Guest Atomic Dog
The other environmental pollutants
by Chris Shugart

About a year ago I quit going to the gym. Now I’m fat, weak, and spend my day watching Mama’s Family reruns and calling Miss Cleo for tarot card readings. Because of my newfound status as armchair expert, I’ve been offered the job of editor-in-chief at Muscle Media. Goodbye Testosterone! Hello free HMB!

Okay, okay, I’m kidding, but I did quit going to a commercial gym. I let my membership expire and started training in an old football weightroom. It’s dirty, sparse, and ugly. There’s no air conditioning, no carpet, no sound system, no juice bar, no water fountain, and the mirrors are all broken. I walk out of that 115 degree torture chamber bleeding, stinking, and covered with dirt and rust.

And you know what? I may never go back to a commercial gym again.

My progress has really accelerated since I dropped my membership at the "fitness center" and began to kick it old school at the weightroom. And that’s what it is — a weightroom. It’s not a fitness center, it’s not a health club, and it’s damned sure not an exercise studio. It’s a weightroom — a room full of weights and not much else.

Back in my old gym, I could never work up a sweat. Even twenty rep breathing squats couldn’t get me going. The staff kept the place freezing cold; you could hang meat in there. After all, they didn’t want the housewives and "toners" to break a sweat! No, that would be too unpleasant and icky. Sweating might remind members that this is hard work. We can’t have that now can we?

The floors of the foo-foo fitness center were carpeted and in pristine condition, as spotless as virginal snow. The weightroom has concrete floors, black rubber mats, and a couple of "mystery stains" I still haven’t figured out yet. The machine section at the fitness center is five times as large as the free weight section. The weightroom only has a couple of machines and they’re all plate-loaded monsters with nary a selectorized weight stack in sight.

There was only one squat rack at my old gym, but that’s okay since I was about the only one who seemed to know what it was used for anyway. Personal trainers were everywhere. Most would take phone calls while "training" clients and talked more about what they were going to do that weekend than exercise form and function. They would walk their clients from machine to machine following a generic, pre-made workout plan photocopied from the corporate manual.

This gym even had a candy rack and sold soft drinks up at the front desk. Joe Gold wept. Oh, and about once a month they had a "member appreciation day" where they served free Pepsi and pizza all day. This is sort of like having a BYOB night at the local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, isn’t it?

And for some strange reason I never figured out, the gym owners hung up dozens of glossy banners advertising local restaurants. I guess they somehow got compensated for the advertising space. It’s a little tough to concentrate on squats while staring at a four foot stack of Chile’s baby-back ribs. Between that and the constant T-draining sounds of N’Sync and Celine Dion playing softly in the background, I decided it was time to get out before I had the urge to buy something made out of Lycra or read Body-for-Life.

Despite all these TSFs (Testosoterone Sucking Factors), I still trained hard and made some progress during my foray into Sheepville. But something there was holding me back. It just never felt right. I never knew what it was until after I’d trained in the weightroom for a few months. It was the atmosphere, the overall feeling I got from the environment. The atmosphere at the foo-foo fitness center was sucking the T right out of me.

To appease the sign-a-two-year-contract-and-quit-after-two-months crowd, most modern gyms have tried to make bodybuilding comfortable and pretty. In fact, they don’t dare use the word "bodybuilding." That may scare people away. It’s better to say "toning" or "sculpting," lest they frighten Mrs. Jones right out of her big brown support panties.

Well, sorry, but bodybuilding isn’t supposed to be pretty and polite and antiseptic. I want to swear, sweat, and puke, dammit! I want a spot where I can deadlift and I want to train without my shirt on. I want to use chalk and make noise and train in a place that doesn’t have rows of TVs in front of the cardio equipment. I want to hear music performed by ugly, angry men that play their own instruments and write their own songs. In short, I don’t want to train in a regular gym around regular people anymore.

But it’s all good, because in the grungy weightroom, the Testosterone flows like Manna from heaven. Maybe it’s the clang of the iron, the sense of focused intensity, or just being surrounded by a very hardcore and dedicated crowd. Or maybe it’s simply the fact that I don’t have to watch some pasty executive wearing dress socks and cross trainers doing the least amount of work possible in his effort to "tone up." Whatever the reasons, I’ve made some great gains by simply changing my environment.

It reminds me of a study conducted by a group of psychologists a few years back. They decided to figure out what factors contribute most to a person’s success or failure. In other words, person "A" turns out happy with a satisfying job and a strong family. Person "B" ends up a crackhead in the clink where he’s forced to be some guy’s "catcher" in exchange for cigarettes. The question is, why? What factor in their lives played the biggest role in how they turned out?

The psychologists thought they knew the answer before they even began their investigation. They assumed that where a person ends up in life is determined largely by socioeconomic level or perhaps intelligence. What they found surprised them, but it really shouldn’t have. It turns out that while the above factors do play a role, they’re not all that important. The real determining factor to your potential success or failure is the people that surround you. That’s it! Associate with the wrong people and you’ll never reach your goals. Associate with the right people and you’ll not only get to where you want to be, you’ll most likely get there faster.

Let’s apply that to real life. Look at your training partner. Is he a help or a hindrance? Does he slow you down in the gym? Does he try to talk you out of doing tough programs? Does he miss a lot of workouts? If so, then why do you put up with him? Out of politeness? Well, then it’s time to be a little selfish and drop the guy for your own benefit. I wonder how many people languish in mediocrity because they’re too "polite" to change their surroundings. There’s a fine line between being polite and not having the balls to do the right thing.

Now look at your friends. Do you see yourself moving forward when you’re in their presence? It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about building your body, getting your degree, or getting a promotion at work; do your friends motivate you just by being around them, or do they simply get in the way? Can you feed off their energy or do they drain you dry?

How about your girlfriend or wife? Is she your foundation from which all good things are built, or is she an anchor dragging your ass down? And this goes for the T-vixens out there too. Does your man help you up when you fall, or is he the one pushing you down to compensate for his own insecurities?

Your family is another big part of your environment. Not a whole lot you can do about family, but I think a real man can overcome any negative family influence, learn from their mistakes and not repeat them with his own family. You come from a fucked up, broken home? Congratulations. Welcome to the club. Now suck it up, stop wallowing in it, and get on with life.

I’d like to think that a true T-man could overcome the effects of these "environmental pollutants," but this is more difficult than most people think. Let’s face the facts, if you hang out with a bunch of drunks, you’ll most likely drink more. If you surround yourself with people who don’t train and don’t care about what they eat, then they will influence you. You may not quit entirely, but you’ll likely alter your behavior and make a few bad choices.

I spent seven years teaching in public high schools and no where is this more apparent. Simple fact: kids who are going places hang out together. Kids who are going nowhere do too. Don’t you think the same is true for adults? So, who are you hanging out with? What kind of people do you surround yourself with? Are they rubbing off on you? If so, is that a good or bad thing?

The problem is, we T-people who want to do something with our lives (and want to look good doing it) are a rare breed. There aren’t many of us out there. Sometimes you may even think that you’re all alone in your efforts, that there’s no one around you that shares your goals. You may be right. George Washington once said that it’s better to be alone than in bad company. That’s cool, but ol’ George didn’t have the Internet, did he?

These days, you can find like-minded people from all over the world right there on your computer. For example, if you haven’t already, check out the T-mag forum. There you’ll find thousands of people with similar goals and interests, people who want to build lean and mean physiques, stand out in the crowd, live life to the fullest, and drink Guinness out of the bellybutton of Angel Teves. Okay, maybe that last one is just me, but you get the idea.

Of course, switching gyms is easy compared to switching friends, dumping a lame training partner or castrating girlfriend, or completely changing your surroundings. But if weight training has taught us anything, it’s that we can grow by overcoming resistance. If we’re not happy with something, be it the size of our biceps or the vibe of our environment, we can change it. We have that power.

Look around. Check out the people and places that make up your surroundings. If you see any environmental pollutants, clean ’em up. It could be the most important thing you ever do.

Responses to this article should be sent to Chris Shugart at cs@t-mag.com.

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