Matt Schotte

February 6, 2011
English 102
Essay 1

Forever Focusing on Fitness

Breathe in, breathe out. These two concepts possibly might be the most important focuses

of going to a gym and especially lifting weights. There are two things that people picture when

they hear the word gym, some people think of a country club like atmosphere which has sport

fields and courts, spas, pools, and other luxurious qualities; others think weights, running

equipment, and other basic quality things to get people in shape to better themselves. I will be

focusing on the “basic” gym. The gym is a place where you can just relieve stress and stay in

shape, but personally in my opinion to have fun. Obviously most people go to the gym to better

themselves by lifting weights, doing yoga or abdominal workouts, using elliptical or nautilus

machines, or running on a treadmill, but do they actually enjoy going?

The gym, for me is a place I can go to have a good workout that I enjoy. The main

reason of going is to become healthier and exercise, but the gym is part of my daily schedule. I

have a very high interest in getting into shape and learning more about how to become stronger

and healthier by going into the gym, hence why I chose to be an exercise science and health

fitness major. With this very high interest I will be conducting interviews with gym members and

also studying people while they are at the gym exercising.

The Thornburg Gym located at Bridgewater State University, in the Tinsley Center, is

what I will be researching for my ethnography project. I chose this site because for the the past

two years my second home has become the gym. My brother, who is twenty-three, right now, got

me interested and hooked to lifting weights and becoming physically stronger, when I was about
seventeen. My brother and I have a special bond with each other and are pretty much best friends

and one thing that we always do together is go to the gym. We can spend countless amounts of

time at the gym and not even realize that we have been there for two hours. I am legit a gym rat,

my friends will always bash on me because I am always at the gym at least once a day. It is a

time for me to be relaxed and calming and just lift weights. It makes me feel good to lift weights

and I can feel good about myself knowing that I’m bettering myself by working out. I get an

adrenaline rush to just work out and I truly enjoy it because it makes me feel good about myself

as a whole. I might be possibly working in a gym after I graduate and get out of college as a

personal trainer or possibly a physical therapist which will make me thoroughly enjoy my

occupation even more. I believe that having a job you enjoy is much better than trying to be

filthy rich with a job that you cannot stand.

I have come to realize that the price for the Thornburg gym is ridiculously cheap which

only costs one hundred dollars for a yearly membership when most gym memberships such as

the legendary Gold’s Gym ranges from twenty-five to thirty dollars a month which adds up to

two hundred and forty dollars a year minimum. There are in fact different gyms that cost less,

but the cheapest gym in the area, Planet Fitness, charges ten dollars a month which is one-

hundred and twenty dollars. The price you pay for a gym membership at the Thornburg Gym is

a steal; you cannot get a better price, but is the cheap price just for students? The Thornburg

Gym has everything you need in a gym and new equipment that is waiting and wanting to be

used. I’ve also noticed that the gym is somewhat empty from the hours of seven in the morning

to four in the afternoon which is why I always go to the gym to around two-thirty in the

afternoon. From four to eight is when the gym is most populated.

 Muscle heads, gorilla juice heads, and steroid users are all common nicknames to the

bigger culture in the gym where all the attention is attracted to because of the heavy weight they

are doing and the heavy breathing and groans they exert. There are not just “body builders” in a

gym, but also athletes, parents, grandparents, but most gyms have a college student populated

culture. My main focus is going to be the college, middle-aged population that attends the gym. I

believe that most college students go to the gym and just start going to the gym at this time of

their life because they get bored after classes and do not want to just sit in their dorm rooms

while consuming unhealthy food and watching television.

The main reason why people go to the gym is to stay in shape, but for others they think

they are “in shape” because they attend a gym, but do not fully utilize their gym time. People like

to call these people that do not utilize their gym time “posers” especially when standing around

doing nothing and just socializing. There should be no reason for someone to go to the gym if

they are not going to do anything and just stand around wasting perfectly good space.

Another main factor that I believe why more people are attending gyms is MTV’s hit

show “Jersey Shore”. I believe people are going to the gym more often after seeing “Jersey

Shore” and wanting to look like Ronnie or the Situation, characters in the show that go to the
gym every day and are muscular. The show came up with slogans such as GTL, which means

gym, tan, laundry and also the term gorilla juice head which means a strong muscular guy, that

people assume use steroids. All these slogans and episodes of this hit television show has

brainwashed many of the high-school and college communities, but has had a positive impact

because truly I believe more people go to the gym because they want to look like characters on

the show.

I am thoroughly excited to study groups of people in this atmosphere. It is going to be

very enjoyable to look at this community and actually break down and study what is actually

going on and what people think and do. I believe that I can gain people’s trust by questioning

and interviewing people that attend the gym, but could probably tell if someone is not telling the

truth by their body language and appearance. The main things that I question are: Why do people

go to the gym? Do people like going to the gym? Do they feel forced into going to a gym? What
exercises are most people doing? What do they look for in a gym? Is there a difference between

one gym and another? Soon enough these questions will no longer be mysteries.