I Accidentally Dripped Sweat Into My Training Partner's Mouth Mid-Bench Press

I Accidentally Dripped Sweat Into My Training Partner's Mouth Mid-Bench Press

There are certain things that happen in the gym that you probably should take to the grave.

This is one of them.

Unfortunately for my old training partner Joe, I'm writing about it instead.

This happened years ago, back when I was considerably heavier than I am now. I was about 15 stone, genuinely fat, my cardio was absolutely horrendous and apparently my body's solution to any form of physical activity was to produce as much sweat as humanly possible.

I'm talking sweat constantly dripping from my face.

To make matters worse, I had a full head of hair and a full beard, so after a hard set I basically looked like I'd just climbed out of a swimming pool.

And this particular day was no different.

"Can You Give Me a Spot?"

I'd just finished my own set when Joe asked me to spot him on bench press.

Joe was one of my closest friends and we trained together all the time back then. Sadly, he's no longer here, but I'll come back to that.

Anyway, he gets himself underneath the bar ready to bench and I take my position behind him.

Nothing unusual.

Joe gets himself set.

I lean over.

He opens his mouth for some reason.

And that's when I see it.

A single, absolutely disgusting droplet of sweat forming right on the end of my beard.

I swear everything suddenly went into slow motion.

I could see this thing hanging there.

I knew exactly where it was going.

But there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

It dropped.

Straight.

Into.

His.

Mouth.

Absolute Chaos

There are probably very few sensations in life worse than lying underneath a loaded barbell and realising your training partner has just accidentally fed you a bead of his own beard sweat.

Joe's reaction confirmed this.

He got the weight back onto the rack and absolutely lost his shit.

And I should probably have apologised.

I should have been concerned.

I should have helped calm the situation down.

Instead, I completely broke.

I couldn't stop laughing.

The more disgusted and angry Joe became, the funnier I found the whole situation, which obviously wasn't helping matters whatsoever.

I was genuinely crying with laughter.

Eventually, after about five minutes of absolute chaos, Joe started laughing as well.

Then we were both gone.

Training had basically stopped because neither of us could pull ourselves together.

All because one disgusting little drop of sweat had somehow managed to find the smallest possible target from about two feet above him.

The Things You Actually Remember

Joe passed away not too long after this.

And obviously when somebody you've been close to is no longer here, there are much bigger memories attached to them than something stupid that happened during a bench press.

But I've realised over the years that these stupid little memories matter too.

I couldn't tell you exactly what weight Joe was benching that day.

I couldn't tell you what programme we were following.

I probably couldn't even tell you what else we trained.

But I can still picture that fucking sweat droplet.

I can still see his mouth open.

I can still remember the look on his face when he realised what had happened.

And most importantly, I remember the two of us eventually sitting there laughing our heads off about it.

That's one of the strange things about spending years in gyms.

You think you're going to remember the PBs.

You think you'll remember the numbers.

You think you'll remember how big you were or how strong you were.

Some of that stays with you.

But often it's the people and the completely ridiculous moments between the sets that you remember most.

So this one is for Joe.

A good mate, a training partner, and quite possibly the only person I've ever accidentally force-fed my own sweat.

Sorry mate.

I promise it wasn't intentional. 😂