In gyms, the walls are covered in mirrors from floor to ceiling. It's impossible to escape your reflection. While these reflective surfaces are quite useful for checking our position during squats, adjusting our steps in dance class, or discovering new muscles in development, they don't always provide a true-to-life image. As dishonest as the mirrors in fitting rooms, they distort our appearance, as a video demonstrates.<\/p>\n
Gyms are like vast halls of mirrors or those carnival attractions that multiply our reflection<\/a> to disorient us. Between the assisted machines, numbered dumbbells, kettlebells, and cardio equipment, mirrors act as wallpaper, covering the space from floor to ceiling. Reassuring for some, intimidating for others, they reign supreme in the gyms, like a slap in the face.<\/p>\n The most confident admire their toned physique, while those more self-conscious<\/a> avoid looking at it and look away to avoid self-pity. Their omnipresence isn't simply a matter of artistic direction. They serve as a guide for executing movements. They allow us to correct our technique and target the right parts of the body to avoid lower back pain after lunges. However, these mirrors, supposedly reflecting our progress and displaying our physique as it is, allow for some subtle alterations. Instead of presenting our bodies authentically, they make us lose a few inches around our waist and give the illusion of having shrunk between workouts.<\/p>\n That's certainly what @ johnnyfaisle<\/a> 's video highlights. The content creator, who keeps a kind of existential diary, filmed the mirrors in the women's section and repeated the same process in the men's. In the first, his body appears elongated, thin, almost shapeless, as if an Instagram filter<\/a> had been applied. In the second, he looks more natural to the human eye. "Slimming mirrors should be banned," he fumes. <\/p>\n\n