First stop is the locker room where I deposit and secure my street clothes, backpack, money, jewelry and lifeline (hokie passport). As I move out of the locker room and then continue toward my long overdue work out I’ve now entered the gym and have come face to face with the weight room. Occupied almost exclusively by men I move quickly, trying to avoid eye contact but at the same time studying the group discreetly. Who is using steroids and who is not? Hormones, steroids and more hormones - very intimidating. The weight room is probably not the best place for me, your average 98-pound weakling, to be hanging around. These guys are serious about their bodies and their muscles and therefore their workouts. In here it's all about big plates, big arms, big chests, big plans, focus, dedication, commitment and big workouts. I decide that I’m going to start eating better and get in shape - but not today and not here, maybe tomorrow. I make a razor-sharp left turn and head back up the same stairway I just descended only moments before but this time I pass by the locker room and continue on up one more level.
As I reach the third floor I immediately feel more comfortable. The intimidation factor has disappeared and the air is lighter. I feel more "at home." The third floor is a world apart from the first floor and the weight room. There is something about the third floor, just something, and as I begin to run I gradually start to understand what that something is. I see more women and more familiar and friendly faces on the third floor, it has a subdued, calm, inviting atmosphere and something that just makes me feel good and less self-conscious. It is a place where I feel as if I am not being judged and where all my anxiousness and worries subside. This is a place where I can workout and focus. It’s a place where I can fit in.
After a tough but satisfying workout I head back down to the first floor. Instead of making a beeline for the locker room I decide to face the fear once more and, so with the Jaws theme song playing in my head, timidly walk into that dreaded place for the second time today. I have been avoiding this place ever since I have arrived here at Virginia Tech but I really want to lift and I really want to overcome my trepidation. Looks of confusion and then disgust are aimed my way as the group realizes that I might actually be thinking of invading their space. I feel uneasy and like I really don't belong here. By the looks on these guys' faces I can tell that they don't think I belong here either. I'm scared but I'm also angry so contrary to what my gut is telling me to do, which is to turn around and run, I stay and walk over toward the free weights. What I thought would happen and what actually happened were two completely different things. I thought that the guys would get over the initial shock of seeing a small girl in the weight room and then carry on with their everyday workout, but I was wrong. I continued to get stares from everyone that was standing in that room. These guys acted like I was the carrier of some deadly disease as they slowly walked away from the free weights and then each and every section of the room that I ventured into. I soon knew the feeling of complete isolation - I was an outsider.
Committed to getting into better shape and to furthermore face my fears, for the rest of the week I continued to return to and to workout in the weight room. The faces eventually begin to become familiar. I soon begin to notice that there are different groups not just within the gym, but also within the weight room itself. Every week night I would see the jocks working out together, then the body builders, then you had the guys who really tried really hard wanting to obtain some muscular substance (but it didn't look as if it had paid off thus far), and now on rare occasions a few girls working out together. I was secluded, all alone and now was beginning to understand why I never went into that room. It was plain and simple intimidation.
Now that football season has ended and basketball just begining the room is stock full of our best linebackers and our starting basketball players, just keeping in shape for next season. The "jocks", as they are better known as, all stick together laughing and joking as they squat over 150 pounds of weight. The way you can decipher the athletes from the mainstream, run of the mill student is that they are covered in Virginia Tech Orange Bowl gear from their sweatbands to their socks. The jocks work hard in that weight room, but they play hard too, joking, laughing and messing around (after all it is the off-season).
Bodybuilding by definition is the process of developing the musculature of the body through specific types of diet and physical exercise, such as weight lifting. The weight room is jam-packed with the body builders; they represent the largest subculture in that room by far. The sizes of their arm muscles are bigger than most girls' thighs, and appear as if they are rock hard. However, unlike the athletes or jocks they are strictly business; all work and no play. "We spend hours in the gym each afternoon, and if we can't be here for more than an hour at a time we come twice" Chad Rotermund states. Chad continues by saying "our goal is trying to sculpt the ideal body, as close to perfect as we can manage."
The last group I observed was the guys that I see, without fail, every time I am in Mccomas. They workout so very hard in pursuit of that "acceptable" body, but somehow always fall short (you look at them and feel sad for them with all their effort, but no visible reward). I talked to a guy by the name of Neal Sekhri, and asked him what his reasoning was coming to the gym everyday? His reply was trouble-free, effortless, and undemanding: "To be honest, I have realized that I will probably never acquire the type of body that those guys over there have (as he points to the jocks or body builders), but as least I can say I try." Neal continues with a smirk on his face and a quiet laugh and says, "Maybe it’s the lack of performance enhancing drugs. I chose an all natural approach a long time ago.” (Sekhri)
Toward the end of the week, I think the guys in the weight room started
to recognize my face and their shock subsided. I don't think I was accepted
into their club but I think I started to blend into the background and become somewhat unnoticed.
As Virginia Tech students, all 30,000 of us are members of subcultures; a
subculture made up of college students, a subculture of undergraduates, post graduates, athletes, a subculture made up of Blacksburg residents, a subculture of engineers, science majors, communication majors - and the list goes on. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of different subcultures within this one university.
I have learned things that have given me new perspective on diversity, people and the groups that form among us. For one week I was able to segregate and differentiate between the different people, groups, cultures and subcultures that existed in just one room, in one building, on one campus. It was a cool and eye opening realization to see a world that I had never considered before. The world is full of great diversity and a complexity that is infinite in nature. What I observed was little more than a minute fraction of this diversity. I am getting the feeling that what I observed is a more universal phenomenon that applies to many different areas of our lives and our world. I furthermore believe that the study and analysis of different cultures and subcultures may be a key to achieving peace and understanding in, what appears to be, an ever increasingly volatile world.
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