Another Night at the Gym

So this is just too good not to share. My husband and I workout almost every day at the facility right here in our housing development. We run a rigid circuit and I am pooped by the end of it, but I have taken breaks long enough to notice some interesting customs.

When you walk into a European workout facility, it looks very much like an American gym. There are plenty of machines, free weights, mirrors, treadmills, and the like. It’s the people who make European gyms SO much different. Here are some tips if you want to fit in.

a)Please, by no means, wear clean clothes. Wear the dirty, smelly clothes I’ve seen you in every night for the last five.

b)When you select gym clothes, choose wisely. If you don’t have workout pants, wear your swim trunks or a short-sleeved button down shirt that’s so tight your wrist-sized muscles will bulge out.

c)ALWAYS wear black socks with your tennis shoes and ALWAYS wear them up to your calves.

d)Don’t ever smile. If you smile, it may look like the workout isn’t hard enough. Even if you are a 40 year old man doing curls with 5 pound weights, this is serious.

e)When you have selected a machine to use, put your keys, a cup, or your nasty towel on it to claim it. Then walk around the room a few times to establish your ownership while people are waiting anxiously for you to be done. Sit down and do a few reps and repeat. This should last at least 25 minutes.

I will hesitantly mention the last aspect of the European gym experience. The locker room. If I go to the gym in the evening, I simply put my coat on, go home and get a shower. But if we use the pool or something, we have to use the locker-room to get dressed. As I can only share experiences from the female side, I will give you second-hand stories from the men’s locker room. On more than one occasion, I have been witness to bare bodied ladies who proceed to introduce themselves. Not just to me, but my kids as well. It’s hard to muffle the laughter when a bare-chested woman puts out her hand to say “how do you do?”

There are no stalls for getting dressed, just a big room. I’ve been told that sometimes guys sit on the benches in the buff talking on their cell phones with their legs crossed like they’re at the office. Yuck. Need I say more? I’m sure there will be more experiences as I continue to master the bench press and dead lift, but for now, this simple entertainment gets me out of the house every so often.