What's the wierdest thing you've seen at the gym?

K

KimDW

Cathlete
A girl (quite a bit overweight) wearing the standard sports bra (not a top) as a top and spandex shorts.

A man in step class who wore a long sleeve dress shirt (buttoned all the way up to the collar and usually pink) with shorts and when we'd do intervals with cardio on the floor he'd be all over the room. One minute he's on the left side and then all of a sudden he'd be on the other side.

An elderly woman in step class (only Saturday mornings) always coming in 30 mins late and dressed like she's going shopping. Never uses a step and has full makeup, jewelry, and perfume on.

Several people in step with sweatshirts and sweatpants on. Even in the summer.

Kim
 
There was once a woman working out on the elliptical next to me, and instead of listening to her music on headphones like everyone else does, she pulled out a c.d. player with speakers and all. I had never seen anything like that!!! Even if her music was half decent (which it was not), it is very bothersome to everyone else who is trying to work out.

Take care,

Ady
 
How much time do you have! ;-)

Most of the stuff I see is w/trainers. I don't know if you guys saw my question on the Ask Cathe board about deep squats, which she said she would not recommend for anyone over 35. Yesterday I saw a trainer w/a 60+ YO man in a deep squat on the smith machine--butt literally sitting on his ankles--doing calf raises on a step. Now, nevermind the knee & spine compression issues here, why on earth would the trainer have this guy doing something insane like this when there are 2 perfectly good calve raise machines at the gym?

I see lots of ladies on the cardio machines w/the intensity set at its lowest level chatting it up on their cell phones. Not weird, but definitely annoying. Why even bother?

The 6 YO boys in the locker rooms were weird to me.

The poor 15 YO kid on the treadmill who didn't realize he should either hit stop or set his feet to each side before getting off. Took a serious header.
 
I haven't been to a gym regularly for years, so my most recent experiences are when travelling and using hotel exercise rooms.

Perhaps not weird, but definitely disturbing: a very thin woman with a horrible slouch, checking out the weight area where I was (I was so tempted to talk to her about some exercises she could do to help the posture), whom I later saw on a recumbant bike, slouching forward as she peddled.

Not weird, but annoying: a guy doing seated overhead presses, clanking the weights together with every rep.

When I was a grad student and used to work out in the college weight room:
A woman wearing shiny spandex doing squats in a somewhat provocative way.

A woman wearing very short, not-too-fitted shorts, who was obviously not wearing any underwear (which became obvious when she laid down on the bench to do bench presses...should I have told her? Or did she know and not care? By the way...she seemed to be a natural blond.)

3-4 sorority 'girls' monopolizing a set of weights and doing rotating sets of bench presses.
 
I got a kick out of the dude that came in wearing jeans and t-shirt tucked in his pants with a belt and of course, weight lifting gloves.

I also liked to old dude who looked like he was dressed for church hitting all of the weight machines.

Perhaps I have it wrong, and I need to show up in some Jones New York business attire sporting one of the millions of pairs of spiky heel shoes I own and show them all up.
 
I forgot the add the gentleman who used to do overhead presses on the machine ultra fast...like he needed to get some reps in before the end of the world. He did every exercise this way, but at least he was quick and got out of my way.
 
>The poor 15 YO kid on the treadmill who didn't realize he
>should either hit stop or set his feet to each side before
>getting off. Took a serious header.

Oh OUCH!!!! Poor kid!

Weird things at my gym:

The woman who comes to yoga class in regular street clothes.... ummm... it's really hard to do a lot of Yoga poses in jeans.

The man on the stepmill who puts his hands on the bars, and pretty much hoists himself up with straight arms, so that his legs hardly have to work at all - he just moves them along with the steps, but isn't actually "climbing" the stairs.
 
The guy that would come into the group exercise room right when I was getting ready to teach class and who would do his version of "tai chi" and then proceed to kick the wall for a long time!! He also had an "80s" sweatband around his head.

Beth
 
Kim,

At the first gym (and the last) I belonged to, I witnessed the owner (who also happened to be a popular dentist in our town) get busted by the cops for peeping at the women in the tanning beds. The cops pulled him out of the closet next to the tanning rooms. It was chaos! I guess they had to catch him in the act. I was so disturbed I never returned and that was in 1994. :)
 
OMG Melissa! How disturbing!!! :eek: The sad thing is, that's more common than we'd like to believe. And it's just one more reason to avoid tanning beds.
 
>I got a kick out of the dude that came in wearing jeans and
>t-shirt tucked in his pants with a belt and of course, weight
>lifting gloves.
>
>I also liked to old dude who looked like he was dressed for
>church hitting all of the weight machines.
>
>Perhaps I have it wrong, and I need to show up in some Jones
>New York business attire sporting one of the millions of pairs
>of spiky heel shoes I own and show them all up.

LOL! This is a fun thread. I see this all the time too. My old gym had what I'll call a biker dude for lack of a better term who came in w/the jeans, the wallet attached to a chain, & construction worker boots to lift weights.

And I see kids all the time w/those adidas beach sandals on. Having dropped a 25 lb plate on my foot once I know the dangers of that. :p
 
An attractive woman, mid-forties, not in bad shape, totally made up (hair and makeup) wearing a skirt up to her butt cheeks. Thong underwear. Bra-top. Doing ALL of her exercises standing on a weight bench so all of the guys could see up her skirt. Her favorite exercises were, I suppose naturally, deadlifts. This went on for months.

A girl, early 20s, runnings at a pretty fast pace on the treadmill. She's listening to her headphones. Suddenly, she starts laughing hysterically and is thrown off the treadmill to the wall behind her. Oh, wait. That was me. I was so embarrassed I had to leave that day. Do not listen to an audio book unless you are not easily amused :).

Sara
 
Great thread, Kim! I'm ROFLMAO.

The first thing that came to mind for me was this guy with a gigantic, powerful, muscular chest, and little twig legs. Granted, he may be disabled or something, but I didn't see any evidence that there was anything wrong with his legs. And he's not the only one. So many guys at the gym have seriously unbalanced physiques.
 
>A girl, early 20s, runnings at a pretty fast pace on the
>treadmill. She's listening to her headphones. Suddenly, she
>starts laughing hysterically and is thrown off the treadmill
>to the wall behind her. Oh, wait. That was me. I was so
>embarrassed I had to leave that day. Do not listen to an
>audio book unless you are not easily amused :).
>
>Sara


LMAO Sara! That is totally something that would happen to me! I would have to go home too!
 
Hi-
This is a funny thread!!!

My tale is not necessarily one that I've seen but one that I've HEARD!

At our gym, there is a big 20 ft long mirror that divides up the weight lifting sections. I was lifting one day in front of the mirror and from the other side I hear somebody making noises like what you would hear if you lifted a soundtrack off a porn movie. It was so loud that everybody next to me started cracking up and looking around!

The best part of the story is that I snuck over to the other side to see what he was doing/lifting. He had 10 lbs and was doing rear delt flies!!!

Take care, Lynn M.
 
OMG I could go on for hours. I do the majority of my working out at the gym these days due to my son's nap schedule. I hope to get back to Cathe more when he's in school this fall.

Hmmm...

The man at the Gold's Gym I belonged to back in the day that wore jeans and slippers to lift weights...and he scuffled around the room.

Also the woman with the skimpy butt floss leotard, uber poofy leg warmers, headband, and poofy ponytail on the top of her head. Not to mention the fluorescent colors of the whole outfit.

Many, many women who come in with full makeup, perfume, the whole nine yards. They don't break much of a sweat, either. Probably spent more time apply that crap then working out.

Women lifting VERY light weights and doing super fast, exaggerated movements.

Men, like Nancy said, who are so unbalanced looking but strut like the beefcake they think they are. Whoo.

The dumb guy on Sunday who was lifting VERY heavy on the bench press with no clips and was really flirting with danger. Way to go, einstein.

The guy who hung upside down from the chin up bar doing god knows what.

The women that usually yack on their cell phones while walking on the treadmill the whole time.

Random people walking backwards, sideways, you name it on the treadmill. I get the whole agility drill thing but this was not it. Ahem.

Last but not least - definitely not weird but down right annoying. The woman who blabbed on her cell phone next to me (even though a whole row of gliders were free) and refused to either move or get off the phone. I had to get a trainer to oust her and also reminded her how bleeping (insert fun word here) obnoxious she was.


I could go on and on. I feel like I need a bonfire and a flashlight now.


Debbie


I'm not gaining weight. I'm retaining food.
 
the girls in my boot camp boxing/kickboxing wearing these shorts that are very loose and short to the point when they lift/kick the heavy bag you can see their underwear. I just don't understand why you have to were shorts that are loose and you will be lift and kicking in the class. Yesterday i almost said something to one of the girls who was wearing a red (silk, soft, loose short and the whole class i could see her white granny underwear). then we had to do abs while on the floor and her underwear was all i could see.
i think i will say something to her next time.

violet
 
Ok this was me. I was wearing biking shorts, (this was when everyone wore the thong thing). I was in an aerobics class with my sister when I heard a rip and I had split my shorts! Ummm, the funny part or horrifying. It is funny now. I was not wearing underwear. Luckily my sis had a sweatshirt I could tie around my waist to get outta there. Oh did I mention I was in the front of the class! My sister still cracks up at this.
LD
 
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