Am I losing my nerves in Chinese gym?
Why do I think that being a Personal Trainer is a great advantage when you go in the gym in China? Check that pic below. Get it? This was the typical night close to the term end. Usually I go in the morning because no one is there but that day I had no time...
I'm walking the stairs to the third floor. Praying that there's no too many people since it's the exam season and I assumed that most of the well-behaving and score-worrying Chinese are reading. I step in... I was right YAY!!! Next glance to the floor... holy ***!!!
This is the worst I have seen the place even though I have been very aware that no one puts the weight back. I smile faintly. Lucky me, I know how to apply different things because finding a same pair of dumbbells is a doomed try. Barbell day, I think when hitting the START button on running mat.
What else is curiously different in Chinese gym protocoll?
1. You don't turn slightly to glance yourself and your progress from the mirror and wait for the dressing room to take better selfies - you don't take selfies that much in the gym BUT you must have your buddies with you (NEVER GO ALONE) and you must lift your shirt between the sets so that your buddies can poke your six-pack abs to make sure they're there.
2. You don't sit on the machines in-between and after your reps using the wifi - you take your girlfriend with you to do that for you. Between your reps you can share the equipment together, how cute is that!!
3. You don't look from far behind the girl who lifts and smile slightly - you do look at her and because she's a westerner, you copy her moves because things she does are cool (because she's a westerner Da'a!!!) and you do it even if she fools you by doing something totally glueless to see if she really got that right.
Don't get me wrong. My gym is a center of the campus and there's many others which are not like that. Overall while watching those guys and girls training, guess what? Their technique is much better in most cases because Asian mentality thinks doing hard things is dull. They do only what they're ready to do. (Ok, yes there's also the "interesting ones" who make you frown your eyebrows and ask is the circus in town.)
Also the guys might not put the weights back and they might be carried away by a western girl... BUT they're still doing more with machines that are almost falling apart, can't be fully adjusted and with that mess than most people in our gyms. What I mean by that? Their training is more that just bicep-chest and they're even using FOAM ROLLER without anyone telling them to. In the end I like that gym. I can do my thing, it's really close and I don't have to worry about how I look.
So no. I am not losing my nerves at all. I like it, challenges welcome and I can keep a check on my professional skills. And did I mention that they cost only 1099 CNY per year (about 150 euros) - you get what you pay for, other gyms can be 2-4x that for a year.
