If you’re a gym regular – as many beach-body conscious Sydneysiders are – look around your usual stomping ground this month and you’re likely to see some new and perhaps unfamiliar faces.
My sincere wish is that you do the polar opposite of one employee of a major gym chain popular in Sydney – who posted a Facebook status saying they “wish the fatties will hurry up and give up on their gym resolutions because they’re hogging the equipment”.
Don’t muscle the rookies: gym-regulars can create a community rather than a clique.Credit: James Alcock
Sydney, especially, has a reputation for hardcore gym bunnies with huge muscles or visible abs making non-gym regulars feel intimidated.
If ever you want to feel both ugly and titillated, go to Bondi Beach’s outdoor gym – even more intense than LA’s “muscle beach”. I braved it once. I spluttered and wriggled to approximately eight and a half pull-ups on the bar, feeling reasonably accomplished and exhausted as I completed them. It was a short-lived feeling; an unfeasibly ripped, shirtless man immediately jumped in and did 40 without breaking a sweat. Comparison is both the thief of joy, and human nature.
Unfeasibly ripped man was doing nothing wrong here – his workout prowess was really none of my business as I watched, mouth agape in envy and awe. I’m a gym regular and feel reasonably confident walking into any gym and cracking on – yet am still partial to moments of doubt and vulnerability. Imagine what it’s like for those setting foot in a bewildering gym for the first time.
I’ve occasionally observed a nasty, superior attitude from some Sydney gym regulars. It’s playground, in-crowd, if-your-face-doesn’t-fit stuff - and it needs to stop.
This could be your daily gym buddy very discreetly whispering and sniggering about someone’s size, sweat or struggles to use equipment properly. Not cool. But it could be even worse than this.
One friend caught the Sydney gym manager of a discount chain and his friend filming her using equipment incorrectly and laughing. She caught them in the act. She has felt too humiliated to return to a gym.
It takes courage, discipline and sheer guts it takes for someone to walk into a gym for the first time.Credit: Nicolas Walker
Don’t be a dumb-bell: Gym nasties must learn to exercise restraint
30
0
06.01.2024
If you’re a gym regular – as many beach-body conscious Sydneysiders are – look around your usual stomping ground this month and you’re likely to see some new and perhaps unfamiliar faces.
My sincere wish is that you do the polar opposite of one employee of a major gym chain popular in Sydney – who posted a Facebook status saying they “wish the fatties will hurry up and give up on their gym resolutions because they’re hogging the equipment”.
Don’t muscle the rookies: gym-regulars can create a community rather than a clique.Credit: James Alcock........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
