Every so often, there’s a story in the news that makes you wish you’d been there. Like the one about Christopher Carter, the Wall Street stockbroker who lost it in a spinning class at his exclusive New York gym. Enraged by the gruntings and exhortations of fellow spinner Stuart Sugarman (“You go, girl!”), Carter finally snapped, lifted Sugarman’s bike off the floor and sent it crashing into the wall.

It turns out everyone gets that gym-rage feeling. The New York Times empathised with Carter, describing gym grunters as one of the many curses of daily life, on a par with the “loud cellphone talker”. But actually, this is more than just an urban imitation. Gym rage, you see, has all the ingredients. In order for something to graduate from maddening to rage-worthy, it has to take place in an environment where a) you assume you are owed some respect, b) you are trying to get somewhere (whether it’s Homebase, Ibiza or the land of better bodies) and c) everyone is pumped up, stressed and trying to prove something. Gyms have the lot. Plus, they are highly competitive — even if you slam on an iPod and pretend you’re in your own world, you can’t escape the power struggle going on around you.

It’s no coincidence that Sugarman was a hedge-fund manager (“Good burn!”) who got decked by a stockbroker. Everyone brings their work to the gym — the high-achievers load up on the weights, the fragrant trust-fund girls drift into yoga classes — and everyone’s looking right and left to see how they compare. From the changing rooms to the step classes, people are checking each other out, comparing their performances and their bodies, noticing they are much redder in the face, less flexible, more hairy than anybody else.

In the gym, you loathe everyone. For being an exhibitionist. (Must you dry yourself like that?) For being an automaton. For not moving a mat up two measly inches. For sweating in the place you are going to have to sit. For lane-barging in the pool. For talking in the sauna. For standing in front of your locker when you are trying to get in it. For leaving wet towels on top of your clothes. For plucking and tweezing in the shower with the curtain open.

Even if other people aren’t being loathsome, which they are, you loathe yourself. (You’re in a gym, for God’s sake, puffing and panting and regretting the bottle of whatever it was, the fags and the HobNobs.) Come to think of it, I can’t believe they don’t need bouncers in every gym in the country.

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