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I place my hand on the metal loop of the old stainless steel door, squeeze tightly and fling it open with a quick flick of my wrist as I had done countless times before. The door creaked violently and quickly shut behind me. I take a minute to look around—something I had never done before. The cinderblock walls are covered with a rather subtle bone color that had an almost calming effect even though the walls were bare. I walk up the green, grey, blue speckled carpet and into the lobby area. In front of me stands a rather large dark brown welcome desk, I scanned my membership card and continued on into the locker room.
The locker room looked just like a typical grade school locker room with oak benches, concrete floors, several lockers, a bathroom area, and a shower room. This is of no surprise, probably because it was at one time a school, Richland Middle School to be exact. I changed into my Nike shorts and t-shirt and head on my way to my real focus: the weight room.
I head down the hallway and into the first room on the left. Although there are no doors that separate the weight room from the hall I can immediately feel a difference. The air is warmer and damper and the slight essence of sweat dances up into my nostrils. The walls were painted a bright white and the floor was lined with a thick rubber matting to absorb the shock of the weights and machines bouncing around. I walk straight through the first room that housed the various cable operated machines, the machines “only the women use,” one guy would later tell me with a smirk, and into the subsequent, slightly larger room.
AC/DC blared across the stereo system instantly taking control of my senses, after the shock settles in the background you could hear some faint grunts and barbells clanging together. Upon looking around you find many different cliques of people. There are the elderly men getting their daily exercises in. There are the high school kids (most of them too busy...