This blog comes from a short 2-day trip (sadly not an hour longer than that) to one of the branches of Gold’s gym recently that revived all my memories of a gymming environment. I wish I could be there for some more time, but it’s Karma that has kicked me hard in the butt; so, I am not allowed by life to continue this any longer at the moment.
To answer the title question, I'd say you'll find training equipment and people in the gym (How-Can-I-Write-Such-A-Sleep-Inducing-Boring-Answer!). There are great sites that'll tell you about machines you'll find in a gym. I want to talk about people...gym people (is it legitimate to use this phrase?)
You know gym people are altogether a different variety of the human race (don’t ya include yourself in if you took an annual membership and went ONLY for 2 days).
Let’s start with the most archetypical thing in the gym- tall (and, may be, short), giant, muscular men lifting heavy iron rods. You see them screaming and badly sweating at every instance of their practice session. They make you cry, “Please. Stop. Don’t torture yourself. It isn’t really a life-and -death situation” (although most of them passionately believe it is).
Next are cute aunties, wearing loose cotton suits and big sports shoes (the look is inspired by Kapil aka Bittu Sharma’s dadi). They will smile at you and bless you if you’re in decent clothing. But you have to digest their holy wrath and sanskari anger if any of your actions has crossed an unknown, non-standardized Indian-girl limit. Va Va Vrooom! Anyways, it’s pretty embarrassing to see them doing leg raising exercises in suit-salwar. I wish there was a set code of clothing in the gym for everyone’s good.
Next. Uhm… Let’s include those skinny girls here (we’re not going in ANY order). They aren’t interested in any kind of exercise actually. May be they come to kill time. Many a times, they stand at the center and shout, “we want to reduce weight”. In reply, the curse-sicken, hardworking, fat ladies want to kill them…with some butter chicken, gulab jamun and fried rice.
Let me be not sexist. Skinny boys also come to the gym. But they would genuinely try to gain weight and be muscular. That’s fine! We can excuse them. In teenage, kids think those kind of looks are important to look bindass and to get girlfriends.
Somehow I feel it isn’t a good idea to flaunt your assets in a gym (in front of crazy, half-naked, fitness freaks). But here we have some sexy, curvy women who would wear Nike hot shorts and spaghetti tops or racer backs, and do all envious things. Their stretching and body spinning exercises are quite a distraction for mostly everyone in the gym (why are men reading this paragraph twice?)
Kids. Really Fat Kids. They’ll make you wonder what can a 12-year old possibly eat to be that giant sized. It’s quite piteous to see them getting tortured by trainers. Often I feel they don’t like to be treated like that in front of adults. But, those poor souls are usually forced to push themselves hard by their parents, who are in turn forced by the taunts of their friends, neighbors and relatives – that’s a long chain (fatty acid? Oopsie. I forgot Chemistry. Or I never knew it. I ain't Sarthak).
You’ll also find trainers in the gym (C’mon! Forgive me for this dangerously obvious one). I’d love to generalize them as perverts (I hope I don’t have a gym trainer-cum-bog reader here). First of all, all of them love training women. They feel so happy when women do exercises wrongly. They are extra ready to give ANY lady ANY kind of extra help. Their prevent-frustration and tanhayee mantra! Every extra minute is precious, not to be wasted on the same sex.
We also have people (both men and women) who have flabby tummies, large hips and loose thighs (I’m sorry for that cruel description!). It’s frightening to see all that stuff packed tightly in tights (really tight, no skin breathing, suffocating clothes). They try really hard, hardest of all sometimes… but almost with no improvement (hm...that’s very unfair). Although, I'm not sure of the fashion component of gym-wear with that fit, I guess its good to stick to comfortable clothing in a gym.
Well, I saved the best for the last. These people enter the gym with a chubby, unfit, inflexible body and leave with increased stamina, endurance and a fit and flexibility body. It's good to see them change and improve everyday.
The “penner” had spent a considerable time of her youth in a gym. After writing this blog, she's been constantly thinking of the category in which she can perfectly place herself. May be, she'll have to introduce another category. Whatever it is, you can mail her your honest suggestions.