Every gym has at least one.
You may not see him right away, but listen carefully and you'll hear his distinctive call, roared at the pitch of someone passing a grapefruit-sized kidney stone: Hoooo-ahhhhh.
They are the grunters.
Up until now, gym goers have politely tolerated these vein-popping wailers. That was before Chris Carter, a 45-year-old New York stockbroker, inspired fitness buffs everywhere to confront the grunt.
Last August, an exasperated Mr. Carter approached Stuart Sugarman - who had been grunting and yelling "Good burn!" and "You go girl!" as he pedalled a stationary bike at Manhattan's Equinox fitness club - and slammed the back of the bike into a wall. Mr. Sugarman later went to hospital, claiming the impact caused a herniated disk in his neck.
In a court case that concluded on Tuesday, a jury acquitted Mr. Carter of assault charges, immediately hoisting his status to the level of folk hero among the anti-grunt majority who frequent gyms.
"They're so annoying," said Tracie Macko, a 31-year-old dancer whose ears were still ringing from some "big-time grunting" at Extreme Fitness in downtown Toronto.
"Some guys sound like they're in serious pain. It's just something to show off," she says.
But short of borderline assault, what's to be done about grunters?
Ms. Macko's fellow gym patrons had mixed views.
"I might have a giggle and think, 'What a tool,' " said David Hay, a 25-year-old prep cook, "but wouldn't actually confront them. I just stick my headphones in and block it out."
Some suggested that taming a shrieker was a task requiring a woman's touch. "I think a girl would have a better chance at calming them down," Ms. Macko said.
Grunters often argue that their primal roars spur them to greater feats of strength, like warriors going to battle. And they may have a point.
"I never specifically tell anybody to grunt," says Simon Fraser University conditioning coach Derek Jensen, who's trained Olympians and CFL players. "It's more a symptom of real effort and exertion."
Many of Mr. Jensen's athletes employ the Valsalva method, in which they hold their breath at the moment of greatest strain to help their posture and then exhale forcefully when the moment passes.
"As they come up from a squat, they will naturally grunt or scream or yell," he said. "It's much like a lot of tennis players."
Spinning trainers often use collective hooting and yelling as a motivational technique.
But recent research out of Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Tex., rejects the notion that grunting improves weight-lifting performance in any meaningful way. Researchers found that a group of grunting study subjects posted 5-per-cent gains in strength, roughly equivalent to silent gym goers. The lead researcher even warned that grunting did more to spark arguments than to build muscle mass.
That hasn't stopped people from taking their grunts to extremes, according to Mr. Jensen. "Thankfully, I'm in a good position at the university weight room. I can just go up to someone and say, 'Look, you're being ridiculous.' "
Calgary writer Craig Davidson used to fall into the ridiculous category. As research for The Fighter, his novel exploring boxing and weightlifting culture, Mr. Davidson began a four-month cycle of steroids. In that time, "I became a huffer, a grunter, a screamer ...," he wrote in a recent Esquire article. "A silverback gorilla's mating ritual: I wanted everyone to know I was the biggest, toughest [mother]in the joint. 'Hoooo-aaahhh!' 'Eeeeeee-yahhh!' ... Look at me! I'm a big, strong boy!"
Since coming off the steroids, Mr. Davidson says, he has reformed his ways. "It's a very annoying habit that I have certainly cleared myself of. When you're lifting heavy weights, you want people to look at you. Now that I'm small again and lifting 25-pound weights, what reason do I have to be bellowing at all?" He also noted he became more aggressive on the steroids, which may have led to the outbursts.
During his brief stint as a grunter, Mr. Davidson says, he was never confronted. "I got strange looks, for sure," he says. "But nobody on the gym staff ever came up to me or said anything."
In the wake of the showdown between Mr. Carter and Mr. Sugarman, that reticence may dissolve. But a more vigilant spirit could bring a whole new set of problems.
"It can't happen like it did in New York all the time," Mr. Davidson says. "There would be fistfights breaking out in every gym all over North America all the time."
Patrick White