Barbies and Meatheads

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I'm in the minority of minorities when it comes to my training. There aren't many females that enter the free weight floor at the gym, let alone pregnant ones. I must be strange but I actually enjoy weight training. I'm not the type to turn to crossfit or body building, I just like the feeling of empowerment it gives you, plus the added bonus of some added definition and toning.

Now that we're entering the middle third of March the gym is slowly starting to empty out of all of the good intention January gym joiners. The cardio floor is still quite busy but apart from a quick warm up I don't touch that area so it doesn't bother me. On the other hand the weight's floor has dropped off to to leave mainly the "regulars".

The are two distinct groups of regulars that I come across and it seems to almost fall into the time of day that I attend - either the mid mornings or evenings.

The mid morning regulars are generally older or mums.  They get in and get their work out done. Sure we have the occasional quick chat and idol pleasantries but on the whole they don't sit around hogging the equipment while we act like we're super-setting.  The weights they lift aren't huge and its not very often that a spotter is need to avoid a serious injury. There's no strutting, posing or dropping of enormous weights to the floor making the whole area shake and everyone look in that direction.

The majority of the evening regulars are either young males (25 or under) or guys that think they are young and appear to be going through a mid life crises.  The easiest way to describe them is meatheads. Every gym has a couple.  They have a tendency to hog equipment while they are super-setting but in reality they are wasting time as I don't know the last time that a superset involved a 5 minute recovery between the alternating exercises.  They require someone to spot them as if do manage to push to failure the weight will crush them as they don't set up the safety bars properly, and in a lot of cases remove them all together. They grunt and grown and drop weights on the floor to get everyone to look at them.

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So yes the above is a very broad generalisation. There is also some normal guys that attend in the evenings but I am normally the ONLY female on the floor. I don't let them intimidate me and will quite often approach them during their time wasting and ask to "work in" with them during their recovery so I don't have stand around twiddling my thumbs. Surprisingly enough I've actually gained a fair amount of respect on the floor over the last few months - especially now that its actually obvious that I'm pregnant and not just getting fat again!

Well a couple of Friday's ago a group of three young women decided to enter the weights floor. As I'm dragging myself up on the assisted chin-up machine I could see the head twitches of the meatheads indicating to the other meatheads where to look.

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 The young women, were in my opinion, wasting their time even being in the gym.  What's the point in turning up to the gym if you're not increasing your heart rate. These Barbies (OK kill me now for putting down some females) were perfectly groomed, make up, hair, nails - the works.  The took it in turns to uses the pinned machines and in reality the weights they were pushing (even on the leg press) wouldn't have increased their heart rate much above their resting rate. I'm still trying to determine if they were there just to get noticed or to actually exercise.

After the ladies had left the floor the comments were flowing. Other than the obvious comments males make in relation to how the girls looked there were also the comments relating to the amount of time the "girls" were wasting. How ironic - don't they realise that the majority of them are doing the exact same thing. The way I look at it is if you're still on the weights floor after an hour your most likely wasting time. I did also leave with the biggest grin on my face after over hearing a compliment of sorts about how the pregnant chick gets in there, gets her thing done and leaves without a fuss while still pushing big weights for a girl!