Skinny, ugly guy mumbles: “6 months and no progress!” to himself after another failed attempt to improve on the bench press. Rando next to him warms up with three times the weight, adds insult to injury.
“I thought this angle would make me feel my chest more!”
Locked in on doing the perfect workout routine, subscribed to a bunch of science based fitness YouTubers.
Takes out his phone to check if there are any new comments and tips under his reddit thread titled "0 progress in the gym, hormones down, what am I doing wrong?". Only downvotes? How arrogant!
If he doesn't hit a PR on this next set, he will stuff his face full of burgers and chips tonight out of frustration.
Suddenly a man appears at the cable machine close to him. Thick muscles, natural leanness, divine posture. Emits a coercive sexual aura throughout the room. He casts his towel on the floor and reps a decent weight.
Scrawny loser musters up all his courage, walks to the man and says: “You don’t even use the correct angles and executions! According to this new study I read, your training will worsen the stimulus to fatigue ratio! There is no way this set maximized the effective reps and time under tention! You don't even know what those words mean, do you? How did you get so big in the first place?”.
Meanwhile the man towers over him, flexes, creates sound waves and extra sensory experiences in the people around him.
Surprisingly unannoyed by the stupid question and overflowing with grace he says: “Magic!” His voice was so manly and youthful that the scrawny guy’s asshole twitched.
"Magic? What a stupid thing to say."
Patient as he is, the man adds: “What you call a rep, I call a force burst. What you call a set, I call a force cascade. What you call a workout, I call an aesthetic ritual, or whatever seems divine to say at the moment. I don’t talk about steroids, I talk about sexual alchemy. Not about breath, but about spirit. When I go home, I will drink an enchanted potion that contains energy.”
Skinny, now agitated simpleton interrupts him: “But what about science and logic?”
“Oh yes, I love exoteric studies. I often read grimoires on different subjects. Learning more enchants my world even further. Any more questions?"
Stick returns to his bench. “What a quack”
Goes right back to overanalyzing his training and feeling empty at the thought of never having the ultimate answers to his problems.
But will he realize that the more he reflects and the more he tries to explain, the more his goals and his dreams lose their meaning, the less immersed he is in his activities, and that the emptiness he feels is the realization that things are in fact obscure and magical?















