people who don’t do anything. They will literally show up with some buddies, workout clothes and all, and sit around and talk the whole time. If they’re feeling ambitious, then perhaps they’ll physically stand up and get out of the way of whoever’s actually trying to get some work in. These people could be called leeches, but that’d be pretty offensive to leeches. These two sorts of individuals, those who flail about and do Tai Chi, and those who sit around, are another prime example of the annoying types of people you’ll see at the weight room.

Coming up in the fourth spot are the absolute most heinous sort of person in not only the weight room, but the entire world. These people are the fakes. These abhorrent individuals go about bragging about how many times they’re “reppin’ their bench,” or they walk about shouting obscenities like “curls and girls!” Nothing speaks more to the stereotypical, shove-you-against-the-lockers, take-your-lunch-money, flirt with your girlfriend, kind of weightlifter than this type of person, who’s only body part that’s bigger than their biceps or pecs are their stupid heads. These people will show up to a gym full of diverse and effective equipment and refuse to let the bench press, and only the bench press, get cold in between sets. The sweat from the last chest muscle groupie has absolutely no chance to dry before the next groupie jumps on and “reps it up.” These people are unbelievable, but not nearly as unbelievable as the next, and most preposterous, group of people. These people are the bicep jerks. The behavior of the bicep jerk is simply repellant. These people throw on cut-off T-shirts, jump in their obnoxiously loud truck, speed to the gym, lift a weight two, maybe three painstaking times, then proceed to look in the mirror and at girls and flex like it’s nobody’s business. If you go to the gym and aren’t wanting to murder this person with the dumbbell he should be lifting, then you had better find a shirt with some sleeves, kiss mom goodbye, pack your things out of her basement, fix your god-awful muffler and go get a job, because you’re one of them. Also McDonalds does not count. These two sorts of people, these people obsessed with how much they can bench repeatedly, and those who are obsessed with that awful man in the mirror, are fakes, and they’re the worst sort of people. At least the shy people are either attractive or trying to be attractive, and at least the obsessed and the preachers earned their knowledge. The tai-chi and the sitting crew are at least relaxed in what they do. These self-obsessed phonies are the worst sort you’ll find in the gym.

There is one last sort of weight room inhabitants, and while they are few and far between, they do exist. These are the hard workers, the people who dig and grind away at their workout. They’re courteous and don’t bother anybody, and when they’re done, they leave. Of the two sorts of hard workers, you’d be surprised to find that while one is obviously an athlete training for a sport or simply general health, the other is probably one you would not expect: the beginner. The athlete is a blend of the positive aspects of the aforementioned sorts of weight room inhabitants. They have the courtesy of a shy person, the experience of a pushy person, the individuality of a weird person, and best of all, absolutely nothing to do with the fake bicep jerks and bench obsessors. The athlete works hard and teaches others by example; you’ll see them use multiple machines, give friendly tips to those who ask, and they won’t flex in the mirror a single time. A beginner may be quite different, and while someone who has spent some time in the weight room could tell a beginner from an athlete like a tree from a turtle, to the untrained eye, you won’t see much difference. This is because a faithful beginner will walk into that gym, look at the equipment with a glare that says-”I don’t know what you are, but I’m about to take your lunch money” and gets after it. So what if he just knocked out about a hundred reps on incline press thinking it’ll work his legs, at least he’s working at it. Maybe it’s a little pointless to be doing pull-ups on the doorway when there’s a bar right there, but man does that guy have heart. The beginner doesn’t care when he’s getting snickered at because he’s putting the collars on backwards, or when he’s tripping and falling off the box jump: because he can’t hear anybody over his own labored breathing. He’s there to work hard and get healthy, just like an athlete of any quality would do. These people, these hard workers, are the only tolerable sort of weight room dweller.

The weight room is an interesting place. You’ll see all sorts of neat people there, and you’ll learn a lot of life lessons. Some of these people teach you lessons through good example, most through bad. It would be wise for a lifter to realize though, that they’ve probably been every single type of weight room inhabitant there is to be. They surely started off as a beginner going after the workout like it stole something from him. Then they most probably started to cave to the social pressures of this madhouse and grew to be quite shy. After they’ve grew accustomed to it, they probably dabbled in alternative methods of working out, like sitting around and being peculiar. Then of course the new wave of beginners came on, and this person was likely to prattle on to them about how and when and what to do, and in the meantime got nothing of any sort accomplished at all. Eventually though, they gave way to true athleticism, and this person will find themselves back where they started, working hard and grinding away, but this time with some knowledge and weight room etiquette that made their workout truly one to be proud of. Notice that the mirror flexing phonies have been left out. That is because most people have too good of a heart to let themselves become that at any point in time. If one was to find they had symptoms of being a fake, they would be wise to go the nearest precipice and toss themselves over while praying that they will be forgiven for their intolerable sins. Everybody besides these people should realize that while weightlifting brings out some strangeness in all of us, we should be absolutely proud to be in there lifting and living, crazy or not.