Weight Lifting Area

The weight area of the gym is a place that a woman would be brave to enter. The grunts of the burly men doing their daily reps is complimented by sharp breathing of much smaller, "less-experienced" guys who aren't in the best of shape, trying to build their muscle mass so that they may someday too be a "lifting veteran". Simply put, the females of the gym generally use the machines, partially because they are expected to stay away from the "real" weight lifting equipment and stick to the elliptical, and partially because they don't want to be in the sweaty, smelly, and noisy mess that is referred to as the free weights. Similarly, one would be hard pressed to find a man willing to use the machines, as they are seen as a feminine luxury that they are too proud to touch. After all, "No one is as fragile as a woman, but no one is as fragile as a man". The occasional women working out with her weight-lifting fanatic boyfriend will stumble into the weight lifting area, only to leave promising to herself that she won't be caught dead in there again. However, on one particular day, I saw a women walk confidently into the free weights area, accompanied only by a water bottle and a gym bag. Though they tried not to, all the men stared in amazement out the corners of their eyes, as she laid down her stuff next to the bench press and began to load two forty-fives on each side. Surely the men must have thought the woman to be mistaken, but were blow away even more when they saw her easily bench press the weight, and even continue to add more. The men that day, especially the scrawnier ones, were shaken by what had happened that day; they had been outdone on their own turf by a woman!