From tiny shorts to inexplicable chinos: what your gymwear says about you

To give you an idea of the grandeur of my local gym, it recently erected a sign bearing the legend: “Shoes must be worn. SLIPPERS ARE NOT SHOES”. Suffice to say, its patrons remain untroubled by wider conversations about the etiquette of workout clothes, both inside and outside the gym. (My view: it’s increasingly standard to wear athleisure anywhere you’d wear jeans, especially if it’s mixed with smarter pieces.) While going shoeless paints a uniquely vivid picture of where one’s “at”, there’s much else to be gleaned from what we men wear while downward dogging. What, you might ask, does your gym kit say about you?
I like to devote my time between sets to developing pet conspiracy theories (the fun, flirty kind, not the Marjorie Taylor Greene kind). My current favourite is that you can tell how hostile someone is by how many clothes they wear to work out. The angriest man in my gym likes to model tracksuit bottoms, a hoodie, a gilet and a cap in all seasons. My thesis is that deep down he’s probably a delicate soul who wants to put as much of a buffer between himself and the outside world as possible. I’d share this idea with him, except we once had an altercation over a cable machine which culminated in him pushing me and calling me a wasteman (me!!).
You are 23 years old, have been working out since you were 13 and believe creatine to be one of the five main food groups. You have a girlfriend called Millie or Molly or Minky and refer to yourself as “myself” when you want to sound intelligent. You would like to be an Instagram personal trainer, but your brand already achieved its ultimate form in Joe Wicks.
You are an ethical gym bro who has swapped chicken breasts for pea protein and makes sure you caption your changing-room thirst traps with awareness-raising hashtags (#AllBodiesAreBeautiful #Beefy #MeatIsMurder #Gains). You can be seen sporting the new crop of sustainable gymwear, such as Organic Athletics plant-based shorts, woven from a natural rubber in Austria, which has a retro aesthetic reminiscent of varsity uniforms. The only drawback is your compulsion to honk: “These’ll go on the compost heap when I’m done with them,” at uninterested passersby.
You are either a gay man or are happy to be mistaken for one. You are listening to brat by Charli xcx (under 30) or Renaissance by Beyoncé (over 30). You favour Nike running shorts or Lululemon ones with a five-inch seam. You have had sex in the gym showers at least once.
I’ve witnessed several men wearing chinos and leather shoes to the gym. On these occasions the main muscle I exercised was my self-restraint, to prevent me from accosting them with 70,000 frantic questions. If you wear trousers on the treadmill (or, more bizarrely, a suit, as one friend reports), I’m not entirely sure what the takeaway should be.
Perhaps you are soft-launching your gym era and don’t want to invest in kit before you have fully committed? Maybe, like Dolly Parton, you are covered in tiny tattoos which you don’t want to reveal? Or you are very recently divorced and entered the gym in a fugue state?
As with your slippered comrades, I struggle to make sense of the senseless, but I wish you well.
Styling: Helen Seamons. Styling assistant: Sam Deaman. Grooming: Rose Angus at S Management using Kiehl’s and Tom Ford. Model: Dominic at Milk Management. Vest, shorts, support shorts, all H&M