Jersey Shore on Newbury Street

I don’t often use this blog to vent frustrations at specific people (tights are a completely different story, and thank you Em for the Spanx suggestion – I will look into it for Fall/Winter 2011!)

However, this morning I had a rather comical pseudo-encounter I could not help but share with cyber space.

I go to the gym on Newbury Street, which, for those of you unfamiliar with Boston, is known for its good shopping and some pretty hip restaurants. It is the most convenient gym for my life right now, and while I’d love to shell out over $70 a month for Health Works (where I guarantee this would not happen), that’s just not in the budget right now.

Every other day or so, I try to do some type of muscle building exercises on top of my cardio (abs, lunges and squats, etc.) Today was arm day. I usually go to the secondary studio area, that has little 5 pound dumbbell weights and is normally quiet and sometimes private. I avoid the weight area like the plague because it is normally crowded and testosterone filled.

This specific morning, I walk into my usual weight studio, and who is working his obscenely oversized arms but a wonderful male muscle-head with gelled hair, a black cutoff T shirt, skinny legs, and tattoos. But the appearance wasn’t enough for Mr. Man. He also had created a bench for his weights with an aerobic step and several layers of the pedastal things to put underneath them to make them higher. AND (get ready for this) he had rigged a small table with the foam long cylanders often used for floor work to hold a miniature laptop that was showing an exercise DVD.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not often mind sharing that space with others who are also using it as a more private exercise area. What I do mind is excessive grunting. I get that it may help people in their weight lifting, but if you’re going to groan and grunt every time you pick up your weight, perhaps you should switch to something a little lighter.

As for the gelled hair… Come on, dude. Its 9 AM and it looks as though you have been at this for a while. Do you really need to put on your full hair gel before you go to the gym? That is akin to me putting on full makeup, complete with a smokey eye and jewelry. And the only two people working out near you are a tiny Asian girl and me. Are you trying to impress us? Something tells me we are not your type.

Also, I will take a moment to talk about the guy’s legs. Looking at his upper body, you would think that he would have powerful legs, with Jason Varitek Man-Quads (as AT and I like to call them, with all the squatting baseball catchers have to do they must have thighs the size of tree trunks). TINY legs. They seriously look like he does no work on them. In other words, they look like my legs. My legs aren’t puny, they have a bit of muscle to them (thanks to my 45 minute jaunts on the elliptical and the squats, lunges, and other moves AT has taught me to do). But his legs reminded me of a British friend of mine who had spent a year in the US – a rugby player who also spent a good deal of time at the gym. He wondered why American men spent so much time working their upper bodies, and neglected their legs, ending up with the puffed up muscular chests and huge arms with spindly toothpick legs.

But I digress. This man looked like he was the lost Jersey Shore cast member who accidentally wandered away to Boston and its much more demure health and fitness clubs. I did find his presence a little off-putting, but was otherwise entertained during his grunting, groaning, and DVD watching (eyes were rolled, smirks were covered).

In the wise words of the SATC ladies – some people do arts and crafts... (finish this statement).