GYM RAT CONFESSIONS: FEAR DRIVEN EXERCISE

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Every fitness center, every last one, from 24Hour, to LA Fitness, to Curves, has a mayor.

They also have city councilmen/women, department heads, and gym rats.

The gym mayor checks their constituency. They spot, they talk. They walk from machine to machine.

Gym councilmen / women spread an array of weights and surgical tubing and elastic bands around one bench.

Department heads tell anyone working out near them what they’re doing wrong.

Then there’s gym rat.

Like a regular rat, gym rat thinks they’re invisible. They move in their own private bubble thinking no one notices.

No matter the camouflage, they’re still hard to miss.

Instead of designer workout fashion, gym rat wears what looks like a hazmat suit.

You might ask who’s protecting who, but why get that close.

Or they buy a new hoodie every fall and wear it every day.

And they never radiate an outhouse stench when you walk past.

This strain of gym rat either owns five of the same sweatshirt, or has a laundry fetish.

Every spring they cut the cuffs off, then the arms to mid-sleeve, short sleeve, and finally right at the shoulders Belichick style.

By now the hood is chopped, too.

Call them seasonal gym rat adapting to climate change.

Gym rat purpose driven exercise

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Ask one of the gym rats why they workout and you never get the same answer twice.

Regardless of age, they roll out their reason du jour:

“I like being stronger than my friends.”

“I used to be fat. Real fat. Fat like you’ve never seen fat.”

“I had a heart attack.”

“I had a stroke.”

“I had cancer.”

The last three usually come from older gym rats, but it varies. There’s no age limit on shitty downturns.

Talk to enough of these people and one unspoken truth eeks out: FEAR!

“I feel better at twenty than I did at eighteen.”

That’s great, kid. Stay on that track.

“I feel better at thirty than I did at twenty.”

You’re peaking at thirty, right at the edge of immortality.

“I feel better at fifty than I did at thirty.”

That’s nice. Positive. Stay positive.

Accept the extra fifty pounds you like to blame on having kids, but only if your wife agrees.

“I feel better at seventy than I did at fifty.”

After all the gourmet road food and fine whiskey and late nights you change to measured portions, kale water, and the early bird specials.

You should feel better. And smarter.

No ageless gym rat will ever say anything different.