Collegiate Times

The first two weeks back to school always seem to deliver the same social patterns between students. To upperclassmen, many of these social interactions can be enjoyable to watch as they show the clear signs that someone is experiencing college for the first time.

Of course there?s the all-too-familiar bus conversation between two freshmen that we?ve all overheard, as they share disgust at this thing called the ?Math Emporium? and they wear their backpacks uncomfortably high and their freshly purchased Virginia Tech lanyards around their necks with room key and Hokie Passport attached.

Another token back-at-school occurrence is the masses of people that can be seen walking down Main Street as if they have some destination, even though we all know they don?t. Every time I see this happen I can?t help but ask myself, why is it that people feel need to walk around on weekend nights in groups of at least 30 people? A similar mass of people can also be found waiting outside of Cassell Coliseum on a Friday night at nine o?clock, I assume for some magical party bus to arrive.

But perhaps the most anticipated occurrence each fall, as students return to Tech, is the heightened amount of people who decide it?s time to hit the gym, and somehow convince themselves that they will stick to their routine of going to the gym every single day for the remainder of the semester. This time of the school year is when people seem most determined to do anything to get them selves in shape, whether by running, lifting, stretching, pushing, pulling, spinning or whatever it may take.

When it comes to going to the gym, I think there?s a few things that most people tend to forget. First of all, there is the obvious gym etiquette. Imagine this: you?re running on the treadmill, getting into the workout groove, when you are approached by one of your colleagues who proceeds to ask you, ?Um ? how much longer are you going to be?? The last thing that someone who is working up a sweat on a treadmill wants is for someone to remind them of how much time they have left.

Maybe the idea of ?free week? at the gym, where you can try out as many fitness classes as you want, is what causes so much traffic at our gyms. Let?s face it, college students will try nearly anything if it is advertised as free. Three of my guy friends took a free cycling class, which resulted in near fainting for two of them and possibly vomiting for the other. I?m not saying that it?s bad to try out a fitness class or two, but we should all be wise about the lengths we push our bodies to. Especially if you are the typical college boy whose only exercise consists of moving your thumb on the video game controller while playing Halo 2.

So what conclusions have I reached about our school?s fall gym resurgence over my past two years at Tech? It?s become pretty clear that guys and girls go to the gym for very different reasons. For guys it?s all about getting bigger, meanwhile girls just want to get smaller. I believe that very few girls know what they are doing when they walk into the weight room. Most of us tend to stick to the machines that are self-explanatory and only cause us to merely ?glisten? rather than sweat. I?ll be the first to admit that it?s intimidating being surrounded by buff guys wearing cut-off T-shirts with cheesy workout sayings on them like, ?Pain is a sign of weakness leaving the body? and ?Go big or go home.? Oh yea, we?re all so impressed.

Also, the gym traffic jams seem to contradict the way we carry ourselves when we are outside of the gym. Why is it that we will fight each other with words and dirty looks for the best parking spots in the commuter lot just so we won?t have to walk the extra hundred yards to our classes, but we will slave away for hours at the gym to get the same workout? Why is it that we would rather ride the crowded bus with our face shoved in some random person?s armpit instead of walking the half-mile home?

The question we all need to ask ourselves is whether we want to fall victim to the two-week gym curse. You go religiously every day for the first two weeks of school, get in your daily cardio and weight training, and then the rest of the semester you become a stranger to the gym. It becomes like a ghost town as the machines begin to gather dust and only the faithful remain. So this year when it comes to resolutions, whether it is to drop those summer pounds or avoid the unavoidable freshman gain, stay faithful and don?t let yourself become just another forgotten face at the gym.