At a 24 Hour Fitness, my friend Josh and I get in a pretty decent barbell workout. We press, do some kind of oly lift (on iron plates no less, I power snatched, Josh did a complex of power clean, front squat, push press), and back squat. We’re just two guys doing barbell lifts. We’re just two guys in a sea of virgins who can’t incline bench without lifting their hips off the bench and who start their workouts doing synchronized dumbbell rows while facing each other. A guy takes his girlfriend through his leg routine, from which barbell squats are completely absent. None of this should be surprising. This is all perfectly normal, perfectly healthy. It’s called going to the gym. Real athletes don’t go to 24 Hour Fitness.
This lady with too much rouge and eye shadow and a disproportionate amount of lower belly fat which is probably related to a lifestyle of too much caffeine and not enough sleep appears. Which is fine. I’m not saying she has to be pretty. I’m just saying she’s a character in this story.
There are four pairs in this story.
There is me and Josh. Josh and I met over livejournal while trolling a community which was supposedly focused on going to the gym except only like six people in the community actually lifted. Everyone else had a thyroid problem or was injured or some bullshit and just talked about lifting. Josh offered me money to train him, which I scoffed at and declined and we met up IRL and became training buddies. Now one of our favorite past times is to lift, buy each other dinner, and go take a walk at a nearby park to catch some vitamin D. Strong no homo.
There is the guy taking his girlfriend through his leg routine. He makes a real big fucking deal out of doing lunges in the Smith rack. I hope they’re happy with each other, because I’d have fucking killed myself three years ago if I were him.
There are the guys who start their workout doing synchronized dumbbell rows. I can’t tell if they’re joking. Doesn’t matter if they are. They ask Josh if he’s done using a bench for dumbbell benching because they want to start their next set together. I wonder if they are JO buddies. Have you guys heard of JO buddies? You can find ads for this on Craigslist. Some guys just want to be in a room with another guy to jerk off together. They don’t want to touch the other guy. They just want someone to jerk off with. It’s not gay, though the appearance of their JO partner is very specific and important. But there is no gay stuff allowed. Just two dudes sitting next to each other, but not close enough to touch, jerking off.
Then there are these two adonises, sandy-haired and tan, wearing tanktops and basketball shorts, with a lifetime of curls and front raises behind them. They’re not huge but they’re about as jacked as you could possibly be at 165lbs. I hate everything about them, because I am not them. They probably lost their virginity when they were 14 (feel free to guess how old I was when I lost mine).
So we come back to Cake-face Katrina. She decides she wants to do Smith machine squats, which, again, is fine. This is what you do at the gym. What the fuck else would it be there for? But the guy showing his girlfriend his leg routine neglected to take the 45lbs plates off and she doesn’t have the upper body strength to do so.
She has to make a decision. Who does she ask for help?
Can’t ask the guy doing his leg routine. He’s busy chastising the girlfriend for not doing more reps. Can’t ask the guys doing synchronized dumbbell rows – they’re JO buddies. Don’t really want to get between that kind of friendship. She looks at us, me with an unkempt excuse of an afro with a raincloud following me everywhere I go, Josh who’s favorite past-time is reading Bukowski at bars, thinks to herself, “Do you even lift?” and immediately and desperately avoids eye contact. Then she turns to the two Roman sculptures who do a lot of curls and tri extensions and giggles, hey, could you two strapping young gents help a lady out? They come over and unload all 90lbs of 45lbs plates from the Smith machine for her.
Later she sees me squatting my last set at 380lbs for my volume day and thinks I’m a try-hard asshole. Not the guys who synchronized their db rows together and will later share a stall in the men’s room to jerk off together. Not the guy trying to impress his no-lifting girlfriend with a bunch of lunges and Smith machine squats. Not the narcissistic pieces of shit who bleach their hair and workout in Hollister tanks while “subtly” flexing their tris in the mirror. She thinks the guy enjoying his hobby is the asshole.
* * *
Puke writes:
I wonder if he blogged about what he saw of you, I’ll try and find it.
Look in the Animal Pak training logs.
Alphanitis writes:
Went and visited my uncle recently. He said I have some good size but he asked why I’m not cut. Good. I tell all of my friends I lift for function, they ask why don’t I try to get jacked, what they don’t know is that I secretly do rear delt raises and db flies and shrugs till I almost drop the weight on my toes. So I AM trying to get jacked but no one can tell. Good
Saw my dad for father’s day, bought him dinner. Before we leave for dinner he asks me, “Are you still exercising?”
My fucking dad literally asked me, do you even lift?
Chris E writes:
Brent do you think in an alternative universe there is a version of you and you’re extremely huge and jacked? I’d like to think so.
There’s probably about twenty different alternate universes where I’ve already fucking killed myself. There’s an alternate universe where I’m not allergic to cats and have three. In that alternative universe, those three cats will merrily dine on my face after I die alone in my apartment.
Another award winning post.
I want to meet Josh, reading Bukowski at bars is pretty cool, though it’d make more sense to read it in the comfort of your own home, surely?
I like your dad.
i guess he doesn’t like to drink at home
Bront,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl03afAqeFQ
Could you please post your thoughts about that song in your next blog post?
I guess 23. I also guess it was very awkward. Maybe more awkward than 2 guys jerking it in the same room.
As long as you dont look at each other in the eyes, jacking off with another male in the room is perfectly normal.
…Perfectly Healthy.
My lifestyle of excess caffeine and lack of sleep is what I rely on to keep the lower belly fat off.
It’s not gay?
Nope. Now you can post your craigslist ads free from the guilt of your heteronormative upbringing. Bro-JO forever.
Saw Bobby Lee perform the other night. Good stuff. Kept calling him “Brent Kim” in my head. He used to have a fro. Now he has a mustache–took him 6 years to grow.
Brent,
The cat alternative universe thing just makes sense honestly.
Here’s a comparable father/son story for you Brent. So my senior year in h.s. I go with my dad to look at a car with him at a dealership. He knows the father/son who own the dealership so he starts shooting the shit with them. While I wait, standing off to the side, one of them goes “Chris what have you been up to?”…my dad beats me to the response and says…”Yea Chris is really into…what do you call it…(before I can utter anything he says)…body sculpting.”
I couldn’t say anything but “yea…that’s what I’m up to.”
Chris
-Body Sculptor
anytime im with a social event with my parents, my dad will go out of his way to mention to every person that “my son is on the caveman diet.” Then i have to explain to some retired, rich asshole that i dont eat grains while they fucking stare at me in utter disgust, pity, and confusion. and i know they’re thinking “does this little phaggot even lift?”
I did my first PL competition a while ago. I learned the day before that all of my friends/family thought I was doing a bb competition. Great.
Real talk: I would let those Adonises unload some plates for me. Should I just go?
the joys of family support
Do your cats smoke bath salts?
yeah marotta because cats have the ability to smoke you dick groping asshole
Get back on facebook, shitdick
Cats don’t even have lips, dumbass.
you know not of who and what you speak of, freak. so butt the fuck out, faggot.
<3
This is an excellent question.
Arrgh! That was supposed to be a response to Puke’s question.
Do you still wear soffe’s to the gym? I’ve been thinking of buy a pair. I already get stared at for being the only person squatting over 225, so I might as well embrace it right?
During a warm up set of 225, I was advised that I don’t necessarily need to go heavy, I can take a lighter weight and do high rep rest pause type sets, and maybe superset with leg press too. Okay.
Hey Brent
Ever thought of selling rubber bracelets like the “livestrong” ones, but they would say “it’s fine” or “do you even lift?”.
PS. Was talking to some people last night who kept referring to Arnold Schwarzenegger as a “weightlifter”. Did not correct them.
Please make one that says “Perfectly normal, perfectly healthy”
yes please
Hey Brent if I ever moved down to Texas do you think we could become online buddies? Then we would talk about meeting up somewhere. I’d mention how I read in your blog that you sometimes go to Starbucks, so id suggest meeting there. You wouldn’t really feel like going but youd say yes so I don’t feel like an over enthusiastic fanboy who buys too much into what somebody mentions on their blog a few times. We’d sit down chat about lifting and I’d try to impress you and make a nervous joke about killing myself. Over all you’re not impressed with my personality and when I ask if you wanna maybe lift sometime you tell me how crazy your schedule is and you don’t know when you have the time. I give you my number. You never call me. I realize that Brent Kim is unimpressed with me. I’ve beaten him at his own game. I kill self.
Freakishly similar to my 70s big seminar experience
Brb, allergic to cats but my parents get them anyway and give zero fucks.
“the guy enjoying his hobby”
I am glad that you actually enjoy lifting, brant
What kind of worthless person can’t unload 45 pound plates? The only excuse is being an 80 year old arthritis ridden woman, but even then I’m not sure that’s much of an excuse.
i know when…i see it all the time at our gym, some huge 6’5″ tall dbag squats 225 like a girl then leaves all the plates on then my fiance goes to squat and the bar is over her head and she tries to pull plates off and murders herself.
My super hilarious prank that I wanted to do in high school involved placing the j-hooks in a school power rack at the very top hole, placing an empty barbell on the hooks, then loading up as many 45’s as I could fit on each side and just leaving it, sort of the lifting equivalent of placing a laminated restaurant menu on top of a glass of water, placing it on the table, then pulling the menu out. I’m seriously thankful I never had the opportunity to do it because I’m sure the dicks would have made me replace the bent barbell and bowed power rack.
Dude, if you ever need a place to train hit me up. I just got a squat rack so I can do my barbell curls.
I wish there was a Friday Failboat posted every Friday. Ironically, it’s one of the best things I read all week.
Brent, I just felt like saying I like your writings.
How do IIFYM and Intermittent Fasting make you feel?
Brent Kim gets a girlfriend. So does North Korean leader Kim Jong Un:
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/10/world/asia/north-korea-kim-woman/index.html?hpt=hp_mid
Love is in the air for Koreans lately.
Apparently it’s more likely it’s Kim Jong’s sister, not gf. Love is sorta in the air for Koreans?
brent…spoil all of us with a post
You lift a lot of weight. I been reading all your posts for the past 2-3days. One talks about when you benched 135. That’s me.
WHERE IS THIS FRIDAYS FAILBOAT BRENT KIM
This lack of posting really rustles my jimmies.
There’s no need to be upset, Dave.
Open the pod bay doors, please, Brent.
Brent do you except guest posts because I have some ideas. The theme is generally about an unhealthy relationship that continually lets me down after being built up again and again. Essentially, I have been friend zoned by your blog.
Hi Brent,
Last night, I had a dream I was you as a teenager. The female dismissal and rejection, my own family asking if I even lift.
Thanks,
George
this blog just friend zoned all of us
Seems like yesterday we used to rock the show
I laced the track, you locked the flow
So far from hanging on the block for dough
Notorious, they got to know that
Life ain’t always what it seem to be
Words can’t express what you mean to me
Even though you’re gone, we still a team
Through your family, I’ll fulfill your dream
In the future, can’t wait to see
If you open up the gates for me
Reminisce some time, the night they took my friend
Try to black it out, but it plays again
When it’s real, feelings hard to conceal
Cant imagine all the pain I feel
Give anything to hear half your breath (half your breath)
I know you still living your life, after death
RIP Brent Chang. You were my favorite Chinese blogger.
Bro, do you even blog?
Good blog mate. I go to a 24 hour gym and can totally relate. I too enjoy checking out the numpties around me.
There are four pairs in this story. Thanks for the great post.