gym fitness man

The stereotypes that most people have about gym men—either a narcissist who shouts loudly, or a muscular monster who is so big and uncoordinated, or a greasy man who flirts with girls—are all prejudices brought about by survivor bias. The real male trainers in the gym are a highly differentiated group with widely different goals. There is no unified label at all. People from different training schools even have different training habits, work and rest, and diet logic. They are like two different species.

If you choose a commercial gym at 7pm on a weekday and walk around, you will understand. There is always an old man wearing a noise-reducing headgear and kneepads that stretch up to his calves standing next to the squat leg rack. He has just finished squatting 180 kilograms and his face is red from holding in. He can't catch his breath for a long time while holding on to the rack. Most of these people are powerlifting enthusiasts. Don't come up to me and ask stupid questions like "Can you defeat a Sanda player with such great training?" People will just roll their eyes to give you face. These people are real Buddhas. They don’t update their social media for half a year. Their training log is thicker than an accountant’s ledger. They wear T-shirts that they can’t bear to change even if they wash the ball. They can spend ten thousand dollars on a competition-level belt without blinking an eye. Their goal is just one: to increase the weight of the three major items (squats, bench presses, and deadlifts). It doesn’t matter whether the body fat is high or the lines are good-looking. If you laugh at his big belly, he will happily tell you that this is "strength fat storage, what do you know?" Oh, yes, the industry has been arguing for almost ten years about whether to apply fat for powerlifting. One group says that if you apply fat, you will lose strength, it is just a toss-up, and the other group says that controlling body fat can reduce the burden on joints and improve long-term performance. No one can convince anyone. In the end, everyone trains for their own purposes. Should you hand over magnesium powder or magnesium powder when meeting, so as not to delay friendship.

Glancing over to the free weight area, he lifted dumbbells in front of the mirror and turned his wrists more standard than the movement template. He also held his chest in front of the mirror to check his lines during breaks between sets. He was basically a fan of bodybuilding training. Nowadays, the natural bodybuilding and unnatural factions are fiercely fighting each other in this circle. The natural bodybuilders feel that anyone who touches technology is cheating, and there is nothing to be proud of no matter how great they are. The unnatural bodybuilders feel that training for three to five years is not as big as their own in one year, and it is a waste of time. But don’t go up to the gym and ask people whether they use technology or not. This is a default taboo in the gym. If you ask, no one will answer you. Two years ago, I met a natural bodybuilder who has been training for seven years. His body fat is always 12%. He carries a thermos box with him to work every day, which always contains boiled chicken breasts, brown rice and blanched broccoli. During the last department team building, I couldn't help but take a bite of mango mousse. I went home and practiced lunges for 40 minutes. He said that he had written all his "crimes" in his training log. If he does it again, he will punish himself by not drinking Coke Zero for a week. I laughed for a long time.

The functional training area is always the busiest. The shouts of throwing battle ropes and the sound of flipping tires are mixed together. From time to time, people shout to each other to come on and count. These are basically CrossFit enthusiasts. This group of people is a gathering place for social nerds in the gym. When they get high, they can ask strangers next to them to do pull-ups. If they win, they will hand over a bottle of sports drink as a prize. Of course, there are a lot of controversies. Many strength practitioners feel that many of CrossFit’s action patterns are too radical, and it is easy for novices to develop lumbar protrusions, which is purely to build the body. They also feel that comprehensive physical fitness can be improved quickly, which is more practical than the "dead muscles" trained by squatting in the strength zone every day. There is no conclusion in the quarrel. Anyway, everyone occupies their own area, and it is good if they do not interfere with each other. Oh, by the way, there are also those who are not involved in any genre at all. Today they will do two sets of squats with the powerlifting guy, and tomorrow they will do two tire flips with their CrossFit friends. Whatever makes you happy is how you feel. Fitness is all about being comfortable, and no one stipulates that you have to choose a camp.

In fact, the above-mentioned ones are considered a minority. More than 70% of the male trainers in the gym are ordinary people who come here after get off work carrying commuting bags, run for half an hour, and do two sets of shoulder-walking exercises. They don’t have any goals for the competition, and they don’t count calories every time. They just have back discomfort after sitting in the office all day, or they have mild fatty liver disease in their physical examination, and they want to find a place to move to avoid lying down and scrolling through their mobile phones when they get home. Because there is neither heavy weight training nor posing in front of the mirror, the sense of existence is too low, but they are often ignored. In the end, those few extreme cases are taken out as representatives of the entire fitness male group.

There was a debate on the Internet before about whether all fitness men believe in it, but that’s not true. The longer I know people who have been practicing, the more humble they become. The more gyms they go to and the more masters they meet, the more they realize that their size and weight are nothing. On the contrary, novices who have just practiced for two or three months and whose arms just feel a little tight love to wander around and point out other people's movements. They are commonly known as "wild gym instructors". People's attitudes towards this group of people are also polarized. Some people think that they are warm-hearted and teach movements for free to save the money of hiring a private tutor. Some people think that they are half-hearted and come out to mislead others, which is annoying to death. Anyway, it is a matter of opinion.

To put it bluntly, the gym is just an ordinary sports venue, and the men who come here are all ordinary people. Some go there for professional competitions, some want to lose their beer belly and look good in suits, and some just want to find a place to fish and kill time. Don't take a single example as a whole, and don't label people casually. If you are really curious, get a card and practice for two months. It will be more clear than reading ten gossip posts on the Internet. Oh, by the way, when you go, remember not to occupy the equipment and play with your mobile phone, and don’t just sit on a training bench that is still warm after someone else has just used it. This is a rule that must be followed regardless of the school.