If you’re one of the 96% who unfortunately has to commute day in and day out to that horrible job, the one that has you wishing Friday would come much sooner than it does, then you have a good chance to know exactly what I’m talking about.  As if the multiple laps around the gym parking lot just to find a spot weren’t enough of a deterrent to keep you from working out, what’s going on in there between the hours of 5 and 8pm surely will.  There is nothing “happy” about this happy hour whatsoever.  In fact, the worst bar with the worst happy hour specials would be a big step up compared the headache that is the gym each weeknight during this time, with the exception of Fridays.  Every asshole in America seems to go to the gym at this time, including the people who aren’t assholes.  It annoys the piss out of me when I see a senior citizen, who obviously hasn’t worked in the last decade, choose to take up space in the gym at this time.  Thanks grandpa, you could be enjoying that early bird special but instead you push the limits of the gym’s maximum occupancy.  Something tells me these slick seniors are just trying to get a peek at some of the young ass that wanders the gym floors each night.  Rest assured, every piece of equipment will be utilized during these peak hours.  Yet you still have the jerk-off who attempts to do circuit training in what can easily be mistaken for Grand Central station during rush hour.  This person will let you know he is using about 5 pieces of equipment if you happen to jump in on something when he isn’t on it.  There is a strong possibility this guy will also be wearing a headband while exercising.  I get a kick out of the sign near the cardio equipment that reads “Please keep use to 20 minutes when others are waiting.”  Yeah, like people are going to cut their shit off at 20 minutes.  The crafty ones set the program for 15 minutes then keep restarting it once they finish.  Where the fuck are the cardio police when you need them?  Oh yeah, they are really the underpaid gym attendants that are too busy chatting with the hot chick and will not be bothered by these cardio kings or queens who must get their full hour of cardio in or ELSE!  Unlike those pesky TSA agents that like to assure you that you are in their house when you try to sneak onboard that 4 oz bottle of lotion, these gym attendants don’t really give a shit what goes on.  If only they could band together nationwide and take over the current TSA staff, flying would perhaps become an enjoyable experience once again.  This is also where the gym “mayor” shines.  In my book “I like your form” Confessions of a Personal Trainer, I go into great detail about the sad individual who usually brags about the number of facebook friends they may have.  During Prime Time, the mayor is in full force with a barrage of high fives and jokes for anyone and everyone within a 10 foot radius.  More often than not, you will find this person occupying the bench press for at least 30 to 45 minutes.  And don’t you dare ask this douche if you can work in!  If you are one of the poor souls who must work out during these hours, chances are you have to double the amount of time you need just to get your normal workout in.  Factor in the shitty day you just had at work, who the fuck in their right mind would put themselves through this mental torture just to burn a few calories?  For some time, I had a “real” job, and had the displeasure of experiencing this so-called “happy hour” myself.  It sucked enough that I got my sorry ass up at the crack of dawn just to avoid this nightly traffic jam at the gym.  I wish I had some advice for you on how to handle this oftentimes unavoidable time to workout, but I don’t have much more than just that.  Other than skipping deodorant to possibly deter people from coming anywhere near you, you are on your own for this one.  Good luck, and remember there are 24 gyms which are well worth the investment particularly if you hate the prime time in the gym.             

Now that official swamp ass weather is upon us, let’s explore those gym dwellers that suffer from excessive sweating.  Not to be confused with those suffering from the medical condition of hyperhidrosis, these people just sweat from the minute they begin physical activity and don’t stop until long after they are done.  You are well aware of them, just glance down at the rubber flooring in the gym and you will notice a trail of sweat beads that leads you right to the guilty party.  It’s always disgusting when you spot one because these ‘sweaters’ seem to be fond of tank tops and minimal clothing as if to put their glistening sweaty bodies on display.   Perhaps you are unfortunate enough to be next to one while trying to get in a few miles on the treadmill.  At first, you think there must be a leak in the ceiling but a quick look over to your running mate will reveal sweat flying off his arms with each swing like a pair of windshield wipers.  You hope their excess perspiration only finds its way onto your arm or a part of your body covered with clothing, but sometimes you aren’t that lucky and take a shot or two in the face.  The odd part is that these people usually are not your typical fat asses who drop sweat by the buckets.  These are people who are in shape and usually don’t fit the profile of the excessive sweater.  They are often in decent shape, which makes the whole riddle even more difficult to answer.  I saw a candidate for most disgusting sweater of the year just the other day.  This chap was cycling away on the recumbent bike, not the most challenging piece of equipment in the place, but when I noticed his huffing and puffing it was as if he was biking to the top of Mount Everest.  On both sides of the bike there were two large puddles which looked like he took a piss not once but twice during his 20 minute ride.  What made this worse was this guy was reading a paper and when he was done with each page he would drop them into the puddles next to him.  This fuckin’ guy is nasty, I thought.  I did my best to find someone to share my disgusted look with but I didn’t find any takers.  And on this particular day, I was not done witnessing shit that would gross me out.  As I motored over to the free weight section, I was trying to find a free bench.  This is tough these days seeing how most people use these like park benches so they can chat on their phone or sit and have a conversation with the person next to them.  When a petite little blonde girl got up, I made my move to claim my bench.  As I sat down I immediately felt the wet spot.  This was not the wet spot that you feel good about, no matter how hot the girl was who was using the bench before.  Fantastic, I thought.  Luckily I was wearing underwear this day as I don’t think my gym shorts alone would have protected the skin of my pearly white ass.    Occasionally you have a sweater with class who wipes their DNA from each piece of equipment they use, but like parents who reprimand their kids, these days they are few and far between.  Now that there are endless amount of sanitary wipes and cleaners available to you in the gym, it’s this trainers advice to use that shit unless you want someone else’s funk all over your body and end up with that rash that just won’t go away.

With summer right around the corner, it’s about time we look into that large tank of water where you can perform the king of all cardio exercises but choose not to because well, it’s just too much of a pain in the ass.  If you are fortunate enough to belong to a gym with a pool where there is a “no kid” policy, then you are in luck as your odds of swimming in doo-doo and pee are significantly less.  Unfortunately, if you pay $29.99 a month like most of America, then you have the honor of swimming in a pool that every kid within a 5 mile radius has dumped several gallons of urine, shit, and whatever other gross bodily fluid you can think of.  Growing up in the northeast, I was privileged enough to have an above ground pool which I personally peed in every single time I got in and most likely dropped my fair share of dingleberries as I did not have wiping down to an art form before age 11.  I won’t even go into my neighborhood friends who more than likely did the same and worse, considering it wasn’t their pool.  Before you call me gross, you know you’ve done it so I’m not alone on this one.  Well, maybe not the dingleberry part if you were a good wiper.  None the less, according to a recent study by the CDC, more than half of the public pools tested came back positive for trace amounts of fecal matter.  I happened to read this just a day after overhearing a gym pool horror story.  While in the locker room getting changed, I noticed a disgruntled fella who just wanted to do a few laps but was forced to call it a day because the pool was closed.  He was talking to someone who asked about the pool and said it was closed because some kid apparently shit and threw up in the pool.  Awesome, I couldn’t help but gag when I heard this.  But when I saw the other angry swimmers mope back into the locker room I couldn’t help but gag even more.  All I could think about was how close they were to that floating baby ruth and what probably looked like a mini oil slick but was yellow instead and filled with half digested animal crackers.  After my workout an hour or so later, I gagged once more for good measure.  As I passed the pool and noticed people swimming away, I assumed they were not advised of the sewage that was in that pool just an hour ago.  You may argue that the chlorine kills everything, including your skin, but I will take a pass my friend and press my luck in that larger cesspool otherwise known as the ocean.  Have a happy memorial day and if you find yourself in a pool, you know what not to do.      

We all know those people in the gym that carry around the gallon jug of water.  You may be asking, “Is that really necessary?”  It can all be traced back to the early fitness magazines of the 1980’s, such as Muscle & Fitness, when they exhausted all the possible exercise routines and needed other shit to write about.  Somewhere, some desperate writer came up with the whole ‘One must consume a gallon of water each day for optimal muscle growth’.  From that day on, people jumped on the bandwagon and never jumped off.  You see people of all different shapes and sizes toting around this 8 pound (when full) jug of liquid, from the miniscule muscle bound guy to the dude pushing 7 feet tall.  You mean to tell me that no matter what your size is, one gallon of water is the magic number?  I can talk shit, not just because I am a personal trainer, but I used to carry my gallon container around the college campus.  I know what you may be thinking, but unlike strippers who say they are motor-boating dudes and giving handys just to pay for school, I actually finished college.  And I know what else you are thinking – yes, I was a big douche and that huge jug of water may have been the reason why I wasn’t exactly a hit on campus.  Here’s what I remember most about my days of hyper-hydrating.  First, by the time you got close to the bottom you were left with a good mix of backwash and some remnants of whatever solid food that was washed from between your teeth.  Next, the smell of the container (I’m talking about those cheap supermarket gallon jugs, not the fancy dark blue bottles that are meant to be re-used) reminded me of what my socks smelled like after stepping in a large puddle of water early in the day and completing a 12 hour workday in the summer.  A side note to that – all of those cheap supermarket gallon jugs have writing on the side “DO NOT REUSE”, but something tells me many gym dwellers did not get that memo.  Then again, many of these guys seem the least bit concerned about ingesting some BPA’s.  Last, if you are not running marathon distances on a daily basis you will find yourself pissing every hour of the day.  This is not just a normal pee, which I calculate between 15-20 seconds, but a very long, drawn out pee that can last well over a minute and sometimes stretch to the 90 second mark.  It may also be the type of pee where as soon the urge hits, you find yourself hunched over in pain and crossing your legs as you shuffle to the nearest bathroom and your bladder wonders what the fuck it is you are trying to prove.   So consider this a public service announcement, since summer is right around the corner and although hydration is of the utmost importance: Don’t be a douche, use a refillable bottle that doesn’t make you stand out.

If you think they can’t keep coming up with apparel that makes you laugh at someone in the gym, think again.  Headbands, short shorts, and lifting belts make way for these finger toe or five finger or whatever the fuck they call these shoes.  I have a feeling I’m not the only one that shakes my head when I see these clowns sporting that pricey foot rubber around the gym floor.  Although they have been around for several years, somehow there are more suckers than ever these days.  Like the McDLT which was a novel idea at the time and had a few good years in the spotlight, these finger toe shoes should have faded away by now.  But by the looks of things, it appears this goofy footwear is here to stay.  Growing up in the northeast, there was a water park by the name of Action Park.  There were probably few places in the world like it, as they had a 25 foot cliff jump and a waterslide so high they had a net over the top just in case you fell out of it.  Needless to say, after numerous severe injuries and I believe a couple deaths, the place finally shut down.  What I remembered most about that place in the good old days of the late 80’s was the state of the art aqua shoes that the rich kids would sport in the piss pool, I mean wave pool.  I looked at those kids with envy as I was forced to endure the hot asphalt and rocks (not to mention the severe fungus that still haunts me today) on my bare feet.  How was I to know that 20-plus years later someone who would prove much smarter than I took that same shitty rubber material, enclosed the toes, and viola’, made several millions by calling them the ‘best’ shoe for running.  To complicate the matter, idiots across this great nation are touting their benefits having no clue what the hell they really do and the stories I hear are unreal.  It’s like the game where you pass a story to the person next to you by the campfire and by that last person, you are left with maybe a word from the original story.  The other day I heard this chode unloading what kind of sounded like a sales pitch to an innocent member, attempting to recall what the sales guy used on him.  Chode with special shoes, “You know that in Kenya they run without shoes and they are the fastest people on earth.” I couldn’t help but reflect on that statement, did he just say that a Kenyan can beat that dude from Jamaica that smokes everyone he runs against while wearing shoes?  “They feel so good on my feet when I run”.  Really?  So when you happen to run over a rock, or god forbid stub your toe on a the edge of something, you blame it on anything but not having proper protection on your feet?  The bullshit kept coming and sure enough by the end of the spiel, this impressionable gym patron was out the door ready to drop a hundred bucks on the wonder shoes.  I don’t have time to touch on the fact that there are no socks required, thus the funk that must come out of these ‘special shoes’ after a nice jog must be tremendous.  Remember, when something sounds too good to be true and costs a whole lot of money, it usually is a rip off.  By the way, I did try a pair and after stepping on a thumb tack I quickly realized these weren’t even good for casual use in the home.  Look out for more products to be shared right here on JD’s blog.

Everyone hits a rut, I know I’ve had my fair share. It’s not easy maintaining my washboard belly and cutting out food altogether just for the sake of looking the part of a personal trainer.  I like White Castle just as much as the next guy, but I knew if I was going to make money telling people they need to exercise, I needed to give up certain things.  Lucky for me getting laid was not something I needed to give up in order to do well as a personal trainer.  Before you get offended, no I have never been fat because when I grew up life was not fun for the fat kid so I learned early on I didn’t want to be that guy.  So for those of you that feel like everyone should be treated the same no matter how big they are, I hope you are happy that the obesity rate is now close to 60% in this country and I would love to see your face when you have to squeeze your small ass between two 300-pounders on your next cross-country flight.  But come on now, if you are a personal trainer-how the hell do you explain not being in better shape than the people who are paying you to get them into shape?  It’s like a fat model.  Sure, a random few enjoy looking at these plus-sized ladies, but would most people be happy if the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue or the Victoria’s Secret catalog was filled with girls you see on the People of Walmart website?  I think not.  We all know that one trainer at the gym who for some reason is larger than life for all the wrong reasons.  A large spinning instructor comes to mind who I worked with back in the day and had no business wearing those spandex shorts.  But I’ll leave her alone and I’ll focus on this one trainer at my current gym.  Like most male trainers I know, he’s a little on the short side and perhaps in the past was jacked up with huge pecs and minimal body fat.  Unfortunately time has not been good to this guy and he now has man-boobs and can easily be mistaken for that Jared guy from subway before he started eating those shitty sandwiches.  If he was a foot taller you could maybe give him a pass but his chest is now bigger than an asian girl I dated a while back.  He seems to know what he’s talking about but with a gut and man breasts, how does anyone take him seriously?  Nothing better than sweating your ass off, struggling to get that last pull up when you glance over at your trusty trainer, who in between shouting words of encouragement is taking a bite out of a glazed doughnut.  Like the fat doctor that tries to tell you that you need to eat better or the dentist with a horrible grill making you feel like shit for not flossing everyday, how likely are you to follow their advice?  You don’t exactly have to have the IQ of a rocket scientist to be a successful personal trainer, so the least you can do is pay a little more attention to how many slices of pizza you eat.  So the next time your overweight personal trainer asks you to buy more sessions, offer to pay them in carrots.