Grunts N' Poses (Patreon)

I found it two weeks ago next to an Asian food store. The letters on the "Grunts N' Poses" sign had begun to shrivel at the edges. Since it was an obvious pun on Guns N' Roses it wouldn't be unreasonable to think it was from back when they were big. I had no idea when that was. Before I was born, or at least before I was interested in non-Disney music. I was intrigued though, since I'd thought of taking up gym again. Last year had been chaos but now with the move done and me settling into the new job it was the right time.

The metal door was unlocked and opened up to concrete stairs leading down into the basement. Gyms need a lot of space, but it doesn't have to be prime estate. In fact not working on display for passersbys was a plus, and the low rent in such a bad location hopefully translated into low membership fees.

The large basement room was exactly what you could have predicted. Whitewashed concrete walls, fluorescent lights, machines from many different decades, and various mismatched weights at racks or just piled around the room. The floor looked fresh though. The odd placement of walls made it clear this wasn't purpose-built as a gym, and there were openings to more rooms, from one of which music was pumping. This room was quiet though, except for the clanks from a machine a beefy guy was working on. Once his repetitions were done he looked up and saw me looking around. He nodded a few times and shouted "Brad!". A few moments later an even more jacked guy walked in from the room that was spilling out beats and looked first at the beefy guy and then discovered me. He nodded upwards at me and approached. "Can I help you?"

I suddenly felt unsure. This felt like some private men's club you had to be invited to, and then only if you could bench a fridge. "I was just passing by when I saw.... I live nearby and... Is it possible I could get a membership or join here and workout here?"

He looked at me as if I was mad, which admittedly I sounded like. "You want to work out here?" he said as if that was the first time anyone asked him that. Before I answered he continued. "Sure. How does $20 a month sound?"

"Yeah. OK. Sure."

"Great dude. Machines in this room and that room. Cardio in there. Free weights in there. Over there are toilets, shower, and some lockers. I'll get you a card for the door. Works 24/7. Light switches on the box over there. Turn them off if you are the last one out. I'm here most days 8-10 and most afternoons. Ask if you need anything."

Over the next week I found out that Brad was an old school bodybuilder who ran this gym more as a hobby than a real enterprise. Whenever a gym would go bust he'd buy more equipment from the bankruptcy auction, if he found anything that interested him. There were enough regulars that the gym paid for itself, which probably was really the only thing he cared about. Most of them were there in the morning, before work. Some of the more dedicated bodybuilders tended to be in during the day. There were a few that, like me, showed up in the evening, but not that many. There were something like 6-7 people that I regularly ran into, but never all at once. I myself had the very ad hoc schedule of only going to the gym with at least a rest day since the last, and only if I felt good and no sore muscles. Effectively that meant 2-3 times a week.

The day it happened was a Tuesday and I was later than usual, though not terribly. I think 8 or 9 in the evening. It was the first time I had been there alone and the lights were out when I opened the door. I flicked the switches and headed down. I started with 20 minutes on the orbital machine. I find it pretty relaxing, and probably completely a waste of my time to not floor it with some high intensity interval training. But once I was done both me and my heart rate were upbeat. I decided to do some squats, perhaps some curls, and then finish by randomly using some of the machines.

The weights room consisted of a couple of benches, a weight lifting cage, and some other contraptions you could use the weights and bars in, several sets of various weights along one wall, and the opposing wall just filled with mirrors. On top of one of the benches sat a black baseball hat someone had forgotten. It had contrasting white on the underside of the brim and the front of the hat was embroidered in white thread with some logotype I didn't recognize. There was something alluring about it that made me pick it up and put it on my head.

It looked good, as baseball caps go. Made me look perhaps not younger but at least sportier. I took a pair of light dumbbells and began to curl in front of the mirror. I hadn't really made any visible progress in the few weeks since I took up workouts again, but I felt good about what I saw in the mirror. I completed my dumbbell routine alternating between facing the mirror and using the bench. I then decided to move to the barbell. Giving my arms a bit of rest I decided to go for squats next.

There's some sort of contraption that looked like you could do squats in. Big padded things you put your shoulders to and then use your legs to lift with, perhaps. I've never seen anyone use it before, but I think that's how it works. Maybe it would be safer to use that instead of the barbell, since I was alone. I load it up with plates a bit lighter than I would do on a bar, since the contraption itself must weigh quite a bit.

I take place inside the machine the way I think it should be used, center my body, make sure my feet are aligned and flat against the floor and begin to push upwards. It's heavier than I thought it would be, but it feels very stable so I slowly go down again and repeat a second time. This is everything a weight workout should be. My pulse is climbing and my breathing gets deeper as all the involved muscle groups greedily start drinking oxygen from my bloodstream to release energy from the sugar molecules they've held on to. Literal fires, chemically speaking, burning energy throughout my body, generating heat, and forcing my body to release sweat to keep my temperature down. I make a fourth and a fifth repetition, and I can feel that tingle of equal calm and power spreading in the body as hormones are released. To prime the rest of the body of what obviously is a situation where strength is needed. Countless struggles with wild animals, hanging from trees or mountain sides, or carrying heavy loads of wood or water to the campsite has taught the body to be prepared. One exertion often leads to another. Another lift or a quick sprint.

I make a final push. Almost trembling I push the contraption up and then try to slowly guide it down again with the last of my strength. I try to let go of the machine, but my body doesn't do what I want. Sometimes in weight training you try to do something but the muscles refuse to work, depleted of all stored energy. This is the opposite. My body pushes up again, and I let my will join in and push it up as far as I can make it go, hold it there for a few seconds and then slowly guide it down. My mind is playing tricks with me, I decide, and make another attempt to leave the machine. But my body continues with another push. This time I'm not trying to agree. This time I try to will it to stop. To lower the weights, but it doesn't. It just pushes on, holds it in place, and then slowly lowers it.

I'm getting scared. This isn't just one of those times when you detach yourself from what your body is doing and end up putting the butter knife in the jam jar. This is straight up the body being possessed by something. I consider screaming, but what good would that do? My body is stuck in a rhythm. Push up, hold, lower, repeat. Every time I think is going to be the last time, because I sure don't have more energy left, and every time I'm wrong. It has to end. It physically can't go on forever. I'll black out, someone will find me, and I'll wake up in a hospital somewhere where a doctor will tell me I have auto-musculus-motus due to my bad diet or whatever.

That's when I hear the sound of fabric slowly tearing. I look down and see the seam of the T-shirt coming apart. It doesn't make sense. My chest, my pecs, my shoulders, my arms, all of it has clearly increased in size, like that of a professional bodybuilder. The swelling muscles can no longer be contained by the clothes sized for my until recently much thinner frame. But it doesn't make sense, because these are not even muscle groups that are part of squatting.

It's well after midnight when I exhausted fall forwards and just lie on the rubber floor in agony. It was hours since I ripped off the remaining tatters of the T-shirt. My formerly loose shorts now sat scrunched up around the top of my thighs. My bronzed, smooth, incredibly stacked body glistened with sweat. Not an athlete body or a fitness magazine cover body, but a proper bodybuilder body, almost bordering a strongman body weren't it for how cut it was. I wasn't sure what had happened, why did it start, why did it stop. Was it the hat? Was it the machine? Right now I didn't care. Right now I wanted a long hot bath and to never set foot here again.