Tag: gym

Dear Women: Stop Staring at my Sweaty Body

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I go to the gym on a consistent basis.  It used to be five days a week, but has been reduced to twice a week, solely on weekends, due to a change in my life’s routine that has really only made it feasible for me to go to the gym on Saturdays and Sundays.  In lieu of sweating it out at the gym five days a week, I try to supplement my self-imposed need for exercise on the weekdays with some outdoor jogging, regardless of it’s 85 degrees or 105 degrees.

I exercise because I’m not really a fan of dieting, and the fact that I exercise is probably the one thing that’s preventing me from full-out blowing up into a 390 pound behemoth, trying to get myself onto TLC’s My 600-lb. Life.  That being said, I probably won’t become a cut and chiseled Adonis-like physical specimen unless I start dieting, and make some alterations in the way I work out to optimize my physical exertion into creating freakishly formed musculature.

Additionally, I like the idea that exercising makes me feel good about myself; perhaps its the endorphin rush from whenever I complete a workout, or it’s the fact that I’m a snob that generally likes the idea that the vast majority of the world is lazy and doesn’t work out, so the fact that I do makes me feel good.  Or maybe it’s the fact that despite the fact it doesn’t really show that well on me, I’m developing some degree of functional strength, and when it comes to it, I probably won’t embarrass myself if the need ever arises for functional strength in order to contribute towards some sort of function that requires it.

Continue reading “Dear Women: Stop Staring at my Sweaty Body” →

Gym math, personified

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

What the gym taketh, in terms of energy, sweat and stamina, the gym also occasionally giveth, in terms of gains all-important brog content.

Back in January, I posted the story of this guy who added plates onto the chest fly machine, despite the fact that the machine could have matched/exceeded his desired weight limit without the need of plates.  I deduced (accused) that the guy was not only just dumb, but arbitrarily adding weight to make him appear more hardcore than he really was.

Today, I got photo evidence.

I also got a good look at the guy who did this himself, and to no surprise, he fit the mold of someone who wants to look fierce and menacing; BeatsTM headphones, compression sleeves, high socks to hide the fact that he obviously has small calves, and lifting gloves.  For machine lifting.  All while breathing like he were breathing fire like Smaug.

Continue reading “Gym math, personified” →

Gym math is clearly difficult

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

While at the gym I saw a guy doing chest fly on a machine.  I mean, there’s a joke in that itself because machines are for people who don’t lift, but hear me out on this one.

Crucified on the stack of weights of 15 lb. increments were two 45 lb. plates.  Adding a plate onto the pin isn’t necessarily an uncommon practice, as I’ve seen plenty of people at the gym do it when certain machines for whatever reason lacked the “add +5” mini plates, or if they were such beasts that the maximum weight were not enough, and they insisted on adding ten more pounds instead of graduating to y’know, free weights.

But to add two plates, much less plates the weight of 45 lbs. apiece, that’s a first for me.  But here’s also where the story begins to get a little funny, at least to me, and hopefully you reading this.

Continue reading “Gym math is clearly difficult” →

When creative parodying strikes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I once saw a meme image that stated “your shirt says UFC but your body says KFC.”  Bahahahaha.

I laughed about it heartily.

There’s a guy at my gym that is an obvious resolutioner, and I’m pretty perceptive and good at recognizing people at places that I go regularly.  To this resolutioner’s credit, he has been coming at least once a week for the last three now, but that is still no indication that he might vanish come February, but the thing is, that there are two things that I noticed about this guy:

  1. 100% of his “working out” is spent in cable crossovers.  Whether anything that can be done with cables, he’s doing with cables.  Sometimes he’ll jump up and grab the cross beam and try to do some pull ups, but literally 100% of his time in the gym is spent amidst the cables.  Naturally, no leg workouts occur here, either.
  2. He always wears this pair of TAPOUT shorts.  Sometimes in conjunction with a TAPOUT shirt.

Continue reading “When creative parodying strikes” →

The other side of the story

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This time of the year, one of the most common conflicts I see on social media as well as select groups of peers is the one that stems from the onslaught of people who embark on a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, and crowd their choice gym to begin their ascent into physical improvement.  As the story goes, 99% of the people that set out to get in shape give up after an extremely short denomination of time, whether it’s a week or a month.  However, it doesn’t change the fact that for whatever denomination of time that is, they’re still there, clogging up the gym, taking your parking spaces, locker spaces, (ill) using the equipment you want to be using when you want to use it, and just plain taking up space.

There are people that believe that it’s of poor taste to shame those that are simply just trying to improve themselves, and roll their eyes and scoff at those people who bitch and moan about how their gyms are all clogged up and crawling with n00bs.  Then there are those people who are, and have been regular gym goers, which are all often times creatures of habit, never liking when the norm is deviated from, especially the influx of n00bs that are now encroaching on their routines, and they will bitch and moan about how such is occurring, and exclaim how “they can’t wait until next week/month when they’ll all give up and stop coming.”

Continue reading “The other side of the story” →

I think I’m becoming forgetful

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I am agitated today.

I forgot my phone at home, because I was sidetracked from the usual droll morning routine, and I realized that my phone pocket was empty right when I was about to make the left turn out of my subdivision.  It wasn’t too late to go back and get it, but it was too late in the sense that in the game of minutes that’s Atlanta morning traffic, I’d gone too far.  I’ll live without it, but it’s more of the niggling inconvenience of not being able to derive some amusement from it be it from texting friends or checking the Big Brother-free internet, during any sort of downtime.  And, I won’t have a source of music to listen to while I’m running on the treadmill, which is going to probably suck.

I forgot my work ID/key card in my car.  By the time I realized it, I was already in front of the employee door to my office, with no key to buzz myself in with.  The thought of walking the eighth of a mile and a flight of stairs in a sauna-like humid morning just to go retrieve two plastic cards that nobody in the building actually checks didn’t seem quite worth it.  I used the front door to the office instead.  The fact that my gym fob was attached to it almost made me want to go get it, but I could just as easily check in with my phone number at the front desk, so I scrapped that idea as well.  I’d gone too far.

Continue reading “I think I’m becoming forgetful” →

Sweaty ramblings

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I am doing absolutely anything other than physically exerting myself, I do not like to sweat.  I dislike sweating walking to and from Starbucks in the summer months, I do not like sweating after spending two minutes in the stifling garage looking for a particular tool.  I dislike sweat when I’m enjoying myself at a convention taking pictures, walking around and watching people.  I even dislike sweating when I’m at a baseball game, which is absolutely ludicrous considering baseball is a sport played in the summertime.

The bottom line is that when it is not time to sweat, I do not like it when my body’s core temperature has risen and it feels the need to secrete some perspiration to cool itself down.

But when it is time to sweat, not only do I not mind sweating, I actually kind of love it.

Sweating is like tangible proof of the effort I’m expending, and let’s myself and everyone who can see me know that I am probably working harder than you are.

Continue reading “Sweaty ramblings” →