Actual gym rants!!

The BBQ Pit
81

Good point, mine are the same as many of yours, especially those that don’t put their weights away.

And, those who puts the 45 pound plates on the rack so that not a MILLIMETER Of bar shows through. So there’s no margin for error while trying to lift it off of the rack and if you’re not strong in the upper body (I’m working on it, but while my legs are capable of a huge amount of weight, my arms are still struggling with the 45s I use for the leg press), you’re risking serious injury to your fingers and/or toes if it slips.

JEEEZ fellows, there are racks all OVER the darn gym, there’s even another one right next to the one you overloaded if you’d just turn your head 1/4 turn to your right.

In addition to those who leave sweaty pools (and I even posted my own pitting about this very thing not too long ago), grease heads. GROOSSSSSSSSSS!!! Sweat is one thing, pretty disgusting, but can be dried up with a towel. Hair grease stains clothing. And is just so nasty to accidentally touch and shudder slide on.

Girls (I have no idea if there are men who do this, I’ve never been in the men’s locker room when there were men there), who insist upon changing their clothing in the bathroom stalls instead of out in the 1500 sf of locker room (which is nicely broken up into many, many nice secluded little alcoves).

Good grief!! You’re with women!!! NO ONE CARES, quit with the false modesty pwecious pwincess routine you inconsiderate little snob. Nothing like having half a dozen women in pain dancing around the outside of the bathroom stalls while several someone’s are taking their sweet time changing their clothes for the upcoming aerobics class.

Stop resting on the machines. It says so every several feet along every mirror in the weight room. And it’s well known gym etiquette. If you MUST take a sitting break, at least ask those nearby if they’ll be needing the machine.

On that same note, as it IS a longstanding and well known bit of “gym etiquette” do NOT get all huffy if you are caught napping on a machine in between your sets and someone waiting for the machine asks to “work in”. It’s a normal request, and understandable if you’ve just been sitting there chatting with your sweetie or whatever.

Do NOT snap “why??? is there a fire, got a hot date???” when this request is made of you. YOU are the one in the wrong. Get over it, either do your next set, or move for the others in the gym and allow them to “work in”.

Several of the areas of the gym are made up of hallways and stairways. Do NOT congregate with 5 of your buddies in a big gossip clump. If you’re ready for social hour, go to the cafe or the lounge area, that’s what they’re there for.

Lady, that child is NOT three or under. He’s 6 if he’s a day, the rules are that no opposite sex children are allowed in the adult locker room. What do you do if his dad couldn’t come with you? See that bright yellow sign on the locker room door? The one that says “no opposite sex children past their 3rd birthday, ask PE Director about Sports Team locker room?” Yes…yes… reading the directions is a GOOD thing.

Girls. SHUT UP!!! SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!!! There are only 8 of you, but it sounds as if the entire locker room is full of baby harpies. My GOD, I never knew there could be such a shrill and overwhelming sound. Look, your little jr. high team is a GUEST of the college locker room and facilities. Do not yell, scream and roughhouse in the locker room, do not clutter every inch of the seating area with sopping wet swimwear. And most especially, STOP with the used feminine products left in the bathrooms. We know it’s not the college students, it only happens on the nights your swim team practices.

Swim team coach - Yeah, we know you’re Mr. Hot Stuff. Your rental period ends at 530, that means you’re out of the POOL at 530, not giving a rah rah speech over by the diving boards and egging on 15 screaming brats until ten of. Our college class starts at 530, University students come first, it says so on your rental agreement, so yes, we the instructors WILL come in and do sound checks and set up our boards so we’ll be ready for our classes on time.

Do NOT walk over while we’re assisting students and scream “we have the pool until 530” at us when it’s alREADY 530 and you haven’t even gotten your students out of the water (and you know who you are NLST coach).

82

And how about the people who will waddle into the sauna or steam room, plop down on the bench, spread their butt cheeks apart and blow a huge fart just because they like the sound it makes against the bench and the way it echos in the room?

Although I gotta admit that the last time that happened at the local 24 Hour Fitness where I hang out, I got up and walked out along with the other occupant, a small Oriental lady. She went back in a few minutes later and there was a sudden outburst of profanity in both voices from within the room. Seems that she went and got a spraycan of Lysol and doused the guy with it while yelling imprecations at him in Japanese.

I applauded her when she came back out. We all laughed out loud at him when he came out.

83

Hey Mister, would you like a cigarette now? You sure?? Your performance of groans, loud sighs, and gasps sounded EXACTLY like you just had the best sex of your life.

Is that REEEEEAAAAALLLY necessary? I’m not talking about the occasional “oh my God, I really hit 10 on that one, I’m dying” grunt or groan. I’m talking about entire sets sounding like the cast of Deep Throat, or the meant to impress screams.

When others around you are concentrating on their OWN workouts, a sudden 80 decibal “YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGHmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmppppppppppphhhhOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW” scares the the ever loving hell out of people.

I work here 8 hours a day, not including the times I do my own workouts, hundreds of men a week manage to do some pretty heavy lifting without all the verbal theatrics. Just a thought.

84

I gotta say, yesterday I was slightly annoyed by the girl on the elliptical to the left of me, who was pedaling so slowly while jabbering away at her friend that the machine kept telling her to PEDAL FASTER. But then I got over it and continued to watch the 76ers lose to the Spurs.

85

Speaking of ellipticals,

STOP TRYING TO LOOK AT MY READOUT!!!

86

Heh. I love seeing what other people are doing. Either they’re slower than me and I feel smug or they’re faster than me and I get inspired to work harder…

87

It bugs me because it invariably goes like this:
SlowAss is slow.
SlowAss glances over at my readout.
SlowAss becomes RidiculouslySpeedyAss and goes for breakneck speed for all of 30 seconds.
RidiculouslySpeedyAss gets tired, reverts to EvenSlowerAss.
Repeat process.

88

Ooops, sorry Stately I glance at others’ readouts too, and mostly for the reasons tremorviolet says above.

Also, I like to secretly laugh at those who crank the level all the way up to the top, and then hold up most of their body weight with their arms. The rails are there for balance. Do what you like of course, but if you’ve got it to level 20 and are holding yourself up both arms and leaning over the readout portion, you’re NOT doing a 20.

But, if you don’t like readout peekers, you can keep your towel lightly spread over the screen, and only look when YOU want to. :smiley:

Or, are you talking about someone who is up next on the list and is standing there doing that tappyfoot-sucking teeth-staring-at-your-readout-as-if-it’s-going-to-make-you- finish-faster-even-though-you-have-10-mintutes-left thingie??

Ooooh, I HATE that. I don’t mind if they glance and ask “say, how long do you have left…oh, 10 minutes thanks I’ll be back”. But hovering and staring? That’s a cardinal gym sin.

89

Meh. I only looked over because the machine kept beeping every time it told her to move the fuck on, and it was extremely annoying. Almost like the machine was trying to cuss her out in its own language. :smiley:

I also get pissed when I feel like the person next to me is continually looking at my readout. Makes me paranoid, and then it gets hard to focus on my HR!

90

Yeah, I don’t really have anything against a quick glance here and there. We all do it sometimes. I’m talking about the people who will STARE at your readout more than theirs.
When it gets really bad, I’ve sometimes had to pause the workout, go to the magazine bin, spread an issue of JANE out over the display, and continue working out [and pointedly ignoring the magazine].

91

Oh, I think that’s hilarious. Particularly, since I’m usually using the rowing machine and most people don’t use them correctly. So it’s me on the erg holding a pretty steady 2:20 split and then some big beefy guy get on next to me. They always crank away as fast as they can using incredibly crappy form and give up, like you said, in 30 seconds and finally slink away in defeat. Comedy gold.

OK, I will mention my gym pet peeve tho’. It’s guys who want to work in with you on a free weight machine and then load a zillion plates. I don’t use particularly heavy weights and I only take about a minute between sets. These guys spend something like five freakin’ minutes putting on the extra plates. And then they have to unload the plates for another five minutes. Geez, I would have been completely done before you even loaded the weights for your first set. (actually, that hasn’t happened to me in forever because I’m way more assertive in the gym now but it used to)

92

Oh, I hate that too. If I’m at the gym at a really busy time, I just drop my rest time to 20-30 seconds. In fact, if you can stall, and pretend convincingly to be adjusting the seat, or you dropped your towel, or you’re adding weights and figuring out the math, and so on, You can just about use up that 20 to 30 seconds right there, then do your finish set(s).

93

Ooh, I got a new one.

Guy hogging the only power rack in my gym today with his girlfriend and sycophant guy friend. He’s pretty buff and has a respectable-but-not-remarkable squat weight of maybe 260 (tops) racked. Occasionally does sets of 3 reps. Spends 10 minutes bragging to his friends between each of his zillion sets how he’s gearing up for this competition. :dubious:

Uh, not if you can’t even do that weight without staggering, bub. Gonna need a bit more on the bar at your body weight…anyway…

Then he moved to another part of the weight room after he saw me glaring daggers at him. Said something about my pacing throwing off his routine. Heh. If you’re competing and it takes that little to throw you off, you’re fucked. Meanwhile, shut yer damn yap, get through yer sets and get the hell out of my way. Honestly, I wouldn’t be pacing if you were actually spending that time working out. :wally

Happily, the adrenaline boost was such that I went through my sets of front squats with flying colors. Moving up my weights on Tuesday. Yay, me.

94

(bolding mine)
Your premise on this is just plain wrong. There is no way that you can judge whether or not someone will be equally well served by walking on the track vs. the treadmill.

You have repeated often throughout the thread that walking is a no-impact activity. Wrong, sport.

Walking faster obviously increases the forces.

As others have stated, many people feel that the treadmill bed is a friendlier surface than to their feet than the track. I know that it is friendlier to knees than a track. Our YMCA has an indoor track of 1/15 mile distance. We post a direction in which people should walk/run on the track to vary it from clockwise to counterclockwise on alternating days because it is recognized that the curvature of the track places an imbalance of forces on the knees which can cause knee problems in people who do a lot of laps. (If your indoor track is banked, the effect will be even worse.)

I personally don’t like treadmills; when I’m warming up or cooling down, I much prefer to do it on the track. Now, I teach walking classes, and I racewalk, so my walking pace is faster than most peoples’. (When I compete in 5K races, I generally finish ahead of quite a few joggers.) When I walk on the indoor track at the Y, there are sometimes walkers and/or slower joggers on the track who are pacing together so they can chat. And, hey — they get in my way. It’s difficult to pass them, because the track isn’t very wide, and if they’re walking two abreast, and I also have to look out for the speed demon runner behind me who’s wanting to pass me as well as them, then I have to break my stride, which slows me down substantially. So, you see, I think having all these social walkers and runners on the track is inconveniencing ME. Perhaps in order to be considerate they should just check out two adjacent treadmills, so they don’t get in anyone’s way. That way they can chat to their heart’s desire, and there will be more room on the track, and people can go at their own pace without having to worry about them, huh?

Or — maybe I can look at the fact that we all pay the same membership fee to the gym, and they have the same right to use any and all facilities there as I do. (Actually, since my membership dues are comped since I teach walking classes, it’s my job to defer to other members if there is a conflict on equipment use.)

As a fitness professional, I think that the treadmill is being put to its best possible use when some overweight individual who otherwise would be at home sitting on the couch is in there using it. In your eyes, they are “just as well served walking on that as you are on the treadmill.” Well, quite frankly, your opinion doesn’t matter here. For whatever reason, they have decided that they want to move, and they’re going to do it on the treadmill. Is it because the surface is more forgiving to their feet and joints? Is it because they can watch the soap opera on the closed circuit TV while they’re doing it? Is it because they can park themselves on the treadmill right next to the fan, and get a breeze the whole time they’re working out? Is it because they want to hide in the corner of the gym and get their workout in because they’re afraid that if they go on the track, some asshole will make comments about how slow that fat-ass is moving? Their reasons don’t matter to me. The fact is, getting a sedentary person to move and become active — even if their workout doesn’t meet your high and mighty non-professional standard of worthiness — provides far more incremental value than giving an already active person another outlet for activity. Since you mentioned that you are also a marital artist, that run on the treadmill is a PART of your overall fitness plan. Many overweight individuals don’t have multiple outlets because they fear ridicule if they participate in group fitness activities. Doing a low-impact individual activity such as walking on a treadmill can build their endurance and self-confidence to lead them on the road to fitness.

I congratulate you on your committment to a fit lifestyle for yourself. However, your judgemental attitude toward others who are seeking the same for themselves at a different pace is selfish and childish.

YWalker
YMCA Walk Reebok Instructor and Trainer

95

Nice to see some of the people from Elite.

96

Mine’s a little unusual, but here goes:

OK folks, I admit that the gym is just a shower for me. I haven’t touched a piece of equipment. I have a membership so that I can shower after a 15 mile bike ride to work. Work is a 1/4 mile upt he road, so if I shower here I’m in pretty good shape if I change here. Not hard to understand, no?

So while I can understand that seeing me come in to the gym already sweaty and wearing winter biking clothes can be a tad unusual, you must realise that I am here pretty close to every business day so perhaps, just maybe a few of you could Kindly stop reacting to my appearance at the machine area as if I was wearing a hockey mask and carrying a pair of chainsaws! Fer Fooks sake I am just heading for the locker. I was expecting to aquire a body count. What’s wrong? Did you think I was the biker you cut off turning into the parking lot come in for revenge?

Also, just becuase you rented a locker does not mean that you own the bench closest to that locker. Do NOT PUSH MY STUFF ON THE FLOOR SO YOU CAN HAVE A SEAT WHILE YOUR PATHETIC RHINO BRAIN TRIES TO REMEMBER THE THREE NUMBER LOCK COMBINATION! This has only happened once, and I confess had I been holding anything larger or heavier than a tiny bottle of shampoo, it would have been imbedded in your spine. BTW, “Well, this is my locker here” is not a legitimate reason to knock people’s stuff on the floor when someone asks you why the fuck you just did that.

Gah!

97

:smack:

wasn’t…wasn’t…wasn’t

98

This is bad? Shit.

That is a funny story about the Asian lady!

99

When the gym closing time is posted as 10 pm, that does NOT mean finish off your last rep and hit the sauna/steamroom/showers at 10pm.

Or when the shift manager nicely tells you at 10:01 that “we close at 10pm” you say “okay” and then continue doing reps.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

100

Fuck, I hate that!!! It happens to me all the time on the treadmills. There was this one woman who I always thought of as my “gym nemesis.” Why, you may ask? Because every time we were there at the same time, just like clockwork, she’d hop onto the treadmill next to me, despite the availability of a dozen other machines, glance at my read out, then set her treadmill at .1 mile faster than I was running, even though her feet were slamming really loud on the treadmill belt, and she had to hold on to the bars for dear life not to fall off. I don’t really run that fast, but for fuck’s sake - the treadmill is not the place for a contest.

I also can’t stand it when people slump over the bars of their stairmasters. For god’s sake - if you’re working so hard that your arms have to do all the work for you, slow down! The bars are for balance, not to keep you on the machine!