Its a Jungle Gym, baby

I go to the gym cause its a stress relief, a sense of accomplishment, a place to check out hot guys, a way to stay healthy & fit, a way to look hotter, and a fantastic place to people watch. (note: people watch does not necessarily mean check out hot guys although very related).

What would one of our ancestors think if she/he walked into a gym and saw all us spandex clad people grunting to lift a dumbell? Running in place to work up a sweat? Pretending to climb stairs while watching tv or reading a magazine? Scrunched up red faces, checking muscles in front of mirrors, strutting around. Finding some new way to work a muscle group. Why oh why?
Because its still instinctively the same people we were thousands of years ago.

The gym is detached from life in many ways, but once people turn off their stressed brains and start working out, hormones kick in. You see guys watching girls in the weight room and vice versa. Both sexes wear clothes that make them look good, in the name of comfort of course. Men watch men and women check out women - not due to attraction, but compeititon - heaven forbid someone is hotter than you in the gym. Its competition for a potential mate (lifting more, doing more reps, looking better), survival of the fittest. Like peacocks show their feathers, apes puff out their chest, birds make strange mating calls - we put on different garb than usual, pump up our bodies and make grunting sounds.

Add in our appearance-obsessed culture and you get the full strut of the peacock, the ape beating his chest to a hip-hop beat and the birds calling out in tight Nike yoga pants.

Then we finish out workout, change back into our normal cloths and leave. Our spandex loinclothes removed, we're back to the modern, rational people, seemingly ignoring our hormones and instincts.