Gym Tales

I think everyone has their own arsenal of stories regarding people they encounter at the gyms or place of physical fitness, if you will. Depending on the focus and location of your gym, you will come across different group sets of gym rats.  My gym has an unusually high percentage of very strong, very buff, gay black men.  I must admit, they are very nice to look at, but based on where I live, it's just very odd.  And I would usually expect to see such dedicated gym rats at a Gold's Gym, vs. where I go.  (I hope I haven't offended anyone by saying this.)
I used to go to this other gym, which shall remain nameless, and this place had characters.  And I don't mean stereo-typical workout fiends, these were just some straight-up weirdos.  Let me explain.

Exhibit A: The "shadow."  I am very solitary when I go workout.  I have my plan I know exactly what I am going to do, and I am habitual in the fact that I will usually set-up in the same area everyday.  So one day while I was doing my thing, I noticed a shadow, we'll call him Frank. He was a hispanic man, probably 50ish, short, like 5'3" and he was not dressed for the gym. At first he was following around this younger guy.  Any free weights this guy picked up, Frank would go bigger, and do what we was doing.  Except Frank wasn't strong enough so he would do about 2 reps, then hang around until the young guy moved on to something else.  I watched for a while, doing my own thing, listening to Britney Spears, because girl knows how to drop a beat to get you moving. Next thing I know, he's shadowing me.  I lunge, Frank lunges. I squat, Frank squats. I curl, Frank curls.   And he wasn't even trying to hide it. He was literally four feet behind me to the left and I was facing a mirror!  I was so tickled, I just started laughing and laughing.  I didn't confront him, but I did make eye contact with others to kind of acknowledge, 'Yeah, this guy is shadowing you.'

Exhibit B: The "Crotch hole."  Did I get your attention with that one?  So back to the gym, I was doing my mat workout one day, you know, crunches, push-ups, etc. when an older white man with quite a bit of extra weight occupied the next mat.  I was in the zone, again, doing my own thing. Then it happened. I started doing crunches to the left, and there I was, face to face with this man's crotch.  He was sitting on an exercise ball, spread eagle, rolling around like he's working out hips.  Except there was a huge hole in the crotch of his pants and all that's between me and his "cash and prizes" was a thin layer of faded white cotton.  I stopped mid-crunch, got up, and left.

There's more, but I feel like this has been a long post. I will leave you with this for a little motivation.