It was a leg day. I went to the gym, said a dead “hello” to the manager and paid for one workout. He stared at me with his hanging dog face and exclaimed, “You come here frequently. A membership would be a cheaper solution.”

I didn’t make a sound and just looked at the refrigerator full of overpriced mineral water and “ISO” sports drinks which allegedly replace your internals after a “hard” workout. Then, he added – “But you can do whatever you want. This is better for me anyway. More money.”

I remained silent, took a key and went to the locker room to put on my lifting armor. In the middle of the undressing process, I decided to check how my ecto parts were doing that day. It was bad. I looked as if I’d just returned from the Kon-Tiki expedition. Still, I wouldn’t trade my ecto parts for the world. They are priceless.

Most lockers were open.This observation gave me hope that I was going to train in solitude.

“The king of the gym is here. Weights, you better be ready.”

I began walking towards the lifting zone when I saw the annoying dog face again. I instinctively returned to get my backpack and wallet. The guy was not to be trusted. Who knows? Maybe he had a separate key for every locker and was going to gather personal data while I was destroying the weights. There was no need to risk it.

I entered the weight room. To my surprise, I was not alone. A Latino steroid user with a greedy smile on his face was doing dumbbell curls; a nerdy guy with ”dentist” written on his face was sumo squatting; a girl was spinning a cardio machine like a Duracell rabbit.

It was time for my heavy leg press session. Ironically, the machine was right in front of the cardio section. “That slut will be impressed by my breathtaking macho leg press strength,” I thought.

I cracked my back and began warming up with just the sled. I did 20 reps with the sled, 10 reps with 2 plates aside, 10 reps with 3 plates, 10 reps with 4 plates and 5 reps with 5 plates before my work sets. The sound of the cardio machine was giving me extra power and strength. I completed about 10 reps with my work weight (over 3 times my bodyweight). There was no grunting either. That’s for losers. Real men make no sounds when they lift.

I added a little more weight and did 5 more reps. The range of motion wasn’t the best. I didn’t look like an embryo from the side, but some movement took place which is already something compared to other leg press warriors who barely bend their knees.

Out of nowhere a wannabe gangster with a hoodie came to me and started talking like I was his chimney cleaner.

“Can I join, brah? I am in the middle of a giant set,” he asked.

“Sure. Do you want me to remove some plates?” I kept the “brah” silent and used my eyes to say it.

“No, brah. I will rep this shit, brah.”

He put on his iPhone headphones pumping LiL Waynesque music and started doing half reps with my weight. He did 20 reps without a warm-up which was pretty impressive. When he got up he was shaking a little but still managed to get to the leg extension machine and did some baby sets there. The burn in his quads was probably demonic at that point.

The cardio bunny was looking the whole time. We both had an image to maintain. I was a mysterious skinny warrior trying to display internationally recognized leg strength whereas he was a hood rich underground rapper getting ripped for a new music video.

After 40 minutes, the leg press session was over. I can’t tell you what the exact tonnage was, but I probably leg pressed a decently sized car park. I was a machine. The insane pump in my legs inserted a sinful thought in my head – I was really close to checking out my quads in the mirror. However, there were too many people. I wasn’t sure if I can handle the attention and the possible jealousy. Besides, where’s the class in that? I hate when people strip in the gym and start examining their pimples. Disgusting and narcissistic.

That workout took place during a period when I was doing many exercises that lead to hell according to the permabulkers.

Calf raises were the following movement. I started with a light warm-up and right when I was about to begin my work sets the brah with the hoodie came to me once again.

Since the calf machine was in a small separate room with a broken lamp that was constantly flickering, I felt like I were in a dark alley with a dealer.

“You doing calf raises too, brah,” said the hoodie guy.

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“No.”

“Cool. Let’s kill it brah.”

He added some weight and began pumping heavy reps. I could see a bag full tobacco coming out of the pocket of his dark blue sweatshirt. In addition, the guy had one of those digital watches that have a GPS, a compass, a thermometer and probably a penis meter too. Not very stylish, but I guess it was fine for a wannabe gangster with no taste.

Between my sets, I heard the cardio bunny talking to some guy. He was teaching her how to do something. I didn’t want to distract myself and muted my surroundings. I was in the gym to train my legs not my gossip muscles. After a few sets, I was done. My lower legs felt ready to explode. It was time for some back hyperextensions for which I had to return to the other room. Oh, boy. The image was colorful already.

An aerobic instructor was on top of the cardio bunny. He was teaching her how to do a weird sit-up variation. The guy was wearing a black tank-top and soft tennis shoes, of course. His disgusting sweat was contaminating the floor. A serious amount was dropping on the mat and the cardio bunny. I felt extremely grateful that I have enough brain cells not to use that mat for anything.

From the side, it appeared that they were about to do a few sets of the most popular exercise in the world know as “ins and outs”. Nevertheless, their conversation revealed to me that they were not that close.

The guy was obviously taking advantage of an old and unwritten gym principle which allows an exchange of sexual vibes during which the involved parties pretend that the goal is to learn “proper exercise form”, and nobody is thinking what everybody is thinking.

“Whatever,” I thought and started warming-up.

After a few minutes, the same aero guy went to the leg press machine that I had left loaded with thousands of plates and asked – “Who is lifting that?”

I was going to say me, but then I remembered that the cardio bunny had already seen my leg press prowess. Also, I quickly realized that the aero guy was probably going to make me unload the plates and decided to keep quiet. The cardio bunny looked at me, which was enough for the guy’s six sense to activate. He approached me with a “look at my muscles” body language.

“Are you lifting that?”

“Maybe.”

“Lol. You have to be kidding me. I don’t believe it. How are those sticks of yours holding that weight?”

“It’s a leg press, you know,” I replied while hoping that this moron will understand what I meant.

“Seriously. How is that even possible?”

What did this idiot want me to say? That I overclock my chi to lift heavy?

The aero man was annoying and smelled like a dirty swine. I said nothing.

“Come on, man! Tell me! What is your secret? I mean your legs are smaller than my arms. How is this even possible,” he continued.

“Some people are just naturally strong but cannot add a lot of mass, you know,” I said.

He didn’t like my answer, but it was time for his next set, and the interrogation ended.

I started my weighted sets – 20kgx5 reps, 40kgx5 reps. Then I put 60kg on the ground for my work set. I got in a perfect position, but something felt terribly wrong. Even without a visual confirmation, I could feel that somebody was looking at my butt. It was not the right person. It was aero man.

I guess he had never seen a guy do hyperextensions with added weight. My will to destroy the weights got even stronger. I did 4 reps with a semi-perfect form. Right when I was about to do my 5th rep, aero man decided to sabotage me.

“Stop. You are doing it wrong,” he said.

I finished the rep anyway and put the plates on the floor with a vengeance while imagining that I was letting them fall on aero man’s pretentious and squishy tennis shoes.

“You are not doing the exercise with a full range of motion,” he said and got on the device to show me “proper form”.

This is when my critical mind caught a peculiar detail. This particular hyperextension bench had a special hole for your genitalia. ”It makes sense,“ I thought.

The level of sick increased when I saw aero man’s little gun occupy the very same place that mine had visited just a few seconds ago. I thought of the 1000s of other guns that have been there before. One could only wonder how old that hyperextension machine was.

The guy was doing his hyperextensions with such a big arch that his dick was coming in and out of the special hole on every rep. I felt disgusted looking at aero man fucking my training equipment. When he got off the machine, I could see traces of his perspiration on the pad. Sickness level 3 was reached. I took my backpack and left.

Surprisingly, or not, this imagery left my head on the way to the locker room. I had made a more important observation than the fact that the hyperextension in this gym has the characteristics of a shared sex doll.

I was more worried by the fact that heavy leg presses, just like heavy squats, had turned out to be ineffective muscle constructors for me.

“I guess it’s because I am natty,” I said to myself, wrote “leg press – 240kg x 10” in my notebook and left.

P.S. The post revealing the natty potential has been updated.