I havenβt entered a gym since the last millennium, when an instructor took my shilling and promised to turn me into a he-man. At least, I thought he said βhe-manβ. He might have said βhumanβ. Anyway, I got no closer to becoming a he-man than I did to becoming emperor of China. This failure has rankled. And I blame him.
Lately, gyms have emigrated from shopping centres and high streets to light industrial zones alongside car wreckers, chemical storage facilities and bikie HQs. You see muscled fellows wearing wisp singlets plodding along the backstreets like the strongest, simplest superhero in any franchise β the Hulk, the Thing β the type of erratic champion needing close and constant instruction from the mastermind of the gang lest he accidentally break North America.
Credit: Robin Cowcher
A whiff of the underworld accompanies bodybuilding for me. Is it the thuggishness muscle implies? The fact it can be turned so readily to standover work? Or the fact bikies and crime bosses have recently got so massive? Watching a cop trying to cuff a Coffin Cheater these days is like watching a toddler attempt a Rubikβs Cube.
Maybe muscle gym membership should come with an ankle tracker. One of those devices parolees wear so they canβt slip down to the pub on Tuesday arvo, slurp daytime beers and slide back into the life. You want the Gold Class membership that comes with caramel flavoured βprotein shakesβ? OK, put this anklet on and surrender your passport.
On the street I smile at bodybuilders for the same reason I smile at pastors, nuns, Hare Krishnas and Goths β just to be nice, to affirm they have a right to belief, or cosplay, or some mix of the two. It seems mean not to, like shouting βrhubarbβ in a theatre.
The most frightening car crash I was ever in involved a driver from a family of famous hotheads. It was early morning, and I was a sleep-addled passenger when this fool, hollering along with one of Joe Strummerβs insurrectionist ditties, went off the road and down an embankment, rolling his Renault a couple of times. I was thrashed by a maelstrom of his bric-a-brac: mixtapes, Coke cans, cigarette lighters, footy boots, an oboe, a ping pong paddleβ¦ When the death throes of the T14 finally silenced, the driver was lying on top of me in a blizzard of Wonderbra flyers heβd been paid to box-drop but hadnβt. βThese bras seem reasonably priced,β I said. βNow get off me.β We climbed up and opened the driverβs door like submariners emerging from the deep, from a mission, from a war β¦ into a day of peace, a day we didnβt deserve.
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And this is where my prejudice against muscle hounds really took flight. We had crashed outside a gym, an outer-suburban tilt-slab bunker veneered with dark glass. On hearing the roar of the crash a dozen or so simulacrum Schwarzeneggers strode outside and began circumnavigating the wreck asking fatheaded questions and pocketing Wonderbra flyers. They were a welcome sight to us. These lads, these eager behemoths, would soon right our car. Except β¦ they were not eager at all.
It turns out extreme muscle is purely aesthetic, a type of beauty pageant, not to be mistaken as useful, not a tool that might be employed in any nine-to-five capacity. These Hercules types (as often stuck to mirrors as blowies to flypaper) are objets dβart, not beasts of burden. None will dig a hole for fear of the bulging disc and the proletarian ignominy involved. None will cart a hay bale unless applauded. None will climb a ladder, being so dangerously top-heavy.