One piece of advice-If you happen to dabble in the Martial Arts of the Mixed variety, and you happen to own a pair of shorts/a rashguard that suggests you train in said arts, don't wear said shorts/rashguard to your local meathead circle-jerk watering hole.
Now, I'm not that much of an asshole. But when I have a whole hour a day of "me time" and I decide to use that hour to lift, thats what I wanna do. Lift. Quietly. No talky-talky, no talky-techy. And for the love of God, I don't want to watch the video you have on your phone of you dead lifting 450lbs while the brohans filming you jizz their jockstraps and grunt like Tim Taylor at a powertool convention. Take the social queue, and leave me the hell alone.
Sorry, I'm rambling. Let me start at the beginning. Come along...
So, Friday after work and before leaving town for an "Outsiders" style street rumble a family reunion, I decide to get in a quick shoulder lift session. My Sprawl shorts were on top of the pile, so I grabbed them along with a t-shirt and headed to the gym. Bad idea. Apparently, our fair sport has grown enough that TapouT isn't the only recognizable brand of MMA apparel. SPRAWL has apparently crossed over as well.
Let me transcribe a bit of a "conversation" that I had with what appeared to be the missing link this past Friday. Read it in a slightly more coherent version of Stallone's "Rocky" dialect. That's how buddy sounded.
"Hey bro-do you fight? Yeah I can tell from your shorts. I fight too you know. Where do you train? Hey if you're serious about MMA bro I can get you a fight like tomorrow bro. It just all depends on how dedicated you are and how serious you are about fighting. I can get you ready bro. People think I talk a lot of shit, but I back it up bro. Look-heres a video of me dead lifting 450lbs. You just let me know man, I'm friends with a lot of the fight promoters around here, I can get you a fight no problem."
After saying "Thanks" with my words and "Get the hell away from me" with my face, he proceeded to go back to his preacher bench curls. Screaming like A.J when Harry Stamper ripped out his oxygen tube and threw him in the airlock after each rep and dropping his barbell onto the rack from what sounded like a height of 8 feet after each set.
My Sprawl shorts are staying home the next time I want to lift.