In addition to the 12 people described in the linked Rick Reilly column, who else goes to your gym?
The Smelly Guy - He’s either never heard of deodorant or suffers from an unfortunate condition. Either way, at least shave the pits, dude!
The Doing-it-all-wrong Dude - No, the standing calf press machine isn’t designed for half-squats or shoulder shrugs. This is why they have nice pictures on the side of the machine. He’s also the one who likes to teach his gym partner the “right” way to use the machine.
The Buy Out the Juice Bar Man - He spends about $30 before every workout. I guess the flax seed oil is necessary after you’ve drank the gallon-size protein shake, 2 energy drinks and downed a dozen random pills.
The Half Body Crew - Let’s do chest, triceps and shoulders every. single. workout. Legs? What legs? Those are stilts!
The Oops! Lady - Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind watching your boob pop out from time to time. But when you buy something 3 sizes too small, I get the feeling that you’re just looking for attention. Especially when you show the faux embarrassment smile every time.
I probably can probably come up with a few more later, but there’s at least two or three of each of these types below at my gym that weren’t covered by Rick or the OP.
The Chatterbox - This is the guy you see who is at the gym for 2 hours, but you almost never see him doing an exercises. He seems to know everyone by name, and will chat will try to chat with you between sets for 10 minutes if you let him. Hell, sometimes he’ll even keep chatting with you while you’re doing a set, even if you have your headphones on. He will almost always shamelessly hit on every woman who is even remotely attractive.
The Early-Bird Special - They’re the REALLY old people you usually only see in the gym in the morning or during the day. They’ll stick to the machines, but when they do them they do them with no weight and do 100+ reps in a row, wait for 10 minutes between sets, and do it again. They’ll usually give you lip if you ask how much longer they’re on the machine.
Too-Busy-to-Change Guy - This is the guy that’s just too busy to put on clothes appropriate to the gym. He’s the guy that spends 30 minutes jogging on the treadmill in a shirt and tie or doing squats or deadlifts in dress shoes. Bonus points if you see him doing in a business call WHILE he’s running or lifting.
The Wanna-Be Bodybuilder - This guy is sort of a cross between Rick’s Grunter and Stripper types. He’ll often do ridiculous amounts of weight really noisy, but he also wears the least amount of clothing he can get away with because he wants to show off. You’ll also often see this guy lifting his shirt and posing his abs. I’ve seen some of them spend a fair amount of time just posing in front of the mirror. They’re usually short, usually have perpetual squat-walk and hold their arms like their lats are too big to let them hang naturally.
The Woman Who Can’t Admit She’s Not in Her 20s Anymore - This is who the stripper type often becomes when she’s gotten older. She still wears the same slutty workout clothes but just doesn’t have the body for it. She usually has obvious work done, always wears full make-up. She will flirt with anyone that will give her more than a passing glance. She will go to ridiculous lengths to draw attention, one at my gym will randomly start singing along to the music playing or laugh hysterically at something on the TV. Watchout if the Chatterbox and her start flirting, they’ll be at it for an hour.
The Swinger: A guy who picks up dumbbells and does bicep curls by swinging each arm backwards to gain momentum then swinging it forward to raise it and then letting it drop. Convincing himself that he’s actually doing 60-pound curls.
Incline Guy. This guy sets the treadmill to near-sprinting pace and the incline set to maximum, and holds on to the bar for dear life while trying to speedwalk up K2 while his whole body is tilting backward. He’s barely able to keep up with the pace but doesn’t (or maybe can’t) run, yet his upper body doesn’t move at all- if he lets go he’ll faceplant and get thrown down the hill. This goes on for 40 minutes.
Insanely Fit Old Dude. This guy is at least sixty. He gets onto the treadmill or elliptical next to you and proceeds to just pound out insane high-speed cardio. He’s still on it when you finish your own workout.
Always There Guy. Doesn’t matter what time you go. Hitting the gym right after work? There he is. Have a day off, so you’re going to get in a quick workout in the morning? There he is.
Fidgety Husband: “Honey let’s go to the gym together! I’m gonna bust out this wicked hard set then run a few quick laps while you’re on your machine.” [20 mins later] “You done yet? How many more minutes? Can we go now? When will you be done?” A few of these couples started showing up at my gym lately. I want to push those guys down the stairs!
Nude Capt Morgan: The guy who stands naked in the locker with one leg just so while using the gym provided hairdryer to dry his balls. No thanks I’ll skip my turn.
I use the on-site gym at work, and there is never anyone else in there! So the only person at my gym is:
The Guy in the Gym: Look at that, there’s a guy in the gym! Wow, he’s sweaty, but it looks like he’s having fun, and he seems to be good about wiping down the equipment. Is that P90X he’s doing?
The Camping Buddies - It’s always 2 guys who are sharing sets, they get on a machine and switch off every couple of sets, and they never leave the machine - ever - their camping on it. If you ask, they will step aside - but they will stand there and stare at you slack-jawed waiting until you are done.
The early bird people at my ex-GF’s gym (in her building) drove me nuts–one old guy would sit on the exercise bike all day long, with zero resistance, and pedal the fucking thing at about 2 miles/year. I wanted to hook him up with a feeding tube and colostomy bag so he could pedal 24/7 all year round and never break a sweat.
The “I can’t let my heartrate drop” Dude: This is the guy, usually chicken-bone thin already, who jogs everywhere inside the gym; even for things that are inappropriate to do while running (such as going from one machine to the next, or coming out of the shower, naked, to his locker, or going to pay for his spirulina/spinach smoothie).
The gym I belong to now and my previous gym had a version of this person. In both cases, my Early-Bird Special is an old woman who wears too much hairspray/awful cologne and non-workout clothes to walk on the treadmill at about .8 mph.
It’s scary how accurately the author of the linked article portrayed the gym-goers I run into.
Ur doin’ it rong: Invariably teenage to early 20s males. They do wide-grip bench presses with approximately 2 inches of travel, loaded with at least 50 lbs. more weight than they could budge with proper form, bridging every rep off the deck. The last 4 reps (of an 8 rep set) will be assisted by his friend who takes about half the weight each rep. Effectively, it’s a deadlift/bent row workout for the spotter. And he’s got his back rounded.
They move on to 1/4 squats loaded with so much weight that they look like newborn deer as they back out of the rack, super-wide weight belt loosely cinched, back rounded, attempting to bounce on their toes at the top.
Followed by seated shoulder presses using a Smith machine, chicken-necking forward the whole time, but shoulders so far out of line that they look like a flat-chested girl attempting to show the world her non-tits.
For a finish, they do innumerable assistance exercises (hammer curls, preacher curls, triceps kick-backs, cable pulls, shoulder raise machine, lat pull, etc.) with momentum, banging the weight stack or letting the cable jerk on the eccentric Every. Single. Rep.
Yeah, dood, keep doin’ it that way. U’ll be huge! Not.
These are also the guys who make sure to always carry around a gallon jug of water; full to the brim. Most of the time, they don’t even know why they are “drinking” so much water in the first place (I put “drinking” in quotes because the level of water in those fuckin’ jugs never budges). They just think if you drink three gallons of water a day, it helps you get huge.
At the public gym there’s the 70-year-old guy who puts every plate in the gym on the leg press machine.
There’s also the 65 year old Polynesian guy who does 380 lb incline bench presses to show his grandson (on the high school football team) how it’s done. Grandson nearly dislocates his shoulder trying to match grandpa.
There are also the girls who put on make up, do their hair and wear super-awesome-sexy spandex to go sit on the weight machines talking on their cell phones, then give me dirty looks when I ask them to let me work in a set.
Years ago, I had an attractive Oops! Lady at my gym. The current one? Not so much. But she still seems to have numerous men willing to assist her with things.