A guy’s workout shouldn’t just be an excuse to get out of the house, which has become as dirty and filthy as a male human body will allow without moving to a superfund site. It should be a sweaty, tear-filled, and bloody (because blood weighs a lot and is an easy way to lose pounds in minutes) competition between your physical stamina and sheer will.

It’s just like Jimmy Dugan said in A League of Their Own: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everybody would do it.” It doesn’t matter if you just go for a brisk walk or spend two hours each day pulling a double decker bus with your back hair. That’s when most of us need some great music to pump up the adrenaline. 

Just like the greatest competitions of the big or small screen, working out requires a worthy soundtrack. It doesn’t just give you something to listen to or take your mind off the pain. It is the very fuel that carries you from the warm-up stretches to the coughing and wheezing as you drag yourself across the finish line. And if one of these tunes come up in the shuffle on your iPod, it’s the athletic equivalent of putting a big spoonful of sugar in your gas tank (except you can’t get car diabetes). Ironically, Less Than Jake’s “Sugar in Your Gas Tank” is one of the great workout songs. We are not looking at any of those songs today.

A&M Records

Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”

The alternative section of your neighborhood’s boarded-up and abandoned Tower Records is full of great bands that can help your workout (Sponge, Wax, all the non-heroin Stone Temple Pilots songs), but this granddaddy of 90s maudlin middle school music lovers could make a chain smoking goth kid tell you to seek professional help. Its bleak tonal guitar and vivid embrace of Earth’s total destruction screams “F$*& it all!” and that can really bleed into your workout. After all, no one notices at funerals just how healthy looking the corpse in the casket is and if the whole world blows up, there’s a 100 percent chance that no one will notice your cheekbones and swimmer’s build.

Most Common Thoughts As You’re Working Out to This Song:

- “(sigh)”

- “Why hasn’t this world ended yet? I mean treadmill! Not world, treadmill…yeah, treadmill. (sigh)”

The Pussycat Dolls’ “Don’t Cha”

Girl-powered hip-pop was never for most guys’ ears but this ego killer assassinates both sexes without mercy. This shallow ballad of female hotness just reinforces the never-ending stereotype that women who can’t fit in most federal mailboxes aren’t worthy of a guy’s attention. For the guys, it either reminds them how lonely and miserable they already are or, if they are lucky enough that their dumbass has someone to share this harsh world with, makes them wonder if their girl is about to “level-up” to someone who doesn’t get winded carrying a Bosu ball from their car. At that point, listening to this song technically counts as exercise.

Most Common Thoughts As You’re Working Out to This Song:

- “I tell ya what I wish, that strangling wasn’t a felony because I’d squeeze the life out of the bastard who put this song on the speaker.”

- “I wonder if my girlfriend wishes I was hot like him, or worse, her.”

Billie Holiday’s “Gloomy Sunday”

Most jazz songs by the great, late Billie Holiday don’t find their way on many gym stereos or workout iPods unless your personal trainer is trying to get you to bat the beach ball to the next geriatric. This ultra sad song, which is sad even for the likes of the somber songstress, has an even more ghoulish history that can help the happiest human realize that life is worth losing. The British Broadcasting Corporation actually had the song on its “Do Not Play” list until 2002 because rumors started circulating that its very somber tone had inspired more than a few real suicides. It’s the musical equivalent of a Werner Herzog documentary, only it’s a lot harder to try and dance to Grizzly Man.

Most Common Thoughts As You’re Working Out to This Song:

- “Where did I put my gun?”

-  “I know I have a reason to live. I just can’t remember where I put it.”

Lazlo Bane’s “Superman”

This peppy, banjo laced indie tune might have served as the quirky theme to the quirky medical sitcom Scrubs for God-knows-how-long (technically, their series finale hasn’t officially ended yet), but its message is downright uninspiring. It’s like getting a pep talk from a heavily sedated Gary Busey. It’s a song about how life is an uphill battle and we mere mortals aren’t able to overcome it with our measly muscles and puny strength. Sure there might be some subtext about fighting the good fight and steadiness will always win life’s race, but if you’re trying to lift your weight on a leg press, it’s depression-induced tones can make a modern adonis feel morbidly obese.

Most Common Thoughts As You’re Working Out to This Song:

- “I know I’m no Superman. Hell, I’m not even Aquaman.”

- “I didn’t think banjo music could depress me more since ‘Deliverance.’”

The Fat Boys’ “All You Can Eat”

First off, if you have this on your iPod after transferring it from vinyl to cassette to CD to MP3 all the way back from the 80s, getting a productive workout is the least of your worries. You’ve managed to take hoarding to an entirely higher and intangible level. You’ve literally found a way to clutter up your own soul. As for the song itself, it’s expressing a love that aspiring health addicts dare not even dream about anymore. “All you can eat” buffets came out of the excess of the 80s when, for some reason, everyone thought they were recession proof, immortal and untouchable by federal prosecutors. Now our laziness has caught up with us and listening to this at the gym just reminds you of the very reason you have to pay $750 a month to an ex-bouncer who yells at you in public for not being able to “squat like a man.”

Most Common Thoughts As You’re Working Out to This Song:

- “F$*& fruit salad. F$*& fruit salad. F$*& fruit…”

- “I never thought it was possible for someone to be so hungry they would actually consider cannibalism…”

Danny Gallagher is a freelance writer, reporter, humorist and Gatorade steward. He can be found on the web at www.dannygallagher.net or on Twitter @thisisdannyg.