SONGS AND SCRIPTS AND DUNKING BISCUITS

Anyone who has ever regularly attended a gym knows they are often populated by the shaven headed, tattoo-filled muscle bound types who strut around with ego’s as heavy as the weights they pound away with.

And the men are even worse.

Sorry, obvious joke. But we all know the type. I comfort myself with the belief that their muscles are also their identity, their self-esteem and self-perception intrinsically bound together by the size of their biceps.

I used to think they did all this to impress women, but I was wrong. In the main they do it to impress other men. They tend to congregate together, like bucks, preening and mentally comparing their muscle size and definition.

All of which gives the likes of me, wondering if I can push from 6 minutes to 8 on the cross-trainer, a detached sense of superiority. I vainly comfort myself that I don’t need this kind of protein obsessed, machismo-fuelled validation. I am just here for the stretching and the cardio-vascular kick.

Outside of the gym I have my books and my writing and good conversation to maintain my sense of self. All they have is their protein shakes and their constant need to wear tight fitting t-shirts in the depth of winter and their unreachable dreams of being best friends with Jason Statham.

Of course, I don’t think like this. At least, not so directly. But sub-consciously I do judge. I look at their tattooed bulging necks, chests and forearms and I make an instant assessment. I know the type of people they hang out with, what films they watch and, based on some overheard conversations, quite possibly their political and racial prejudices.

All of this was brought into sharp and unflattering focus when I saw such a type in the queue of a local supermarket a few weeks before Christmas. I saw this large man with all the attributes to fit the prototype macho driven gym type and thought I knew all that he was about.

And then he turned and spoke to the couple behind him in the queue and struck up a conversation in a friendly, open and noticeably easy manner. He was warm and his laughter was genuine, breaking up the normal eyes-straight-ahead Saturday morning shopping experience.

I remembered the moment. I recalled gently chiding myself for making the judgement. I remembered it enough to recognise him in the gym just a few days later. Once again he conversed with another gym member in the same friendly manner. Quite soft-spoken with no underlying agenda to his tone; no preening, and no comparing.

So I told myself not to make the same assumptions any more. And I also know from the experiences of others that many weight training exercises can cause injuries, especially as they get older, that are hard to fix.  A friend of mine who used weights incorrectly for years now has spinal problems and takes prescribed pain-killers first thing each day. And when that happens the identity that comes with the muscles has to be re-adjusted, which for some, isn’t easy.

Not that I won’t make the odd instant judgement about the tattooed pit-bull type and be proved correct, but I’ll certainly try and remember that beneath all the sinews and brawn occasionally something less predictable and obvious may be going on.