why do people work out

today i went to the gym. what makes guys want to work out? let's examine the possible choices. 

1. chicks. chicks dig guns. and by guns i mean muscles. which you can only get, in this day and age, in a gym. so check off that one. 

2. bros. they want to impress the bros. kind of falls in line with the whole macho deal. 

3. the feel good factor. they genuinely like working out because it makes them feel good. which is so foreign to me, but okay. that's cool i guess. 

4. occupation. they need to be ripped because they work construction. or anything that involves heavy machinery. maybe ups worker. or maybe a strongman competitor .

5. vanity. they like to look in the mirror. if you don't work out, there's really not much to look at. i guess skeletal structure, but that gets boring after a while, doesn't it?

6. heroes. maybe there is someone you look up to that is ripped and so you must also become ripped because you must be just like your hero. 

7. sports. because you want to be faster or stronger than the opponent. why can't we be friends.

8. for shits and giggles. because, you know, just for the hell of it. one word: arnold. 

if you know me, you'll know that i definitely fall into the lower quadrant of the muscle/weight class. i'm of average height but on the thinner side, and for the last 5 years, people have been telling me to work out. i never really understood why. why would i sacrifice hours a week pushing and pulling on things that make loud clanking noises and make my body sore afterwards? it really didn't compute; i was perfectly happy skating around on my sector nine mini for "exercise."

i just didn't really get why guys were so hyped about working out. "let's work out, bro!" and "yeah man, i'm so stoked to hit the gym" were very foreign phrases to me. i mean, everyone around me said it. it just seemed so stupid to me. why waste time doing all that when i could be designing a shirt or scheming some plan? you know... useful things. 

well, come to it, this summer my friends and i convinced ourselves that we would help each other get ripped--well, them helping me out more then me them, but who's checking. so i'm signing up for a membership at the local y and i've been pretty dedicated in going. i try and do the benchpress a lot, which i feel like a complete idiot on because i can bench the bar and 10lbs. but with my friends there and all, it's not too bad. 

i can't say i like working out, but it does help me get bigger and i enjoy that. so i suppose indirectly i enjoy working out. but i don't ever think i can become like arnold. if you watch that video i linked to, which is kind of explicit, i may add, you will see the opposite of me, someone who loves working out so much that he,... well you'll see.  

here's the reason i work out. 

9. future occupation. if i ever do surgery, i'll have to pull on heavy retractors, to open up the chest to operate on, for hours. i'd rather not make a fool of myself and start shaking while pulling on them. that's really the only reason. 

okay fine. maybe also number 1.