Kids At The Gym

Many parents bring their kids to their workout sessions. In fact, my gym has a "play place" where kids can run, jump, sneeze, and cough all over oddly colored tubes of plastic and dwarf-sized mazes. What are we teaching our future? Life's not a game and it's time that kids learned the hard way.

Instead of peeking through a neon green hole at another kid, why not give daddy a spot? This would work best for parents who have more than one child. The rule to follow is one child spotter over the age of 2 for every 150 pounds of weight. This will teach your children responsibility and allow you to max out your weight during key exercises. It's also a great way to spend quality time with the kids if your spouse has been nagging you to do so.

How about hydration? Sometimes the cardio machines don't have a convenient place for your water bottle and it's no secret that kids are great at holding stuff. Don't worry about getting your kid to stand still during a 45-minute workout. Just convince little Timmy that if he moves something bad will happen. For instance, mommy will get hurt or Mickey or Lindsey Lohan (whoever kids are into these days) will get shot. NOTE: you may have to follow through with the consequence a few times to get this to work. If the kid stops holding your gear and wanders off, fake like you're having a heart attack or pretend to answer your phone and say, "What!? OMG!!! Is Paul Walker going to be alright!? He's not going to be able to make a Fast and Furious 4!? Look what you did Timmy!"

The truth is that kids don't want to run around like hamsters in a sick world of uncommon obstacles and purple slides. Kids grow up fast these days. Utilize it.

Fun At The Gym

In the gym there can be a lot of "manly" vibes. While I don't sense a lot of "cattiness" amongst the women, it's very possible that it exists and I'm just not tuned into the estrogen wars. I can only imagine (sadly) what goes on in the women's locker-room. When you gather a group of men however with the sole purpose of promoting their primal element (lifting heavy objects and grunting), there is a lot of showmanship and one-upping.

It's important to remember that not all men partake in such activities. Men like me simply can't compete with these heavy lifters and we acquiesce to our world of just-the-bar reps and being out-lifted by women in their late 60s. If there were ever a kill on the gym floor, we would be the last feed.  

This can make the gym a very serious and depressing place. Luckily I took the liberty of coming up with some exciting ways to make your gym a little more fun. I take no responsibility for your actions whatsoever if you attempt any of these:

1. Walk up and stand behind some guy benching 300+ pounds (that's around 1,793 Kg for you British folk) as if you're going to spot him. Then while he's in the middle of a rep ask if you can borrow his weight to pound out a quick set of curls.
   
2. Compliment the biggest the guy in the gym on his "badass barbed wire armband tat". This will massage his ego. While he laps up your kind words gently begin to massage his arm.
   
3. Hang a 5 pound free weight from your neck with a harness and proceed to do jumping jacks. Time how long it takes before somebody mimics your new exercise.
   
4. Find that one cardio girl at your gym who consistently burns off about 1000+ calories on the elliptical every day as if she's guilty for eating two leaves of lettuce instead of her usual one. As soon as she gets off make the comment, "you may want to stay on a little longer" and proceed to point at her stomach.
   
5. Locate a new member at the gym who is using a personal trainer. Read the trainer's name tag and approach the pair. Make the remark "Wow! You're REALLY lucky to have NAME_HERE as your trainer. He / She is the BEST!". Then within their view do #3 in this list.
   
6. Find a free cardio machine when most are occupied. Mess with the computer until someone asks you to step off. You could probably make yourself less approachable if you also wore an eye patch.
   
7. Coat the free-weight grips with butter or Vaseline.
   
8. Wear large headphones that are clearly NOT attached to any mp3 player or walkman and rock out HARD!
   
9. Wait for a game of basketball on the court. When the ball goes out of bounds grab it and make a mad dash to the other end of the court for a lay-up. Run out of the gym.
   
10. Hand out towels on the gym floor and in the locker-room.
    
11. Instead of walking around and drinking a protein shake while you lift, nibble on a rare steak.
    
12. Get a universal remote and turn off all of the TVs except the one you are watching. While everyone else goes up to the front desk to complain, just keep watching your channel. When they accuse you, deny everything.
    
13. While others are reading magazines and popular novels during their workout, be different and whip out the Satanic Bible for a quick flip-through.
    
14. Try selling Rolaids in a plastic bag in the locker-room.
    
15. Shower in your workout clothes.
    
16. Hide behind the wall just as you come into the locker-room. When people enter, jump out and scare them. If the person you scare is visibly shaken, call him a pussy.
    
17. Wear conflicting sports attire. For example wear a shirt that says "I love the NY Yankees", and shorts that say "Yankees suck ass".
    
18. Pretend to fall asleep on one of the lifting benches.
    
19. Report someone at the front desk for working out too hard.
    
20. Pick one person (preferably someone who looks paranoid) and follow that person all around the gym, staring at him or her the entire time.

Feel free to add your ideas or share your experience of trying one of mine in the comments section.

Forums

You may have noticed that there is a new "Forums" link available. I have modified the forums to use the same username and password as your existing theDoke.com username and password, but there is one minor thing you will need to do before you have a forum account created.

If you have already registered at theDoke.com PRIOR to the forums being created, all you have to do is edit your profile and update your password (You can even user your existing password). This should create your forum account if you didn't have one and if you already had a forum account, it should have updated your theDoke.com password AND your forum account password.

If you register an account with theDoke.com AFTER this article has been posted, your forum account will automatically be created after your successful registration.

Click on the "Forums" link to access the forums and use your theDoke.com username and password to login to the forums.

Enjoy the forums and if you have any trouble logging in, just email me at tda@thedoke.com