We have three new guys in our gym who have started showing up at our afternoon workout time.  They seem nice enough, work hard, and have decent physiques.  But they are incredibly annoying.  Why?  They are loud!

Not loud in a friendly “say hi” and share your energy kind of way.  They are loud in a “workout show” kind of way.

Some people in the gym have to get ego strokes by being loud and making lots of noise while they lift.  There’s a constant element of “HEY, Look over here and notice how hard I’m working” to everything they do.  Believe me, we can all tell if you’re working hard—you don’t have to bang the weights around for us to notice.

Apparently, you want us to see how hard you’re working by being loud and dropping weights, grunting, and yelling at each other. But what we see are “posers” who are looking for some validation and desperate for ego strokes.

Yesterday at the gym this new loud crew arrived in their tank tops and bright head bands (??) and started yelling and dropping weights and banging things around as they did their deadlifts.  After sharing lots of looks of disgust, I noticed something very telling.  Near us, on a bench doing bicep curls, was the biggest guy in our gym.  This man is just enormous, with curves everywhere.  He often wears skin tight superhero shirts, which he fills perfectly, and he’s one of those guys who could win any local contest but is just not interested in competing.  He just loves being in the gym and being big.

And one other thing….he’s perfectly quiet.  I’ve never heard him make a sound.  He never draws attention to himself, whether squatting or benching or curling huge poundages.

So here’s hoping the new loud crew “catches a clue” and pulls out of their self-absorbed screamfest long enough to notice that this monster of a man is quietly working his way around the room getting much bigger than they could ever dream of being.

Now hush, and lift already.  Save that energy you’re wasting with your noise and redirect it to your workout.  You’ll make better progress and we’ll all enjoy a bit of quiet.