funny reactions at the gym

During this week’s observations I tried to learn more about competition but I happened to stumble upon something else that I have not noticed before.  This week I noticed that the same big/ athletic people that only lift are the only ones who scream and grunt while working out. I won’t lie, I also do the same and fall under this category but this is the first time I noticed the reactions of people around the one individual screaming or grunting. 

While I was trying to observe competition between lifters, which is what I will call the big/athletic people from now on, I happened to notice an out of place skinny person working out near the lifters.  He was minding his business doing his own weight and a competition was going on near him between two lifters.  One of them decided to put up a lot more weight than they can handle and during the set they began to grunt and scream then he slammed the dumbbells on the ground. The out of place skinny guy was startled then got up and went back to the machines sections. While I was observing this I could not help but laugh but also get annoyed because neither of them racked their weights.
   Since I was working at that moment,which is why I got annoyed, I was not able to test it out myself by lifting heavy weight and then slamming it on the ground to see if a skinny or obese person always gets up and goes back to the machines.

During my entire shift I witnessed two other similar situations.  Do they get away from the lifter because they are scared of a dumbbell hitting their foot or because they are just intimidated of the lifter? If I get a chance and happen to find a skinny or obese person by the free weights, I will try to answer my question by lifting heavy weight and screaming but when I finish my set I will not slam the weights on the ground to hard. This way if the person gets up and leaves it means he is intimidated by the lifter but if he stays it just means that they were just scared of a dumbbell falling on their foot.  Whatever the answer to my question may be, it is still funny. From now on every time I see a skinny/obese person near me during my sets I might just have to slam the weights even harder on the ground so they could get up and leave and I could have a good laugh.  Just kidding, I can’t be that mean. I might just do it if they are using a bench or dumbbell that I want to use too, but that’s about it.

-Junior V