Every gym has them. It’s a set of those people that you know are going to be there, day in and day out. I’ve noticed that my gym has 5 main types of people. All of them are varying levels of annoying ranging from mildly annoying to makes you want to grab a dumbbell and wail on them. See how many you recognize…

The Fellow Traveler is the person that always carries their gym bag with them. I admit, I forgot to bring my lock so I carried my bag with me. No biggie. However, this is not a nasty gym and is the kind of place you can leave your wallet on top of the locker and it’s still there when you come back. (ahem)

So, I really don’t fully understand the thing about regularly carrying your bag with you. Mind you, my gym being a YMCA and working out at 6:30 the only other people at the gym are usually elderly people. It’s hard to find a greater concentration of elderly WASPs outside of a Trump rally. A really large number of people not only carry their gym bags, there are a few that use rolling luggage.

Yes, rolling luggage.

Sigh.

One of my favorites is the germophobe. I get not wanting to expose yourself to other people’s sweat so most people will give the machine a quick wipe with their towel. I get that. However, I’ve noticed a fair number of serious germophobes. These are the people that carry a bag of antiseptic wet wipes and literally wipe down every surface.
Every.
Single.
Surface.
And it’s not just a gentle wipe either, it’s a literally scrub of the surfaces with their wet wipes. One person I know of spends a good five mintues (yes, I timed it) wiping down every machine they use. The best part is, this person is also a Machine Gunner

The machine gunner is the person that uses machines as fast as humanly possible. They are the person that wants to try and use every single machine every time, even if they are only there for 30 minutes. There is an older fellow that works his way through all 15 machines in under a half hour. My favorite Machine Gunner is also the Queen Germophobe. While she does spend a good five minutes cleaning a mahcine, she only maybe does a single set that can’t even be considered a warmup.

After her 10 minutes on the bike, she goes to the bench press machine for under 1 minute, then goes to the elliptical. Of course, she’s not exactly pushing hard since she is a triple threat since she’s also a Technical Exerciser.

The Technical Exerciser is a person that is technically exercising, but isn’t really doing it.

Using my trifecta example, the Queen mounts the bike after the throuough cleansing and rides for about 10 minutes, never creeping above a level 2 of 14 on the grade and at a maybe 60 rpm at best. Then, when she does the cleaning thing on the bench press machine, she doesn’t put any weight on it, extends her arms out, then pumps it maybe 10 times. Each time, she takes a deep cleansing breath. Really. That’s it. She’s on to the next machine. I’ll ride for an hour and see her progress to only the third machine.

The other and more common version is the person that turns the TV on the bike to Fox News, sets it to two, and pedals slowly and listens to the tv. I’ve also witnessed a fair number of people that read books and a couple that bring their laptops. One will literally just sit on the exercise bike and just watch tv, never actually peddeling. He does however talk to people which makes him the last type of person.

Now, I understand that for a lot of the elderly people that belong to my gym, this is their social outlet. It’s how they meet and see other people. There are people that I’ve never seen actually work out that will walk up to a machine and carry on a conversation for 10 mintues then go to another maching to talk to someone else. Frequently, they’ll form groups of 5 or 6 and carry on a conversation, usually about what they just watched on Fox.

This is as distracting as it is annoying. Gyms are for exercise, not socializing. There are tables out front along with all the free coffee you can drink. Please go out there to stand/sit around and socialize.

Of course, you might also want to add in the grouchy middle aged guy that gets way to easily annoyed by people not doing exactly what he does at the gym. Luckily, I don’t know any of those guys…no…not at all.