Gym-Goer Recognition Outside the Gym — That Unspoken Nod

There’s something weird that happens when you’ve trained for long enough.

You can be nowhere near a gym, just walking through town doing normal day-to-day stuff, and then you see someone who obviously trains.

And your eyes are just drawn to them.

I do it all the time.

Straight away I’m looking at what’s big, what needs work, how much I reckon they bench, how often they train, whether they actually know what they’re doing, and sometimes whether they’re on anything.

It sounds daft when you say it out loud, but I know I do it.

You Just Know

After years of training, you start noticing things other people probably wouldn’t.

Shoulders.

Traps.

Forearms.

The way someone carries themselves.

Sometimes someone can be wearing a coat and you can still tell they train.

I think once you’ve spent enough years around physiques, you just develop an eye for it.

The other day I was walking through town and I saw this fella coming towards me.

He was massive.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

And we both just nodded.

Neither of us knew each other.

We didn’t stop.

We didn’t speak.

It was just that little nod of recognition.

Like:

Yeah mate, I know.

That was it.

Is It Some Sort of Caveman Thing?

It got me thinking about why we even do that.

I don’t know if there’s some ancestral reason for it or whether I’m just overthinking it.

But there is something quite instinctual about sizing another man up.

How big is he?

How strong is he?

Could I take him?

Or, in gym language:

I wonder what he benches.

It reminded me of two gorillas looking at each other thinking:

What?

Maybe that’s complete bollocks.

But there is definitely some mix of comparison and respect going on.

You’re looking at someone else’s physique, comparing it to your own, and at the same time recognising the work that probably went into it.

We All Compare

That’s probably the bigger thing.

People compare themselves to other people all the time.

Training just gives you more things to compare.

He’s bigger.

You’re leaner.

His shoulders are better.

You’re stronger.

He looks enhanced.

You wonder what he lifts.

I imagine women who train probably do their own version of this too, although obviously I can’t speak for them.

Once you care about something enough, you notice it in other people.

Someone into cars notices cars.

Someone into watches notices watches.

I train.

So apparently I walk around judging delts.

It’s Still a Community Outside the Gym

That’s the bit I like.

You don’t have to know the person.

You don’t have to train at the same gym.

You don’t even have to speak.

You just recognise that they’re part of the same little world.

And if someone has trained seriously for years, you know there’s probably a lot behind that physique.

Years of sessions.

Dieting.

Injuries.

Good days.

Shit days.

Periods where everything flies up.

Periods where nothing moves.

So when you see someone who has clearly put the work in, maybe that nod is just respect.

Nothing deep.

Just:

I see you.

You train.

So do I.

Once You’re In It, You’re In It

The gym is its own community.

And I think this is one of the strangest examples of it.

You can leave your own gym, go somewhere completely different, see another person who trains and somehow know straight away.

Maybe there’s no caveman instinct behind it at all.

Maybe we’ve just spent far too many years looking at muscles.

Either way, once you’ve trained long enough, you don’t seem to switch that part of your brain off.

You notice.

You compare.

You wonder what they lift.

Sometimes they catch you doing exactly the same thing.

And then you both nod.

Yeah mate. I know.