Maybe you all remember back in October when I wrote about how a trainer at my gym ruined my workout. No? Well, you can read it here. To recap, I was in a place I hate being (the gym) doing something I hate doing (lifting weights) and I was forced to talk to someone I had no interest in talking to. There was no escape and I was pretty sure I would see him around every time I convinced myself to go to the gym so being overtly dismissive was out of the question. I do not like having unnecessary bad blood if I can avoid it. Anyway, I pretty much pretend like I don’t recognize him whenever I see him which is, obviously, the mature way to handle the situation. I just carry along with my day, doing squats the way I am supposed to do squats and ignoring his looks as he does like 50 kabillion pull-ups because he is so strong. I’m just glad he doesn’t talk to me anymore. Or, well, I was glad he didn’t talk to me anymore before a new trainer decided to give me advice. Now I would take the old beefcake over the new one any day.
So there I was, post-run, doing some ab things on one of those big balls. He was in the midst of training this other woman when he caught a glimpse of me doing my workout and said under his breath, in a voice that was way too excited for the circumstance,
“Ooh! Tucked ab rolls!”
Unfortunately I didn’t have my music, making it harder for me to pretend like I hadn’t heard him. Whatever, I pretended anyway. Then he leaned over and said
“Miss? If you want I can show you a variation to do on those that will really engage a whole other part of your core.”
I hope those words are never said to me again. Anyway, against my better judgement I agreed to hear him out. So he showed me something that I guess was maybe a little bit better and I thought the whole thing was over and I would just go along with my life, avoiding his glance when I walked through the gym. Pretty much I like to think when I am at the gym I am invisible. But no, of course he wasn’t done. He then wanted to watch me do the weird, new, obviously very exciting tucked ab rolls. Then he said that, if I wanted, he would do some sort of movement and flexibility test which comes with my membership. It felt like a strange thing to turn down so I acquiesced. I mean, how do you turn down free! He asked for my number or email, I opted for the latter. Last Thursday afternoon, at 12 o’clock, was my 45 minute appointment. It was the most uncomfortable 45 minutes of my life.
After running through a few normal questions, he told me he wanted me to do this stepping exercise to try and figure out my vo2 max. While gathering all the necessary equipment, he told me that he had scored an audition (a role? a place?) on this show Fit or Flop which, he informed me, is a show to try and find the next Jillian Michaels. Personally, I don’t know why anyone would want to be the next Jillian Michaels because, as far as I can tell, she is a bitch who yells all the time. But whatever, to each his/her own. In informing me of this opportunity which I cared oh-so-much about, he told me about another trainer with the same gym company who is on the current season of Fit or Flop and had created a workout class called “coregasm” which was designed, surprise surprise, for women because women have orgasms while doing core exercises. I thought of informing him that if this were the case then basically all women everywhere would have really awesome abs but thought better of it and instead told him that I was sick of this obsession with sexualizing everything. I figured this would be a clear sign that I am was not interested in discussing sex or sex-related topics with him. Apparently not clear enough.
No more than 5 minutes later he was on about this woman he works with at another location who makes and markets all these cute workout tops with fun sayings on them. Every Friday the trainers at this other gym wear her t-shirts to try and drum up some interest. I thought that was nice. He then informed me that he got the shirt that said “fitgasm” on it. Of course. He promptly launched into a whole story about how one of the members at the gym told him about his own fitgasm and said that he thinks women have them more than men and that if he were a woman he would work out all the time. Seriously, dude. Let’s go through this again: if women had an orgasm every time they worked out two things would happen. One, the gym would be more crowded with women and two, the gym would be louder. We’re not stupid. We know a good thing when we experience it. But again I didn’t say any of these things. Instead, I looked at him blankly and said “yea, people say really inappropriate things all the time” hoping that he would read that comment as “you say really inappropriate things all the time.” Obviously he didn’t.
Fast forward 4 awkward comments later to when we were wrapping up the longest 45 minutes of my life. He started explaining to me why he had asked me lots of questions at the beginning of the session including “what do you do to unwind.” He then said to me, “you know how you said you like to hang out with friends? Well, this other client I have told me she likes to” –he looked around the gym suspiciously and lowered his voice to a whisper — “have sex.” Dude! I said the only thing I could think of to say which was “um…I’m sure her partner is very happy about that?” He nodded his head enthusiastically. Ew.
So that was pretty awesome. And by pretty awesome I mean incredibly awkward. I have been left over the last few days wondering if this is his chosen behavior all the time or if there is something about me that screams “yes, please talk to me about sex and sex-related things at every possible opportunity.” If that is the case then I need to change that thing because trainer, I do not want to talk to you about sex ever at all. And now, after this incredibly weird experience, I am left with two responsibilities. One, I have to hope that you don’t realize that the link at the bottom of my email is to this blog because it would be uncomfortable if you read it and two, I have to avoid you every time I go to the gym from now until eternity.
franklyrebekah 
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