Gym Etiquette

Ok so for some reason I could not find another thread about this although I know there is one.

I know a lot of you guys like some funny gym etiquette stories so here goes.

I m a member of Gold’s Gym, and I just moved from the suburbs to the city. I found out that I could use one of the local gyms in Boston with my current membership.

So I look for a place to do some deadlifting, but there arent really any good out of the way spots. So I decide to do squats instead, but alas the two squat racks are being used as a curl rack.

On one rack a short white kid pounding out massive reps of the bar at breakneck speed. On the other rack a greasy haired persian guy in a sleevless floral print pumping out “curl presses” and flexing between sets.

2 more people get up to the “curl rack” we got another beach muscle crusader curling the bar and finally a girl doing lunges, although you guessed it with the bar. She leaves and gatti boy wanna be immediately slaps on two tens to each side and starts a set of curl presses.

Finally done with my squats I move to the other side of the gym to do some decline bench presses. I ve been trying to improve my poor bench so I start off with just the bar to warmup. As I get to about the 8th rep I hear a loud bang and feel a tug on the bar. Fortunately I was only lifted the bar so I wasnt hurt, but the thud was loud and I looked up expecting to see some dude writhing on the ground.

Instead I see some dope with earbuds in walking by. He barely noticed, and when I grabbed him to see if he was ok he said “yea you just hit the weights”. He was carrying two dumbells, I just hit the weights? THis dope wasnt paying attention and ran into me during my set, I could only imagine what would have happened if I had been doing a working set.

People in general suck
People in gyms suck harder
All you can do is ignore them and teach gym etiquette by example.

Good point it just stood out because I ve only been training for a little over a year and this is the first time bad etiquette truly pissed me off. I mean seriously you bump into someones bar while they are pressing and you act like its their fault?

im the one who shits in the urinal

I hate people at the gym who have their cell phone while they workout.

[quote]Yosh wrote:
I hate people at the gym who have their cell phone while they workout.[/quote]

I have my phone out between every set to time rest periods.
Does this effect you at all? Are you just sitting there between your sets, staring at the dude texting on his phone, fucking fuming, wiping anger sweat from your brow?
Hate’s a fucking strong word. Who the shit cares if somebody has their phone out or not?

phones are a piss off when you know they’re taking longer on the thing you want to use because they’re busy with their phone. and then all the ringers and such are annoying, plus my gyms small; if someone is standing there txt messaging its often a pain in the ass to carry weights past him, especially when they cant hear you say excuse me because they’re so engaged in their text message. or when people are having a loud conversation on their phone while you’re trying to workout, it just gets annoying. so basically if you’re using your phone in the gym as a means for anything other then helping your workout then its a piss off. some phones have built in mp3 players, put your headphones in and that doesnt bother me, using your timer doesnt bother me. Just dont use your fucking phone

Golds Gyms are the worst. Find a hole in the wall original gym and you’ll be better off

[quote]Artem wrote:
Yosh wrote:
I hate people at the gym who have their cell phone while they workout.

I have my phone out between every set to time rest periods.
Does this effect you at all? Are you just sitting there between your sets, staring at the dude texting on his phone, fucking fuming, wiping anger sweat from your brow?
Hate’s a fucking strong word. Who the shit cares if somebody has their phone out or not?[/quote]

It’s circumstantial. If a guy is timing his rest periods, good for him. But this evening I had to wait for the seated calf raise while a guy was text messaging at the same time as “lifting” 45 pounds for 100-150 reps.

And I really do hate the Bluetooth fuckhead that chats to his girlfriend the entire hour of his workout.

[quote]Artem wrote:
Yosh wrote:
I hate people at the gym who have their cell phone while they workout.

I have my phone out between every set to time rest periods.
Does this effect you at all? Are you just sitting there between your sets, staring at the dude texting on his phone, fucking fuming, wiping anger sweat from your brow?
Hate’s a fucking strong word. Who the shit cares if somebody has their phone out or not?[/quote]

This dud goes to Golds. Put your phone away and get to work so the next guy can get on the machine your sitting on while bull shiting with whom ever

A guy I know had his camera set up to film his lifts, and another guy set his camera on the floor, took the stool, and walked off with it…I was doing push presses, and A guy walked by so close, the bar almost hit his head as I lowered it. Scared us both because i didn’t see him coming, I almost dropped the bar. Real sharp.

[quote]Artem wrote:
Yosh wrote:
I hate people at the gym who have their cell phone while they workout.

I have my phone out between every set to time rest periods.
Does this effect you at all? Are you just sitting there between your sets, staring at the dude texting on his phone, fucking fuming, wiping anger sweat from your brow?
Hate’s a fucking strong word. Who the shit cares if somebody has their phone out or not?[/quote]

Usually I just look at them and shake my head in disgust because I know they are pussies. Plus texting is gay.

[quote]Yosh wrote:
Artem wrote:
Yosh wrote:
I hate people at the gym who have their cell phone while they workout.

I have my phone out between every set to time rest periods.
Does this effect you at all? Are you just sitting there between your sets, staring at the dude texting on his phone, fucking fuming, wiping anger sweat from your brow?
Hate’s a fucking strong word. Who the shit cares if somebody has their phone out or not?

Usually I just look at them and shake my head in disgust because I know they are pussies. Plus texting is gay.[/quote]

Yes, texting is indeed an inherent sign of homosexuality. If you send other people messages through your phone, you prefer the same sex.

If somebody is taking longer than necessary because of their phone, then I agree.

I guess I’ve just never encountered these types of people. My gym is really mainstream, but has people with generally good etiquette. Guys are never on their phones. If I need equipment and somebody is on it, I ask them how many more sets or how much longer and they usually say 1 or 2 more or just say they’re done and get off.

yesterday, I saw a guy yesterday doing CRUNCHES on the LAT PULLDOWN MACHINE (it’s the only one, too)

curling in the squat rack is a normal occurrence

also yesterday, I set up a bar for SLDLs. There was only me and one other guy in the weights room. I was desperate for a piss. So I rushed downstairs, took a piss, came back up, and he had jacked my bar. I mean, there are other fucking bars. I was gone about a minute. What he did with the bar almost made it worth it though. He was doing T-Bar rows. So he stuck two plates on one side, and then a 2.5kg on the other end to weigh it down. I thought it looked pretty hilarious, anyway. The reason I was pissed off is because there’s only one olmypic bar in the place, the other 2 bars suck balls, but he’s not the kind of guy who would care about that, where as I always try to use the same bar.

just because I get up to have a drink, does not mean I am finished with the equipment… try waiting a fucking minute to make sure no-one’s using something before you jump on

it can be annoying when people (mainly cardio-types) keep asking you if you’re using equipment just because you actually take rest periods - that’s generally forgivable, except the tone they ask you in “So are you ACTUALLY USING IT or what?” is the tone

it’d be nice if people made it obvious equipment wasn’t being used - just something as simple as leaving the collars on the bench prevents me from having to stand around for a few minutes waiting to see if anyone is using it (not sure why I do this, no-one else does)

I actually think wearing headphones and shit is pretty rude. It makes it really hard to get peoples attentions sometimes, when they could be in your way, or if you need to ask them something. At least if you do that, be aware of your surroundings, so if someone is trying to get your attention you notice

do you really need to rest your bar for curls on a bench? picking it off the floor can’t be that difficult, especially when we’re talking about like 10kg (22lbs). When we only have a few benches, it can be pretty annoying having to wait for the curl guy to finish up. Especially when he just leaves his bar right on it, so you have to wait around and make sure he’s actually gone, and not just to the toilet or whatever.

/rant

Actually, my gym is pretty great. No one curls in the squat rack because there is no squat rack, but that’s ok. It’s kind of small, so we’re pretty cramped in here. If someone is using a piece of equipment you need, you just ask them how many sets they have, it’s 1 or 2 usually, sometimes you can just join them. Also, everyone is pleasant, we all know each other and our workout sessions our filled with talks about world problems and so on…

[quote]bostonbigticket wrote:
Ok so for some reason I could not find another thread about this although I know there is one.
[/quote] You truely fail at the internetz

[quote]bradden wrote:
phones are a piss off when you know they’re taking longer on the thing you want to use because they’re busy with their phone. and then all the ringers and such are annoying, plus my gyms small; if someone is standing there txt messaging its often a pain in the ass to carry weights past him, especially when they cant hear you say excuse me because they’re so engaged in their text message. or when people are having a loud conversation on their phone while you’re trying to workout, it just gets annoying. so basically if you’re using your phone in the gym as a means for anything other then helping your workout then its a piss off. some phones have built in mp3 players, put your headphones in and that doesnt bother me, using your timer doesnt bother me. Just dont use your fucking phone[/quote]

X 2 on the phone thing. It tells me that this person is NOT 100% COMMITTED to his or her workout, they may say they are, but they’re full of shit if they can’t be cut off from the rest of the world for an hour or so. My phone stays in the car, period. I find it insulting that people can’t do the same, who the fuck wants to hear one side of your petty conversation?

BG

Here’s another annoying point:

Mr. Basketball player (from Wednesday)

OK…We have a 6’4 asian dude who walks around in the latest basketball fashion. You basically look at him and say “Yup. He must play ball”. But NO, he doesn’t think that. He wants to prove that he is a basketball player. So…what does he do? In the MIDDLE OF THE DAMN weightroom, he stares at himself in the mirror and ‘practices’ his free throws. Now… not just the hand movement. But he does the ENTIRE deal. Dribbles the invisible ball. Looks down like he is shrugging off the nervousness. Looks up… invisi-shoots with the 1 foot jump into the air. Now, once or twice is OK but 10 DAMN TIMES IS F’IN ANNOYING. Like, WTF, go to the studio room where there is A WALL of mirrors so you can check out your retarded positioning from any angle and check your lanky self out in the processes, so you can remember to actually workout once in a while.

…after his ‘warm up’ he then proceeds to do Incline Barbell bench with 4 x 10lbs plates and a 5lbs plate. No lie.

AHHH… annoying. I wanted to walk up and slap him in the face and say this is not a dream and people are actually trying to WORKOUT here, F’er… I probably couldn’t reach him though since he’s so tall. Maybe kicking him where his underarmor compression shorts touch will bring his head down low enough… hm…note to self…

[quote]Yosh wrote:
I hate people at the gym who have their cell phone while they workout.[/quote]

I use my cell phone as my mp3 player…is that ok with you?

There is this guy I’ve seen just a few times over the past year and literally on every rep of his warm up sets with 5 lb dbs just makes a ridiculous amount of noise. There was another guy who was doing smith machine deadlifts with a 10 on each side and was breathing like it was actually heavy. I mean I can lift a good amount of weight- 250 on overhead, 700 dead but I hardly make a sound except when I put the weights down.