Staffman Rocks

Hardworking attorney / man of the people / super-hero to fans of 1963 Ford Fairlanes.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Gym-Nasty-ics

Update

Just a quick catch up for my fans. I graduated law school, took and passed the VA bar, and am now steadfastly employed in Washington D.C., although this blog will have absolutely no content related to my job. Also, I sold my car to my sister and now my sole means of transportation is a motorcycle which I lived off of for a few weeks when I first moved out here. There will be more stories on those things in the weeks to come. I also weigh 199.5 lbs, which leads us to...

Gym-Nasty-ics

Due to my relatively large size, I decided to join a gym. Good idea right? Right. It's been a pretty good experience overall. For instance, my need for personal grooming products has been drastically reduced to an all-time low because, after being inspired by my good friend Spike over at therealdookie.blogspot.com, I choose to take full advantage of the "complimentary products" offered at the gym. The up-side is that there are razors, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, shaving cream, hair gel, and even deoderant (although I don't go so far as to use the deoderant except in the most dire of circumstances). The down-side is that the hair of all of my fellow gym patrons and I, to quote the late Mitch Hedberg, has eqaul shine and bounce.

The down-side is further enhanced by the following: One day, as I sat entangled in a vain attempt to understand some version of a Nautilaus Hamstring Strengthening / Depraved Torture machine, I happened to glance to the area in front of the free-weight dumbells. As any novice gym user can attest, the area in front of the dumbells is reserved for folks using said dumbells; you know, bi-cep curls, tri-cep "skull crushers," and various other activities that tend to prove that Freud was right on with his Thanatos concept (I think that's the one, but I haven't had psych for nigh on 4 years.) On this particular day, however, it appears that the space in front of the dumbells was being reserved for crimes against nature.

From my position I could see one individual prostrated in the push-up position. Not so unusual, particularly considering that this gentleman was very large, in the sense that I'm fairly convinced that his left arm contained the muscle mass of my entire body. What was somewhat less than normal was that, perched on his back with his feet hooked under the push-up mans arm-pits, was another man-hulk performing abdominal crunches.

Ladies, gentlemen, and all 3 loyal readers, I know what you're thinking, because I was thinking it too: "those poor conjoined bastards, they have to work out together because they are physically joined." I mean, there really can't be another reason for that, can there? "Yes," is the appropriate response. The two men in question were not conjoined twins doomed to a fate of joint, more than slightly homoerotic workouts for the rest of their lives. As they took breaks from their work out / performance art, it became clear to me that they were, at least during these brief periods, two separate individuals.

Now, Staff-maniacs, you know I am not quick to judge people so, I further surveyed the situation to see if some logical reason existed for this behavior. As it turns out there was no "most-disturbing-workout-position contest" being held. The Earth's gravity had not been reversed, rendering the weights and machines useless. There was no massive break-down in gym equipment, weights or benches.

Having gone through what I consider to be a fair and reasoned analysis, I came to the conclusion that the two big dudes were ridiculous. This was made particularly true when I realized that benches designed specifically to isolate and improve the efficiency of abdominal crunches existed and were available a meager 15 feet from these guys.

Now, being a large dude myself (much in the same way that those twins on the motorcycles in the Guinness Book of World Records are large), and being done with the dumbells, I decided to keep any criticism of Mssrs. Push and Up to myself. Moreover, I have not seen the diabolical duo since this event. That being said, I still have nightmares.