Rock-hard muscles rippling in tight, minuscule clothing. Glistening bodies stretched in supine positions. And high-intensity meetups between insanely attractive people where everyone is working up a sweat.
While this may sound like a particularly steamy episode of Love Island, it’s merely a typical trip to the gym in the age of hookup culture, where finding a partner to get physical with is as simple as booking a session or swiping a membership card.
The Daily Mail dived into the steamy world of gym junkies who flex and fling regularly, often getting very personal with their personal trainers or acting out their sweaty fantasies with ‘reckless’ romps.
As one 33-year-old Long Island woman who had liaisons with not one, but two of the hunky coaches at her boxing gym told us, the gym can be a veritable hotbed of sexual tension – especially when ‘everyone’s sweaty and watching each other.’
‘There’s a funny power dynamic at these [fitness] studios because the instructors are gorgeous and super in shape and you’re getting sweaty together,’ she said. ‘It’s a very charged environment, especially with boxing.
‘They’re making you feel sexy because they’re literally making you feel physically sexy and empowered. They’re impressed with you. You’re impressed with them. It’s very primal.’
She had joined the boxing gym in search of an intense workout that would provide an outlet for the stress of her demanding job. She soon found herself attending classes five to seven times a week just to see the chiseled instructors, many of whom were models or professional boxers outside of the gym.
‘They were really hot and we would flirt during class,’ she said, noting that their charm helped to motivate her to go to the gym.
According to one 33-year-old Long Island woman who had liaisons with not one, but two of the hunky coaches at her boxing gym, the gym can be a veritable hotbed of sexual tension
Welcome to the steamy world of gym junkies who flex and fling regularly
‘I worked out more than ever because I wanted to see them. At this gym, they were very much your coach. They pushed you really hard, so there was a sort of intimacy in the dynamic.
‘You’re spending an hour a day with this person and if you’re doing a private lesson, it’s very intense and they care for you and pay attention to you.’
And pay attention, they did, often after hours. She said the gym’s casual and super-friendly culture led to coaches often texting clients to hang out socially.
A weekly ‘Boxing and Beers’ class on Fridays resulted in her going out for drinks many times with the staff, which sometimes devolved into drunken makeouts. After one particularly boozy hang, she went home with an instructor for a night outside the boxing ring.
She recalled: ‘One of the boxing instructors asked me if I wanted to hang out afterwards and I went home and slept with him.
‘I felt very reckless, but then the next day I was in his class and there was another girl sitting in the corner [with him] and I wondered if that was who was going home with him that day. I think they did this frequently. But I imagine this happens at a lot of workout studios!’
She’s far from the only gym enthusiast to have dabbled in a dalliance with a fitness instructor. A 2016 study by sex retailer Ann Summers found that half of adults use the gym as a ‘hook-up venue,’ while 20 percent copped to having sex with their personal trainer. The study also found that 70 percent of women fantasize about their personal trainers during sex.
A former trainer for the luxury fitness chain Equinox told the Daily Mail that there was ‘a lot of action’ and ‘flirting all the time.’ At the location he worked at, many of the trainers hooked up with members, other trainers and gym employees, thanks to an environment perfectly ripe for flirtation and much more.
A former trainer for the swanky gym chain Equinox said the the location he worked at was ‘flirting all the time’
A 2016 study by sex retailer Ann Summers found that 70% of women fantasize about their personal trainers during sex.
‘It’s a bunch of mostly young, really fit, typically attractive people who work with their bodies and work on other people’s bodies in a tight location for long hours,’ he said of his time at Equinox, which has long capitalized on the sex appeal of gyms with racy ad campaigns and a notorious reputation for what allegedly goes down in their steam rooms.
‘It was a fun time, but it was f***ing crazy,’ he said.
He divulged that during his time as a trainer, he had hooked up with a gym goer whom he met while working on the floor, as well as one of his personal training clients. It was the client, he said, who instigated the flirtation and pursued him – even going so far as to buy him an iPad as a gift after they started sleeping together.
‘The trope of the cabana boy or personal trainer or yoga instructor? It’s really, really real,’ he said, noting that he believes that many of the people who signed up for personal training were looking for some kind of chemistry or sexual energy. ‘It’s very, very flirty. It’s part of the product – you’re partially selling attention.
‘You’re watching these people’s bodies intensely and then at the end of every session, you stretch them… during the stretching, you’re literally up on people. Like as a man, you’re basically on top of women, stretching her legs. It’s not that far away from a sex position.’
And the appeal of a gym fling, he said, could be even more exciting than a conventional romance because it was usually clandestine.
He divulged that there were many romances at his gym, including two trainers who began an affair at work that resulted in a broken marriage.
‘It was kind of taboo, not that it was illegal,’ he said. ‘No one ever said, “Don’t hook up with your clients,” because we’re all adults.’
According to sports and exercise psychologist Natasha Bains, the founder of Beyond Better, there are multiple factors why gym hookups pose such an allure.
‘From an evolutionary perspective, when you are attractive and engaged in fitness, that can be a signal of attractiveness, but also health and vitality,’ she told the Daily Mail.
‘In evolution, we want people that are highly fertile. If we’re looking for a man, we want someone that signals protectiveness and capability. So, if you are fit and physically capable, our brains are wired to seek this out.’
The appeal of a gym fling could be even more exciting than a conventional romance because it is usually clandestine
According to sports and exercise psychologist Natasha Bains, our brains are wired to seek out fit and physically capable people
There’s also common ground, because spending time with someone at the gym can also signal potential compatibility when it comes to values or lifestyles, which can be a turn on for some people.
Even though ‘attraction is subjective,’ Bains said it’s more about ‘what being attractive and engaging in fitness signals.’
‘There’s also something called the halo effect, which is when someone appears physically fit, we also assume that they have other positive qualities, like discipline, confidence, and competence, even though we might not have evidence of that.’
Plus, ‘being attractive and engaging in fitness can signal confidence, which can be perceived as desirable,’ she explained.
The chemical benefits of working out also come into play, often stimulated by simply seeing a crush.
She said: ‘When we train, we have a whole release of chemicals, endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin that get released.
‘However, if we are seeing a person every time because they are our trainers, our brains and ourselves, will associate that feeling not just with the training, but also with that person.’
A 34-year-old Equinox member based in Brooklyn who has been asked out at the gym multiple times said she thinks meeting romantic connections at the gym is par for the course, as that’s where she spends the majority of her time.
‘Community is such a big part of going to the gym,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I go to the same couple Equinoxes and I see the same people over and over and over… with the trainer, we never went on dates, we never had to make plans, because we were always at the gym.’
Fitness enthusiasts may be attracted to others at the gym because of shared values, interests, and lifestyles
For gym rats, meeting someone at the gym can be ideal because they may spend the majority of their time there
Her fitness regimen has resulted in her going on a date with one of the gym’s managers, as well a casual summer fling with one of the gym’s trainers who was often working at the gym at the same time that she was doing her daily circuit.
She does, however, draw the line at seriously dating someone who works at the places where she trains, after a relationship that soured with a DJ who spun for classes at a boutique fitness studio that she frequented in Brooklyn.
‘Obviously we’re both full adults, but it is a little weird knowing that you’re going into someone’s place of work,’ she said.
For the Long Island woman who hooked up with her boxing coaches, however, the flings felt inconsequential and, above all, fun.
‘I didn’t feel like anyone’s feelings were going to get hurt,’ she said. ‘It felt really clear. These were really hot guys that probably hook up with a lot of girls. And to be completely frank, neither of them were guys I felt like I could really have a conversation with, we were just so different.
‘I really look back on it fondly. There’s something really fun about having a physical experience with someone who is just so incredibly in shape and strong. I felt like we both got something really fun out of it.
‘And it really got me to work out – I feel like I got so much more than other gym members.’
