Muscle Beach In Miami Is A Beautiful Place Full Of Wonderful People, None Better Than This Human Punching Bag Eating Repeated Body Blows To The Gut

What a pure, unadulterated case of strong guys being strong dudes at the best gym in all of America. The free gym on South Beach in Miami, Florida. Muscle Beach they call it. I went on a vacation to Miami one time in my life. It was over Christmas in 2019, just a few months before covid went mainstream and everything in the world went to shit. Every morning that vacation I'd wake up, walk to Muscle Beach, and get a pump on in the company of the most impossibly jacked, most not-real-life Miami Beach dudes you could possibly imagine. 

The Muscle Beach in South Beach is really a hilarious, kinda surreal place in general. When I was there, the "gym" appeared to be managed by a long blonde haired man with cured leather for skin. And by "managed" I mean he unlocked the shipping container full of weights every morning, then just kinda hung out in the general vicinity until it was time to lock the weights away at night. This was a man who has never heard of the concept of a shirt. 

When he wasn't skin cancer-maxxing in the hot sun at Muscle Beach, I would see him riding his bike seemingly aimlessly around South Beach. He was the most stereotypical, middle-aged Miami Beach bum of all-time. He looked like he would be a background character from Rocket Power. One evening when I was walking back to our Airbnb, I saw him smoking a joint on the balcony of a house maybe three blocks away from the beach. Probably some house his parents purchased forever ago and passed down to him when they died. He's probably lived there his whole life just working part-time jobs, playing beach volleyball, drinking rum out of hollowed pineapples, all the things local Miami Beach people do. This was a man who has zero aspirations for anything greater in his life. Why would he? Most people spend their whole lives working tirelessly so that one day they can retire to live the life he already has. 

I always think about that guy, because I think he might be living the best (or at least the most "chill") life of all the lives in the world. I literally went on a vacation to be him for a week, and it was one of the most enjoyable, relaxing weeks I've ever had. Just look how happy I was.

Best picture I've ever took. I'll almost certainly never look that good again. Until today, I had thought I didn't have a single regret from that vacation, but now I've come to realize there is one. That I did not meet the human punching bag. As much as I enjoyed Muscle Beach, the selection of gym equipment leaves a bit to be desired. There's a whole lot of weirdly shaped bars, poles, and jungle gym like structures, that unless you're a literal gymnast, you really aren't able to utilize beyond maybe cranking out a few pull-ups. 

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If I had the human punching bag available to me back in 2019, it would have made my workouts all the more rewarding. I suppose it also would have made my workout all the more humiliating as well. I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm incapable of throwing a body shot quite as hard as the old black man in that video. The man who from the looks of it, nearly made the human punching bag cry real tears.

If I didn't know any better… if I didn't have it on good authority that this gentleman is The Real OG… I'd say that's the look of man who immensely regrets letting his roided-out friend inflict long-lasting internal damage to his body in the name of a viral post. That's the look of a man who just remembered Harry Houdini died doing this exact thing, and is hoping to God that sometime within the next 10-15 seconds, he regains his vision and doesn't permanently collapse right there on the sand.

But the human punching bag survived. The fact that he was able to remain standing throughout that entire sequence is a phenomenal feat of abdominal strength. What percentage of people do you think can survive those punches? I'd imagine most people probably wind up in the hospital and inevitably don't die. But there's a good handful of people whose organs would immediately turn to soup, and leak out of every hole in their body until they're nothing but a skin sack full of bones laid out on the beach like a human-skin rug. 

I love a good muscle beach. They attract some of the greatest, most overcompensating strongmen society has to offer. Nowhere else on Earth (except maybe a Hummer dealership) will you find such a lopsided dick length to muscle mass ratio. God bless the gentleman of muscle beach. Someday I hope to regain the undeserved confidence in myself to join you for a pump once again.

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(and I suppose the women of Muscle Beach aren't that bad either)