Saturday morning. 9 am. John's Cardio Box Class at the gym. Seriously. Hard.
Today's class was especially hard - mainly because I am fending off a cold - but also because every fan in the room was on which triggered my stupid asthma. I was having a lot of trouble catching my breath in between his crazy 55 minutes of cardio madness.
During one of the lunge/kick combinations, I had to stop to try to get my breath back. This older lady behind me - in her outside voice - says ,"This is a hard class. It isn't for everyone." I kid you not! Now, I am going to choose to believe that she was trying to be supportive rather than being a GIANT bitch. Trying to say that it was good that I was sticking with it. But the longer I thought about it the angrier I got, so I turn around and tell her that I am having trouble catching my breath - to which she says,"and your legs are going to be tired tomorrow too".
Which brings me to the title of my post - what not to say at the gym. I don't care how in shape you are, how long you have been doing the class, how fancy your gym attire is or whether you can do deeper lunges that I can - we are all there for the same reason: to get in shape.
If you are at the gym, you automatically become as good as anyone else in there - no better, no worse. I don't care if you are the President of a company, when you are at the gym it is common ground and unless you have something positive to say - keep it to yourself. Now my gym is one of the friendlier gyms in the city, which is why I like it. The staff say hi when you come in and bye when you leave, people smile at each other and are generally cordial and thoughtful with respect to leaving the machines as they found them.
But as with anything, there are always the exceptions. Like Wednesday night when a group of 3 girls took up 1/4 of the mat area designed for abs/stretching for 45 minutes - making fun of people as they worked out on the machines, weights and with their trainers. I knew they were making fun of me, but I was with Paul and we have pretty funny conversations which helped me ignore them. Besides, none of us were doing anything that warranted laughter.
Which makes me wonder why I would accept this type of disrespect at the gym, where I wouldn't anywhere else. I would never have let a friend or coworker speak to me the way that lady did in class today. I didn't want to say anything because it would have been awkward for the rest of the class, but now that lady is going to think that what she said was okay. And those girls are going to think that it is okay to sit and make fun of people who are doing their best to improve their health.
So I guess that means I can't just sit by next time. I have to think of things that I can say as a witty response that will cut them off and let them know that they are being rude. Something like: "Did you know you just said that to me in your outside voice" or just turning around and saying nothing with a disgusted look on my face. Open to suggestions on this one....I know you people are sarcastic - that is why we are friends :)
3 comments:
Okay first of all, you need to tell your gym's manager(s) about these things because they need to post signs about appropriate behaviour and have staff keep an eye out...there was nothing okay about the rude lady or the laughing hyena bitches, and your trainer should already have made a complaint. I applaud your restraint, as my response may have involved spiking a yoga ball at them.
Second, for the lady in the class, consider these as potential responses in the future:
"Thanks, my asthma is acting up, but it's SO GREAT that you can do this class with your condition."
"Thanks for the advice, hopefully next time I'll actually ask for it."
"Gosh, I'm so glad the gym's program sponsoring the less fortunate is helping you out so much."
"Thanks for the input, cameltoe."
Or, perhaps, just a simple "zip it, bitch."
Well don't take it personally, for sure. Those losers who were talking shit about everyone just feel inadequate. You should just feel sorry for them as they've not been able to grow personally since grade school. Very sad.
That said, we had the same issue at our University. Some chicks there were SO damn rude to any girl over a size 8. They actually outright laughed at girls trying to do fitness classes and posted shit in the student newspaper like "Hey stupid fat chick on the treadmill yesterday at 3pm. Why don't you fuck off home and leave the gym equipment for those of us who need it!"... like... uhm... bet she needed it more than you, but way to encourage them!
So, responses... I'm no good at comebacks. I usually just ignore stupid people because when you are truly fat, people feel the need to comment about you ALL the time, and you get bored with it.
1. You can't train for athsma attacks.
2.*hard stare then turn back around*
3. Pretend you can't hear her.
4. Complain to the management about those stupid bitches and threaten to leave if you have to - they won't want one of their best clients leaving because of some stupid girls who come once in a while.
5. Shrug your shoulders and realise that people like these ones exist, and no matter how much you try to get them to see the light, they never will. After that, realise that the fact that you wouldn't dream of doing anything as rude, arrogant or ignorant as these people means you are a better person. When you've got that through your head, look around the room and give some silent karma to the overweight people who are really trying hard to do something good for themselves. It'll come back to you 10 fold. Honest.
Just for the record, I was saying that it's ME who is fat and gets comments all the time, not you!
Post a Comment