Heavy Thoughts

The other day I had the television on in the background while doing some stuff around the house (Discovery Channel I think), when one of those classic, stock-footage shots of two bucks or rams or SOMETHING banging heads in a dispute over dominance popped onto the screen. Glancing up at these two seemingly mindless, self-destructive, and un-evolved creatures, literally banging heads in conflict made me laugh, reminding me as it did of a literal run-in at the gym the other day.

Because of my job and the travel it involves, I work out at maybe 8-10 different locations of the same gym chain. As a result, I sense that I’m a semi-familiar face wherever I go, but rarely someone people can place… a little like dressing up as deja-vu for Halloween I guess. Maybe this in between level of familiarity plays into what happened–I was and wasn’t a known entity–maybe the crowds on a weekday night played a sociological role, or maybe the protruding brow and elongated arms of my opponent-to-be hint at a genetic source, but for some reason I found myself unwittingly involved in a slightly more evolved form of this Discovery Channel-style antler-locking.

To explain: I’m in the middle of a shoulder workout. I love and I hate my shoulder workouts: more than anything other than a leg workout I leave the gym unable to find a comfortable way to sit, stand, or lie down. In the middle of one of these I am maybe more focused than usual, and hence more irritable, but rational and civil nonetheless. As I wrap up my workout with a few sets of dumbbell lateral raises, another "lifter" (I refuse to use a more sophisticated term… we’ll call him "Big Red") finishes a set of his own, walks several steps to where he is positioned in front of me, and places a gym bag at my feet. Not one to worry too much about gym etiquette, I finish my set, rack my weights, and catch my breath before a second set. As I’ve apparently chosen to do my last set in an inconvenient place for "Big Red", I select my dumbbells, find a spot 15-20 feet from where he’s sitting, and start another set. Sure enough, in my peripheral vision I notice him pick up his bag, walk towards me, and again drop it at my feet. At this point I’m debating throwing it so he can play fetch, as I can’t make any sense of the behavior, but instead I rack my weights, walk away, and take a few moments to remove myself from whatever conflict is brewing. Finally, after again catching my breath, I moved back into the free weight area, picked up a set of dumbbells, found a clearing on the gym floor, and started my last set.

I’ll interrupt myself here to mention the comedic rule of threes: as eternal as the comedy of "k" sounds (kukamunga, kalamazoo, krusty the klown), the rule of threes states that in order to make something funny, repeat it twice, and the third time around, find an unexpected twist to the repetition.

Back to the story… In true, astoundingly odd, comedic fashion, just as I hit the last few reps, the ones I burn and ache and fight for, "Big Red" picks himself up, wanders down the rack my way (and at this point, no matter HOW focused I am, I CAN’T not see him), and, having left his gym bag behind, he times himself like a double-dutch jump roper and walks right by me JUST as I peak on my last rep, forcing me to either hit him with my weights or stop my rep short.

Was I the bigger person? Did I pull up short, excuse myself, and ask him if our families were long-time rivals? In a word: no. Instead, finally having been suckered in, I found that last bit of grit and bile inside and THREW that weight up the last few inches, hit him sharply in the chest, and held it for one HELL of a peak contraction.

Many thanks for the entertainment and the extra push when I needed it most "Big Red".

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 9:37 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.