Social Behaviour of the Gym Part 2: The Up-Market Gym

The suburban gym is never called a gym. Gym sounds too manky, so instead they call them "Health Clubs". Here, the TV's are plasma, wide-screen and stuck on every available bit of wall. The clothing is designer-label and the machines gleam. There's still fat wobbling about but it's interspersed on a fairly meager ratio with trim, lithe, athletic, tattooed young bodies that all seem to own efficient, expensive little sports cars (or gigantic late-model four-wheel-drive gas-guzzlers).

Among these beautiful and successful young people, the women seem more at home with themselves at the gym and generally don't exhibit many gym behaviours that wouldn't be equally observable in other settings; they preen, jut and pout to about the same extent as they would at say, a nightclub, their job or on a fashion-show catwalk. The men however, when communicating with each other, display a gesture that is particularly gym-centric. I have classified this gesture as; "the Powerstance".

The powerstance is often preceded by the Powergrip, a handshake of such overwhelming strength and power that it is designed to cause the recipient to faint under the power of the protagonist's aggressive masculinity. I myself have been fortunate enough to have had by hand crushed in this manner and was duly impressed by the Alpha Male who thus maimed me. Then comes the Power Stance itself; a primitive, testosterone-induced visual exhibition of male virility, characterized primarily by an extremely wide distance between the feet. The legs of the power-stander are usually set so far apart that he is in danger of falling over. This is designed to convey the impression that ones Testicles are so large that there’s barely room for them between the thighs.

The adoption of the power-stance is so widespread among male suburban gym-goers, that it is rare to observe a conversation in which it is not used. But you will occasionally also observe the power stance used outside the gym. A couple of weekends ago I was lucky enough to observe the guy who lives across the road from me, power standing while conversing with a bearded soil-delivery guy in front of his house. Power standers will occasionally employ the power stance in non-gym situations, but usually only when they feel their masculinity threatened by strangers. Ironically, by adopting the power stance in these situations they are much easier to push over, a temptation I felt tugging at me very strongly while observing my neighbour.

If you (like me) are significantly older than 25 you will find yourself frequented by looks of disdain by these young suburban gym-goers. In this sense the suburban gym is (as mentioned in my previous post) more akin to a nightclub, fulfilling a role similar to that of the Serengetti battle-grounds where young male lions compete in order to demonstrate their virility to the females. Compared to the nightclub however, the gym has the twin advantages that:

a) the males get to demonstrate their actual physical prowess (rather than their prowess at ingesting mind-altering chemicals - an ability that is arguably less relevant to their sexual performance), and
b) everyone's not wearing much.

In this blatantly ritualistic mating environment, older males are not wanted and are relegated to the role of passive observer who must occasionally be dissuaded from making any demonstrations of their own fading virility by judicious application of the Powergrip and the disdainful look. I get to pay thirty bucks a fortnight to go to this place, kill myself on the rowing machine and wish all these bastards the slowest and most painful of all possible deaths.

Social Behaviour of the Gym Part 1: The Manky Gym

Desmond Morris is a zoologist who chose as his primary subject species; Homo Sapiens (people). Morris rose to fame in 1967 with his book "The Naked Ape" which catalogued his research in an entertaining and non-academic style. He had traveled the world studying human behaviour, and his findings provide a wonderfully objective view of the silliness people usually engage in as they go about the things they think they need to be doing. Morris observed humans in a great variety of settings, but one setting he missed, a setting in which a number of unique behaviours emerge, is the modern gym.

A couple of years ago I conceded to the never-ending bombardment of statistics about the importance of fitness and exercise, directed at us by know-it-all social commentators who delight in adding health-guilt to our already huge reservoir of appearance-associated low self esteem, and joined a gym. It wasn't one of these high-class joints you see in every suburb these days. This was a manky gym, cheap and nasty and located in the shadiest part of town (adjacent to a strip club and next to a BMW dealership), but it attracted people who were serious about getting fit.

There was one 20 inch CRT television set on the wall, which you had to thump about 20 times before the white dot in the centre expanded out into a recognisable picture. There wouldn't have been more than 3 matching carpet squares in the whole place. The foam bits on the weight machines were all torn and manky, and when you walked in, the bracing stench of stale perspiration nearly made you throw up as it hit you in the face. The general demographic of members at this place was: Male, over 25, not beautiful and (judging from the peeling duco on most of the bombs parked outside), definitely not rich. This was a place where no-one judged you on how much your fat wobbled as you peddled your stationary bike. Where board shorts and a 10 year old, paint-spattered T-shirt was about as contemporary as the fashion got, and where the only sexy young eye-candy you ever saw was on the above-mentioned crappy TV set.

I did get to see some unique behaviours at this gym. One of the most frequently-observed gestures was the exhaustion-induced stare into oblivion. This gesture was often accompanied by a beetroot coloured complexion and rapid panting and was most common among the over 40 year old contingency. Another common social gesture, which would have been quite out of place in any other context, was the shadow box dance. In this ritual, grown men converse with each other while both dancing about on tiptoe and taking jabs at imaginary opponents located slightly to the side of their friend.

Another behaviour prevalent at the manky gym is the absent, insular gaze of the non-sports-obsessed guy. It is also possible to observe this behaviour at Australian weekend barbeques where males with no sports knowledge will find themselves shunned by the rest of the tribe. But while the non-sports-obsessed guy will often manage to re-enter the barbeque conversation by steering it away from sports and toward cars, at the manky gym this is not possible because there is a rule that states all conversation must be about sport.

The manky gym is a breeding ground for constantly evolving behavioural stereotypes and I would have welcomed the opportunity to observe and catalogue more. Sadly however, I eventually had to leave my manky gym in favour of somewhere more geographically convenient and I joined the throng of beautiful people at my local suburban gym. The suburban gym is, in many ways, less like a traditional gym and more like a nightclub, but it does facilitate the evolution of some unique gym behaviours. Join me for my next post when we will explore these behaviours, and other absurd aspects of the up-market gym.