Orange County Gym Etiquette? Forget-iquette.

Yes, I admit it, I'm a bit of a gym rat. A gym bunny. A gymster. Call it what you will. I like to work out and at my age, one has to work a little harder to prevent body parts from their southward advance. Keep in mind, crow’s feet don’t just appear around the eyes. I can think of one place in particular on men approaching middle-age where they’re as pronounced and perhaps run deeper as whenever we sit, we’re applying even more pressure on them.

I don‘t think, though, that I obsess about my gym habit. In fact, the first thing I typically think about upon arrival is how much more have I got to do before I can leave? An hour-and-fifteen minutes is the most time I’m willing to spend at the gym and I do a very good job of sticking to that.

In San Francisco, I got my gym fix at a terrific facility. Gold's Gym on Brannan Street. My guess would be that it's about 20,000 square feet in size and the equipment is state-of-the-art and exceptionally maintained. The staff is, for the most part, friendly, approachable, but alas, that Gold’s has some lesser qualities, too. One negative is the music in the mornings. I like to call it "K-GYM, Music at the Gym Everyone Can Agree On!” Imagine motivating yourself to exercise while listening to Sarah McLachlan or Wilson Phillips.

Other drawbacks there included the crowds at Happy Hour , the lack of any real discernible ventilation during peak summer heat and the silliness of Saturday mornings, as the gay social set clustered around equipment catching up on the week past and making plans for the night ahead . But, all told, for $45 monthly, it's a great deal at a great gym. (Note to Gold's Gym Management: yes, I'd love an all-franchise, complimentary membership in recognition of the product placement here. Please make it for two.)

Now, take roughly the same amount of money, a little less actually, and move it down here to Orange County and here’s what you get. 24-Hour Fitness at Fashion Island. Even the name sounds off.

"So, tell me. Where do you workout?"

"Fashion Island."

Names and locations aside, it's what's inside that's the downer. It might be all of 5,000 square feet and it’s in need of a thorough cleaning. The space is predominantly taken up by the ample aerobics room and the cardio equipment area which leaves just enough space for a much-to-be-desired free-weight room, stretching area and some of the most antiquated Nautilus equipment I've ever seen. It’s like members should be required to sport a braided pastel headband with matching leggings and hum the tune to Olivia Newton-John's 1981 camp pop hit "Let's Get Physical” to fit in.

Before signing up, I did do a Google search for Newport Beach gyms where I received a list of facilities nearest to our new home. In addition to the nearby 24-Hour Fitness were the requisites; Curves, more 24-Hour Fitness locations as well as the very exclusive Sports Club LA and Equinox, both charging somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 down along with monthly membership fees of about $150. Yikes.

If one is committed to exercising routinely, just about any facility can be adequate. You just have to tailor your time as effectively as you can and try your best to get used to what’s missing and make do with what’s there.

The other O.C. gym drawback has nothing to do with the cost or the facility. It’s the other people that are working out at the same time you are and the habits they possess. At Gold’s everyone puts everything away, every time. Perhaps it’s because the majority of the members are gay; and imagine then a gym floor filled with well muscled Felix Unger’s fastidiously making sure everything’s in its place. If someone were to leave a weight plate behind on a piece of machinery, then those same men would stop and sniff out the violator like a group of meerkats sensing a looming predator. Okay, that’s a little extreme, but it’s not far off.

The gyms I’ve visited in the O.C. are the antithesis of the San Francisco experience and I think I may have a reasonable explanation as to why and it boils down to entitlement. Many socially and fiscally conservative people think that the American poor believe that they are entitled to government assistance programs and no matter whether that is right or wrong it’s not very different from the sense of entitlement that many (of course, not all) Orange County coastal dwellers possess. The difference, of course, is that here that feeling of privilege stems from the fact that people here can afford pretty much whatever they want, so whether it’s a $1,000 a week Nanny or a gym membership, the idea is that if there’s a monetary transaction involved, then you can rightfully expect to have someone else pick up after you.

Simplistic? Perhaps, but I’ve seen it firsthand and it makes me wonder if I need to be a little less Felix Unger and a little more Oscar Madison in a Mercedes SL500 convertible. I’m not keen on drawing too much attention to myself here, so I won’t overdo the Felix and I’m certainly not in a position to start pulling up to the gym in a German convertible.

So in the meantime, my plan is to just do my thing, which includes wearing my favorite (pardon the term) “wife-beater tank-tops” to the gym in spite of the fact that men in tank-tops here seem to be suspect. I’ll also continue to pick up after myself and mutter under my breath and sometimes over it when confronted with a bench press left behind by my predecessor with plates loaded up on both sides of the bar.

Like the signs at Gold’s proclaim: “If you can lift it, you can put it away.”


Next week: “ Welcome Back Baby, to the Poor Side of Town”