Weird Gym Man

As a woman who has been a confident free-weight user for over a decade now, I frequent the free weights area of the gym regularly. I am always on the prowl for anybody out to give me guidance. In case you weren't aware, there is a large body of evidence out there demonstrating that (in particular) men like to interfere with (in particular) women's technique, weight load, just general business when they're in the free weight area. Some women are so intimidated by this that they won't use the free weights section. This sort of thing is why there are women-only gyms. I expect there are men who are intimidated as well but I haven't come across any stories about this. 

Not me, though. I am practically begging for someone to come at me. I have honed my icy glare, my single raised eyebrow, my polite but definite eye roll. I have good technique and I lift heavy. Please, let's talk. 

Well, I thought this was the case, anyway. Years passed with no interaction. I suspect I was becoming one of those horrible intimidating gym bros myself, so often did I scoff internally (and we know this internal scoffing can always be read on my face, I give everything away) at poor technique or not re-racking weights or not wiping down after use or, my personal bugbear, men staring at their phones for 10 minutes between sets. 

(I don't want to make it a gendered thing but it just is, at least at my gym). 

Fast forward to last month. I have my usual gym turn out - loud music in noise-cancelling earbuds, no glasses so I can't really see anything beyond the equipment I'm using, refusal to meet anybody's eye. I'm setting up for deadlifting. I've waited a while to use the deadlift platform. Man walks into the deadlift platform in order to retrieve the Olympic bar that I had intended to set up to superset squats with deadlifts. 

Admittedly, he perhaps wasn't to know that, but I think it's bad form to walk into someone's workout space and take something from it without asking. My face says this, loudly. He scuttles off with the bar to the chest press rack I have recently vacated - the one with the Olympic bar in the rack next to it, where I had placed it, where he sets it up to do the exercise I had just finished. I am confounded.  

For a short time, I consider just modifying my work out, but in the end I decided I can go and retrieve the Olympic bar not in use for my squats. I do this, trying not to make eye contact or talk, but it turns out, his stolen bar is in the way, so I have to ask him to move. He speaks but I pretend not to hear or notice, in case he's trying to tell me off. It turns out that all my bravado is worthless in the face of potential confrontation. I return to my area and do my deadlifts and squats combo. It's hard. I'm slow and tired and sweating. 

At some point, Weird Gym Man comes back to the deadlift area and sets up the deadlift hex bar on the mats next to me. He puts 30kg on. This adds up to about half what I'm deadlifting (interior smile). There is, again, some attempt to talk to me, particularly when I am re-racking weights, but again, I pretend not to notice. It's not that hard to do this as I have become temporarily mostly deaf and blind. But eventually, his persistence gets to the point where I just can't ignore him anymore. 

Him: I said, you have a strong back

Me: Er...yes

Him: You're stronger than me

Me: Yes. Well, it has taken a while (thinking: I weigh a lot more than you)

Him: What's the heaviest you've done?

Me: Er...I did 120kg once. But it was a long time ago

Him: But you're lifting 90 there and you make it look like it's floating

Me: (I didn't think this sort of interaction was supposed to be so ego-boosting) Thanks...haha...er, well like I said, it's taken a while

Him: I reckon you could do 200kg easy. That's what I'm training towards. If you watch the world's strongest man, they do maybe 1-3 reps of a very heavy weight and then they don't deadlift again for a couple of weeks

Me: Oh, right, well I do it [this way]

Him: I guess that's one way to go. I am no expert. I can guarantee you that within 18 months, I'll be deadlifting heavier than anyone else in this gym but you...you'll be a close second

Ahhhhh! There it is! Wow, I cannot WAIT to be a close second to Weird Gym Man. That's going to be a CV-worthy accomplishment, particularly considering he is currently nowhere near a close second to me. 

The positive of this is that he has made me lift heavier. I tend to wait until I can do three sets of 10 at a weight for a few weeks, before going up. I am going up quicker now. Tbf, lifting very heavy is not really my goal. I am strength training for (1) better skiing ability and, at a distance behind that, (2) higher resting metabolism because I still eat too much and (3) better health in my old age. But the very idea that Weird Gym Man might outstrip me has lit a fire under me. 

We have had a couple more interactions now. Once I was using the chest press and he wanted it next. I asked him if he wanted my weight. 'No! You're much stronger than me! For now...give it 6 months though...' (oh, we're down to 6 now!) and then I sprayed the bench down and he told me how pointless he thought all this wiping of sweat was. We're in a gym, everyone sweats, why do you bother with that? I resisted the urge to point out the multiple signs instructing gym users to wipe down their equipment and muttered something about it being a habit since covid. He wouldn't let it drop though. I had to do an awkward 'oh heart rate's dropping, gotta go exercise some more' to get away. Now I moved him firmly into Weird Gym Man territory because nobody not weird likes other people's sweat THAT much, surely. 

I have moved deadlifting to Friday's session for the summer holiday. I still go on a Sunday, though. Quite often he is chatting to someone who looks like they've been caught at home by a double-glazing salesman, so I'm thinking - just socially awkward. Last Sunday, I clocked him, recognisable even to my glasses-free blur by his unusual sartorial choice of dark t-shirt and white shorts. He came and dangled off the bar next to where I was doing pull-downs. I fastidiously ignored him. 

Now I will shorten him to WGM so if you're reading future entries and wonder who that is - here is the key. I have noticed a surprising amount of traffic to my blog lately, you ten regulars are joined by 80-100 more readers in the week or so after I've posted, so I can only assume I'm being crawled by 80-100 LLMs who are learning my writing style for nefarious AI purposes. Joke's on them, LLMs are never going to be in with the chance of being a close second to a WGM.