Planet Fitness - Face to Face with Mediocrity

Disclaimer: Try reading Part 1 first: http://nevercollege.blogspot.com/2014/05/planet-fitness-down-and-dirty-part-1.html  The disclaimer there should save me a little bit of time. Plus, word on the street is Part 1 is hilarious.

Thanks to CJ for proofing this post. I know it comes as a shock to you, the reader, that someone cares to proofread something like this. Don't worry, I usually don't! I'd rather look at myself in the mirror to compensate for my lack of will to correct myself. Enjoy!
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Signing up Online
Last time I was spotted exiting Planet Fitness, an employee informed me that signing up online would shorten my time at the front desk, waiting for some chump to clomp around on a keyboard... more or less verbatim, actually. And so, in the better interests of not having my time wasted while a simultaneous attack was staged on my eyes by the purple-yellow walls drilling into my retinas and the horse-like clomping of fists on a keyboard, I listened to a PF employee. Don't get used to it, buckos.

"Uh-huh. Wow. This is fascinating. Please, tell me more. No way."

However, there were some concerning things that caught my attention on their website. For instance: you receive a free t-shirt when you sign up, which was a nice touch, but not as if I'm ever gonna wear that sucka. That same free shirt is available up to the tent-like size of 7 X-Large. Beautiful ladies and gentlemen, I knew that this is the Land of the Brave, the Free, and McD's, but what exactly entails 7 XL? I'm having trouble imagining this size. I can see now, dozens of small, Singaporean children dressed in rags with dirty feet and faces, nimbly sewing a garment the size of a small city block. Days later, the shirt is loaded into an entire shipping container and sent overseas. The entire container ship leans dangerously towards the side the container is on. Upon arrival, the t-shirt is draped over the Empire State Building to ensure a snug fit, and then brought to a local Planet Fitness to be given away to a new patron. This is the story of a 7 XL, more or less from start to finish.

As for myself, I did not choose a 7XL shirt, because my house does not need an improvised fumigation tent anytime soon. Instead, I went for a regular ol' large. That way, there's just enough fabric leftover when I tear off the Planet Fitness logo and my pecs are scandalously exposed. It's ok, though, when people faint from such a magnificent sight. Why? Because I'm a very well qualified nursing student, so I can confirm they have a pulse and assess the texture of their hair, both quite important things to monitor.

Anyway, two of the options on "How you heard about Plant Fitness" were the 'Biggest Loser' show and then simply Drive-by, without any elaboration. I'm just going to go ahead and leave you to fill in the incredulous comments I have about both of those.

Entering the Pagan Abode
For those of you who haven't read my brief thoughts on the accoutrement of PF, feel free to check my last post. For those of you who had the opportunity to appreciate such fine literature, read on! To summarize, a normal Temple of Swole is built as a monument to the glory of the muscle-bound human body. A few chest hairs of Arnold Schwarzenegger are buried under the foundation to imbue the entire room with pure excellence and Austrian testosterone. This, as opposed to a PF, which is a poor adulteration of true Temple- small, weak machines surrounding an island of unspeakably horrid cardio machines, all slowly sinking into a foundation of pizza grease, pure sadness and beer sweat.

It turns out beer sweat and sadness are not stable building materials.

I walked in with this in the back of my mind, and as I attempted to retrieve my ID from them the two women fumbled around and clomped around on the keyboard, much to my chagrin. Eventually, I was on my way. Stashing my things in the locker room, which smelled vaguely of sadness, alcohol, and BO, I began to circle the entire gym like an agitated jaguar, searching for muscle-prey: weights. Horrifyingly enough, there were literally no free barbells. That's like running a hot dog stand with only soda and overpriced pretzels, and no hot dogs. It's wrong by principle. In the place of real barbells were a few Smith machines. After I picked myself back up off the floor after weeping for want of a real barbell, the diesel-swole journey continued. Along the way though, I ran into a few interesting characters...

No Judgment Zone?

I'm not sure what the big deal about the 'No Judgement Zone' at PF is. Maybe I'm not in the position where that kind of thing benefits me, but the concept of settling in an athletic setting doesn't sit well with me, like an amateur fakir sitting on an extra sharp bed of nails. When I go to a gym, I don't scoff condescendingly at the guys that are smaller than me or fatter than me... and that's because I'm pretty focused on me, quite honestly. That, or admiring (admittedly for a little too long) the crazy brolic dude who's squatting an entire tractor in the corner and how phenomenal his form is... and dude, did you see his sick hams? Dang, bro. I don't care about someone chugging away on an elliptical. That thing is literally just a sadsack excuse for cross-country skiing. It looks like you're flailing in midair. It's the exercise machine version of being thrown off a building and wishing you were a bird with the added benefit of burning a calorie every now and then. It's physically impossible to look intimidating while actually using an elliptical, mostly due to the fact that you look like a duckling that's been raised by rabid chickens with all your flailing.

"This week, on "Is He Using an Elliptical or Actually Falling?!"

But just for your amusement, and of course not anyone's judgment, let's recall some of the interesting characters that I had the pleasure of running into at PF on my first real visit. Let's start off with some sensory buzzwords to warm up: beer sweat. Inverted muffin-top. Confused vagabond. So let's start off with one fella who walked out of the bathroom with two 35lb dumbbells... like, what was he doing with them? Was he simultaneously droppin' a deuce while doing curls or shoulder presses? I feel like there'd be some mind-sphincter-muscle confusion there that couldn't possibly end well, or at the least some odd grunting noises that would sound like he was rhythmically pushing out his Taco Bell lunch with a great deal of pain and effort.

Then there was elliptical boy- believe me, there's a reason I was making fun of that machine so much. Some skinny teenager in a bro tank that he didn't deserve kept staring at me while I was working out. I'd sense white pupils drilling into me and just look up at the mirror to see this guy jolt up and look back to some lame TV show. When he was going to wipe off the elliptical from all the sweat that wasn't there, he accidentally knocked one of the spray bottles of suspiciously murky green cleaning liquid into the trash can with an audible thump, not unlike a small child being knocked unconscious. Perhaps awakening some repressed memory from that sound, he straightened upright like a middle aged man during his prostate exam and shot me a deer in headlights look right before scurrying off quickly. I would've said something just to scare him, but I was legitimately afraid that if I said something his poor ol' heart would give out at the young age of 15 or whatever.

Next was mushroom head. Ladies and gents, I'm sure you're all familiar with bowl cuts, and if you're not, that means you're likely sporting a mean one at this very moment. However, what I saw was nothing like that- it can most accurately be described as 'mushroom head.' The hair was nonexistent up to his brow-line, at which point it erupted outwards to look like a respectably sized volcano erupting from a young Hispanic teenager's head. This man could've had his whole body covered in tattoos, but his haircut still would've completely destroyed any street cred he had. Also, he walked between me and the mirrors in the middle of a set, which is one of the most inexcusable things in the history of the world, right below the Inquisition.

Last, we feature a myriad of interesting smelling men, and by interesting, I mean those who proudly spread their aroma like a dog marks their territory: sloppily and liberally. One guy, a short, middle aged Puerto Rican man with oversized jeans, could be recognized by the trademark beginning of puberty middle schooler scent, 'Eau de Drowned in a Bathtub of Axe.' On the other side of the ring was someone who bore a striking resemblance to the previous fellow, but trains with the philosophy that a tipsy workout is better than no workout, and broadcast his lovely cheap beer breath like a dragon breathes fire at dwarves stealing his gold, and with similar range, too.

"This feels like a movie refere-AHHH A DRAGON'S EATING ME!"

Ready for Round 2
Between duct-taping weights together to achieve respectable weight and sobbing like a lost kid at a supermarket because deadlifting is straight up outlawed there, my first visit at PF had come to an end. Unfortunately, I did not set off the Lunk Alarm, but fortunately. I was able to spend most of time in front of the 1 mirror panel in all of PF that was not in the bathroom. It's like they don't even want you to see yourself at this place, and isn't that what the gym is all about?

So it turns out this place is more of a club than a gym, with free pizza, pathetic free weights, and only Smith machines. This is a place Arnold Schwarzenegger outgrew before he started growing pubes, and where swarthy Hispanic men come to gloat that they're lifting the biggest weights on the rack. I'm not about this life. This isn't living the dream, at least not for me. It's a cardio palace, sure, but between bouts of travelling far and wide, I'm going to be looking for a carved-out-of-stone, monuments to the Rock, bona fide Temple of Swole with grunting, sweaty men (no homo?) and weights that a 15 year old punk won't be able to lift. If you need me, I'll be at the nearest quarry squatting a boulder while googling local temples of swole.

Terrible form, buddy. 

Planet Fitness: The Down and Dirty, Part 1

Disclaimer: All posited self-impressions of insecurity and body dysmorphia are only partially true and greatly embellished. Also, I'm sure that Planet Fitness serves as an excellent vehicle for some people trying to get in shape, I'm just not sure how or why. But more on that next!
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Now, there's no beans about it- you can't walk into a gym without properly casing it first. You need to find out some basics: who is the swolest, monster-huge diesel bro in this place? What kind of traffic is there around the bench press and free weights? How many bands of puny, roving, time-wasting little teenagers are there swarming single pieces of equipment for hours on end? Do the water fountains actually work? Also, how many layers of slime mold are there on the water fountains? Without this important information, you can find yourself helpless with an arm pump fading; the blood slowly evacuating every single axillary blood vessel you have and nowhere to revive the dying friend that is, or rather was, your sick arm pump. Why? Because there's a half a dozen gangly teenagers watching a cat video in front of the free weights, and apparently, it is poor gym etiquette to throw 45's at people.

In other words, case the gym- find the hot spots, the sticky spots, and the slippery spots, and bring rubber-soled shoes as appropriate to the situation.  Here's what I found in Planet Fitness.

A land of terrifying and mystical crimes against humanity!!!
Although I'll be the first to admit, this picture conveys that
in a much more emotional than literal sense... meh! We can
work with it.

Breaking (my own will) and Entering (a P-F)
I sat there in a petite gray Toyota, gazing balefully at the front of the Planet Fitness. The clashing purple and yellow colors were causing me physical anguish; literally burning into my retinas with their gaudy hues. To calm my eyes and steady my heart palpitations, I read a relaxing space opera for a few minutes. Slamming the book shut, I took a few deep breaths, hurled myself out the driver door, and assuredly walked towards the Planet Fitness. Questions raced through my mind faster than fat people chasing Twinkies on an indoor track- that is, rather slowly but very prominently: would I be chastised for not being fat? Would the purple and yellow walls literally vaporize me with their horrid color patterns? Would the Lunk Alarm sound the moment I opened the door? Most importantly of all, was there actually any real weight inside of the P-F?

Battery and Assault (of everything I once thought decent in a gym)
A Pacific Islander woman of some sort turned her head in my vague direction as I strutted through the doors. Fazed by confidence unseen in the premises for some time, she stuttered a greeting as her mind attempted to cobble together the words to properly acknowledge me.

"Good afternoon! I'm looking into possibly maybe, hm, considering the potential option of eventually joining this gym. Can I get, uh, a tour or something?" I asked, pretending that I couldn't already see the entire gym from where I was standing. The only reason I wanted a tour was because word on the streets from my man Izzy-G was that P-F only had dumbbells going up to 60lbs. I refused to believe such an acrimonious accusation without seeing it with my own two eyes, which now had purple and yellow patterns blazed into them permanently.

The woman gazed at me from behind a fort of makeup and insecurity which barricaded all facial features inside her head, and apparently, also coherent words. "Uh, well... gym. Yes. I am... I mean, it is. This." (Slightly exxagerated for comedic effect.)

"Hahaha! I'm so confused, tee-hee!"

Luckily, her partner in gym-crime and common bro-decency violation swooped in and helped me. He responded promptly to my request for a tour. From behind a mop of chestnut brown hair and a braces-induced lisp, he began talking to me while he calmly exited his cute little desk castle, offering me windows into this incredible, seedy underbelly of the fitness world. He talked about some of the machines, and then gestured towards purple booths that resembled indoor outhouses. (Not bathrooms, mind you, but literally indoor outhouses.) "Do you tan?" He asked in a manner more personal than professional.

 "My beautiful complexion is only bronzed in the finest tropical suns, good sir," I informed him.
"Oh... because we have tanning booths with the Premium Ultra Bonanza P-F Card. It's only 249.99$ extra a month. It also includes those massage chairs..." I shook my head.

Walking by the bathrooms, he gestured, remarking, "Well, these are our bathrooms... your garden variety bathrooms, really. They have lockers and locks and, y'know, all the bathrooming stuff."
I nodded as if I was paying really close attention, which I was. I had to survive this ordeal and document it for posterity's sake.

A World (of Gainslessness) unlike any other
The environment in which we were conducting our safari did not seem at all conducive to gains-seeking forms of human life. I was perplexed. How does one survive here? By wringing the sweat out of towels and drinking the questionably translucent green liquid in the spray bottles? By eating what must be spony weights attached to each of these feeble machines? Lo and behold, I could not see anyone sweating anywhere around me, and the machines seemed too feeble even for sustenance. The mysteries, and odd substances in the spray bottles, thickened.

I would've put a picture here, but after googling 'congeal,' 

my board of editors advised rather strongly against it.

While my courteous guide was cutting our tour short of the dumbbell rack to trundle between equipments intended for some exotic sort of exercise known to indigenous P-F populace as 'Car-dyow,' I stopped dead in my tracks and stared wistfully over at the dumbbell RACK (that's right, barely one, I was as shocked as you surely are at this moment) in order to attempt to verify Izzy-G's audacious claim that dumbells in this foreign place only matched with numerals up to sixty. I squinted and flexed most of my facial muscles in order to increase the bloodflow to eyes, and I almost wish I hadn't- a 60lber was the largest weight I could see, gym patrons nonwithstanding, hehe.

I must've let out a tiny gasp, or perhaps an inaudible scream from my very soul, because my personal P-F sherpa followed my gaze and consoled me, "Oh, those are the dumbbells over there. Not much to look out. However, that Lunk Alarm goes off is someone's being loud grunting or banging weight around."

I shed a lonely tear of agreement and mourning, then sucked it back in. I refused to let this house of heathens receive even a drop of my precious moisture. That bit about the Lunk Alarm definitely caught my attention, however.

"I'm 2 years old and I use 70s to shrug, waaaah! Need bigger weights!"

End of Recon Brief
As my personal pathfinder concluded our tour and talked to me about some finer points of P-F culture, I recalled several fascinating tidbits. First, he kept referring to this place as a 'club.' This was deeply disturbing to me. I thought this was a gym, and perhaps I was misled into this state of mind- but clubs are for swarthy Italian men and corrupt Union mobsters smoking cigars, splayed out contentedly eating strombolis and cannolis, and other fun foods that end in that satisfying 'i' sound. As if confirming this suspicion indirectly, I was informed there were Pizza Mondays and Bagel Tuesdays on the first and second weeks of the month, respectively. I gasped again. How DARE these people desecrate this, huh, SO-CALLED temple of swole with such impure macronutrients!!! I politely excused myself, eye twitching and legs cramping up from sheer absurdity, and dashed out the door of Planet Fitness. As the blasphemy induced dizziness subsided and the swirling yellow and purple bands of color in my vision faded, I realized I had seen all I needed to see...

It is my destiny to set off the Lunk Alarm time after time again, until the pillars of this establishment come crashing down and there is nothing left in the carnage save for the 45lbers and the sole rack of dumbbells contained therein, relics kidnapped by this realm of philistines and barbarians- except that those words might conjure images of strong, pillaging, marauding men of brawn and, well, not valor, but whatever's the opposite of that, so perhaps a realm of philistines and softbodies. Anyway, destiny and all that. In the words of the great Arnold, "I will be back," though next time with some tinted goggles to protect my eyes and some preworkout to fuel my anabolic rage!!

This suspicious gaze matched my own. The beautiful jawline, unfortunately, did and does not.

My Foray into an (Il)Legal? Underground Fighting Ring

Surprising as this may be, I've never actually been in a dead-to-rights fight, even being from North Jersey and all. Sure, I pick up plenty of street words and sound like I may be from the suburbs around the block, but that's just Jersey big talk. But fights? I'm not sure alot of people have gotten into a serious one- maybe the classic being shoved into lockers or lashing out blindly in the general direction of the punk who just called you tubby (let's be honest, he's not fooling anyone about his size either). Misguided imaginary youthful anger aside, let me sprawl out a roll of word-canvas... paper, they may call it, these days... and paint a night of fun,eternity, and pain, with words. Writing! That's what it's called. So, enjoy.

My Foray into an (Il)Legal? Underground Fighting Ring

Veering towards the treacherous, rocky, and frankly quite boring highway that is semantics, let me be the first to admit the need to clear up any misconceptions about that racy title: everything here is exaggerated waaaaaaay out of proportion, just like those earrings make your nose look like an angry hippo- knurly and garguantuan!

'Your mom joke' here.

Getting Involved
Much like switching career choices from a garbageman to a trash collector, becoming involved in a fighting ring was a scarily passive experience. There was no special training involved, no diploma mill to attend, no faux fighting instructor who never actually set foot in a dojo but saw oodles of sweet 90's Bruce Lee action flicks. A good friend simply looked over at me, sized me up real quick and asked casually, "Hey, wanna fight someone?" Of course, being the incredibly tough and hardcore guy I am, I responded, "Uh... sure, I guess, I mean, when?" He got the hint. I wasn't someone to be trifled with. If I was in, I was in it for real. Pink slips or nothing. Boxing gloves with glass shards in them. Spectators armed with cattle prods and dart guns. Or whatever a real underground boxing ring looks like. Thing is, I was in it to win it- "Except I have a dope BBQ earlier that day, so it'll have to be late."

Turns out the (il)legal? underground fighting rings happen late, and I was out a fairly truthful excuse.

The Preparation
When you're gearing up for your first fight, you want to make sure you do things right. Rigorous preparation, carefully planned smack talk, and a randomly chosen gang sign shaved into your chest hair. Also, calling your big brother to beat the other guy into a pulp. Unfortunately, I don't have an electric shaver and didn't want to alarm any friends with my sudden LA Kings (Either that's a dangerous gang or a basketball team made up entirely of retired gang members) membership, and I skipped right to trying to get my brothers here. Again, in the most inopportune of circumstances, I live thousands of miles away from them, and to be frank here, if one of them suddenly called me asking to venture out to the wasteland-y cornfields of Ohio to beat some punk up to get 'em out of a fight- well, I'd turn them down unless some delicious and rich dessert was involved. Seriously, Ohio blows, 'much as I'd love to help a brotha out, literall, there'd have to be some kind of compensation, like a trip to Cheesecake Factory.

"Get me some carrot cake cheesecake and I'll gladly see to it that he goes sleepin' with the fishies."

Instead, I ended up tiring myself out endlessly before the fight- a draining physical fitness test then going nuts in a weight room the day before, and then an hour of ruthless cardio a few hours before the fight, with some brownie/peanut butter chip cupcakes to boot. Needless to say, I was readier for a beating than a seal with a flat skull heading towards a shore filled with men waving clubs. On the other hand, I did google "beginner boxing tips" and browse for nearly 10 minutes, so call me a full-blown amateur if you will.

The Night of the Fight
For the sake of some semblance of confidentiality, I'll omit describing the venue other than saying it was outdoors and near a cornfield at night, surrounded with some tailgatin', blaring speakers and beaming spotlights... that is to say, I could've been just about anywhere in the American Midwest.

Literally anywhere in this picture could've been the spot where we fought.

My opponent got colder feet than me and was stuck in terribly suspicious traffic, although in Ohio that could mean following a single tractor for hundreds of miles on a dirt road. Anyway, between rounds of others ruthlessly beating each other, I'd be announced as they searched for a challenger. I was excited. I wanted to fight. Also, I wanted to go to sleep, but the preworkout I took earlier was shaking my vascular system like an earthquake shakes a pool full of jello and fat people; also, there's a good chance a train could've passed through my pupils from all the caffeine in my system.

Anyway, they found an opponent- he was someone's cousin from out of town and claimed to be 170lbs, though he looked more like 200- you'd swear he was a woman from the way he lied about his weight, and said he'd never trained for this (someone later said he was training a little over 2 weeks... dirty out-of-towners.) However, the two of us scrambled looking for someone who could tell us literally anything- when were we fighting? How many other people are we sharing a mouthguard with? Can I wipe my own blood with a towel and frame the towel? That'd be a great table centerpiece.
We received a few answers, some more satisfying than others, and had our hands wrapped while we heard the crowd cheering with bloodlust at some other chumps knocking the snot out of each other.

The Fight
Our names, hometowns and walk-on songs were hastily jotted down earlier and a fellow ran the paper with all that info out to the tailgate DJ. We were called on, respectively taking our hoodies off and showing the crowds what kind of fight it was going to be. "Fun fun fun," I thought, failing to see the crazed glare of whom I'll go ahead and designate Captain Meth at this point. Called to the center, we listened to the ref tell us no more than two rules, one of which I believe was, "Don't get too much blood on the gloves, we need those clean for the next fights." The disjointed sound of a fighting bell went off as we entered our edges of the circular wall of what can only be described from my perspective as short shorts, snapbacks, and brotanks. The three judges, jotting down notes on lined notebooks, nodded expectantly.

"Are we really rating the fight, or taking notes, or what? This is much better than class."

Captain Meth lunged towards me and began pummeling me like a farmer presses a hardy grape. I was backing away slightly, attempting to keep my gloves up. A frenetic punch nailed my jaw, jolting my head to the side. Another one slammed into my nose, knocking one of my contact lenses into the grass below. "This isn't what I imagined it like," I thought to myself. "Things were supposed to be muuuuch slower, and he wasn't supposed to be hopped up on what I can only assume is pure Colombian snow." The novelty of being shirtless in front of an admiring crowd was quickly eclipsed by the pain of another flailing attack on my front, where I eventually found the wisdom to keep my gloves up. The round ended and I stumbled into my corner, slamming down into my resting throne (aka plastic lawn chair). Spitting out my mouthguard, I muttered to my loyal pit team, "Oh my god, I'm actually going to die. I lost a contact. Let's get some pain, baby!" Or maybe probably not that third one, who remembers for sure? They ignored me, sprayed my general mouth area with cold water, and watched me pant as feardrenaline pumped throughout my body and I tried to focus with my one good eye.

Footage from the scene, add a bloody nose and raring crowd and it's just like you were there!

Second round. I'll be honest, at this point, I don't remember much except I flexed my traps and made eye contact with Captain Meth at the beginning of the round, seeing from his pronounced heaving that flailing at me was apparently more exhausting than being flailed at. Still living up to his name this round, Captain Meth was running himself into the ground as the cheers of the crowd broke out whenever a half-solid punch landed and I began catching the rhythm of the fight, contributing weakly to a barrage of fists. It was sometime during this round I distinctly remember thinking through the haze of a mild concussion, "These are the longest seconds of my entire life, and I've watched old Arnold movies for fun."

Third round! I was ready. This was my time to shine. Captain Meth was exhausted, and I spent this round pushing him back into the crowd and flailing away, though whenever he turned his head, I'd throw my gloves up so the judges could see I wasn't hammering the back of his head. This was the 2nd rule we were told. I don't even remember why I cared so much about this rule- he had no qualms about punching me when I stumbled backwards earlier; perhaps the fact that both of us were exhausted beyond words contributed. Still, I felt a tinge of superiority- I may have been deflated, trucked, and cracked during these rounds, but at least I fought fair, though I might've gotten some blood (my own, of course) on the glove from wiping my nose... well, at least I kept half the rules. Anyway, eyeing Captain Meth with my one contact I had left, I feinted and landed a solid blow on his jaw. That's all I wanted, and I got a few more good ones in as the seconds crawled by. As the end of the round was counted down, Captain Meth and I stepped closer menacingly to the middle of the circle and the crowd got quiet, then we both backed away, seeing that one more punch either way probably would've just left us both on the ground. Collapsing into my corner, I was congratulated for surviving my first boxing match, had more water sprayed generally towards my face, and some blood wiped from my nose. The pair of us were called in for the decision of the ramshackle judges, and Captain Meth was declared the unanimous winner.

'Captain Meth' according to google. I'd say this is a stunningly accurate picture of my opponent.

I was tired. Also, my head hurt. Most of my face did, actually, along with most of my body. But I survived my first real fight- and I was only a contact and a bit of pride out. I slothfully trundled inside to congratulate Captain Meth on a good fight and try to figure out why I could hear a train coming towards me out of my left ear and not my right.