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Gym Etiquette

Yesterday I was standing in the squat rack - between sets of squats - resting and watching other members workout. It occurred to me that two behaviors in the gym consistently annoy me.

First and foremost is leaving weights on the bar or dumbbells on the floor. It shows utter disregard for the people who come after you and the gym staff.

Second are members who do endless sets of curls in squat racks at peak times. There are dozens of places to curl, most gyms only have two or three squat racks.

What are your pet peeves at the gym?
 
Agreed on leaving weights all over the place. Pick up after yourselves people! I would also like to add people just sitting on machines and talking. This appears to happen a lot on leg machines. Seriously, I'm here to work out, not socialize! Also, people who grunt or yell loudly every time they do a rep. Okay, I get it. Sometimes you push yourself to the limit, but every f'ing rep?
 
Those.

Also I can't stand when people try to hold 19 stations at once by leaving a towel, bag, water bottle, etc. on all the machines they want to claim. I also don't like "grunters and mirror flexers". I also don't like people who sit on your shoulder waiting to jump in as soon as your done. (come on, a few feet distance wouldn;t kill you).

That's just a few. Locker room etiquette is a whole other thread that could be started, but I'll refrain for now.
 
What are your pet peeves at the gym?

You nailed it with people who do not return weights to the rack when they're done.

I also hate it when people walk away from a squat rack or piece of equipment for ten minutes, and then hit you with an annoyed "I was using that" when they come back. As if the weight room is their own personal circuit.
 
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Agreed 100% on leaving weights loaded. For one it reduces the life of the bars, secondly no one really knows if it's in use or if some DB just left it. Another one is the gym bro's, the guys that do 6 variations of curls and grunt and scream through it all. Also the gawkers, they're awkward and get kind of annoying. This is a gym, yes there are going to be people stronger than you, by a wide margin sometimes.
 
Not just curling in the weight rack, but curling right in front of the dumbbell rack so that no one else can grab any dumbbells. I guess those 15 lbs. are too heavy to take more than 3 steps back from the rack.
 
Agreed on the weights not being racked. You don't know if they were left or being used. I spend 5 minutes looking around to see if anyone is using it. And it never fails that it is a weight that I need.
 
Let's see--what can I add? You gotta wash that PT gear every time you work out. Just letting it dry out when you get home and trying to get another day out of it is not a good idea. Also, if you sweat all over the equipment, clean up after yourself. I don't want to lay down in that MRSA-infested puddle on the bench, and I bet nobody else does either. And don't work out in your street clothes. I don't think that you have to go out and buy a huge selection of high speed gear, but make an effort to at least wear a t-shirt or sweatshirt and a pair of gym trunks or something. When I see a guy in jeans and a button down shirt moaning and groaning on the squat rack, I always have the uneasy feeling that he might be an escaped lunatic. I'm sorry that I'm so judgmental, but there it is.
 
Completely agree with the previous comments about people not racking weights, wiping up sweat, grunting and screaming, etc. I will add a couple more as well.

People who drop dumbells after their last set. I'm not talking about letting them go a couple inches from the ground. I'm referring to the people who on a bench doing curls, dumbell presses, etc, and at the end of their set they drop the dumbells from bench height onto the floor. Not only is it annoying because it echoes in the building, to me it's just a sign of laziness and lack of consideration. While dumbells are obviously sturdy, there's no reason to tear up the floor, or let them drop and roll onto someone else's foot.

Another example is the people who use the resistance machines instead of free weights, and then don't do the exercise correctly. I can think of one man in particular at my gym who does this. It's surprising because he's obviously in good shape, but uses entireley too much weight and his form on different lifts is awful. For example, there is a curl machine, where you are seated with your arms on a platform at the height of your armpits. Instead of doing a curl correctly, this guy is half standing up off the bench and flinging his body backwards in order to lift the weight. No one in the gym could care less how much the guy curls, they just care that he is screaming like a cow in labor and making a fool of himself doing it incorrectly. Not to mention the increased risk for injury when you don't have correct form.
 
for me 2 points...people who leave their crap they carry on one machine and go to another..I just put their stuff to one side..glare at em like "really, you like being a machine hog"
and start using the equipment while the walk away..but thats just me...asking to "work in" is a nicer approach

My other peeve at the gym..is sweating all over equipment and NOT bringing a tower or bottle of liquid for re hydration..:001_rolle
 
Mostly everything that annoys me has been mentioned.

The one that gets me the most is when someone sits for a good 10 minutes between sets and ties up the machine for way too long. I belong to a small gym and commonly have to adjust my routine because some is sitting there gawking, jawing, or leering at others. I understand a short minute to recuperate between sets, but yesterday, a guy was tieing up the preacher curl rack for enough time for me to finish bench, incline, rows, and shrugs.
 
Good god, I have more gym pet peeves than I thought. Locker room etiquette ... the one rule I have is to get out of there as fast as possible.
 
I belong to worst gym in the world, its full of 'roid cases who are destroying their bodies with horrible technique and strange people who've obviously never been in a gym before. Its a 24 Hour fitness club, and everyone who goea there is using the cheapo coupon from Costco. As far as I can tell, it exists only as a loss leader for the upgraded 24 Hour Fitness gym literally 500 feet away across the parking lot. You can see people take a tour of my gym and run across the lot to sign up at the other one for abot $50/month more!

I've given up on being polite, I just start moving stuff around when people tie up areas. "Yah, I'm just going to work a set in here do you mind thanks so much oh excuse me I need to get in there." I'm hands down the leader in receivng dirty looks, but I get my work in and move on quickly.

(Best story - there's one guy who takes off his flipflops on the way to wash his feet from the hand sanitizer dispenser right in the middle of the stretching area. Hand on heart.)
 

Legion

Staff member
When guys, usually really young guys, work out in groups of five or six. They take over a whole machine and then take turns on it, in between talking loudly about subjects that will offend and drive away all the women in the gym.

You cant step in and do a quick set while they are resting, and they take so long that there is no point waiting for them to finish.
 
So many of these are things that really annoy me too! There is a group of screaming guys at my gym, during every single rep they feel the need to scream. They also do the motivational yelling thing, "come on, you got this bro" type crap along with the high fives in between sets, I hope that someone will pour some chlorine in the gene pool.
 
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