People sitting on machines playing with phone forever
Then when you ask if you can just swap on for a moment, and do a quick set, they reply with “I just have 3 more sets to go” and refuse to budge.
Lettings weights drop noisily / dangerously on to the floor.
Makes you feel like a big man, huh? Except it’s better for your strength training if you force out one last eccentric phase to put the weight down carefully (as well as being considerate to others).
Working out right in front of the weights rack
Yes, you want to be close to the mirror. But you’re in everyone’s fucking way.
The one good thing you can say is it’s an environment where people generally get what they deserve. What I mean by that is, contrary to the jock stereotypes, guys with good muscle tone are generally not just sitting around occupying machines or doing other annoying shit.
China changing room specific rants in spoiler:
Using hairdryers on their whole body (yep, not only including down there but especially down there)
It’s a brave, possibly foolhardy person who so much as dips a toe into the ‘deadlift: drop vs lower’ schism. Best to stay out of it and wear headphones I’d say.
It’s simple. If it’s a strongman/powerlifting/“hardcore” gym, the culture considers screaming and dropping weights to be acceptable. Commercial gym that caters to a wide range of clients, shut up and put the bar down. Heavy breathing and grunts are OK.
Many’s the time I see a guy doing, say, dumbbell flys, then on the last rep lets his arms ragdoll down (such that the weights are thrown down, and roll along the floor).
Bad form, and dangerous.
I go to the kind of cheap gym that caters to people of all, and I mean all, ages, genders, nationalities, religions and body shapes. I’ve seen a cleaning lady in one of those ask a guy who’d just dropped a pair of dumbbells “hon, are you all right? Want me to call a doctor to see those weak wrists of yours?” before pointing to the bells and then to the rack.
Cleaning ladies tend to be mothers. A lot of them are grand-mothers. You don’t hurt the floor she cleans.
I used to see the grunting weight-slamming stuff going on at my old gym, but these days I go to the Y, with a more mellow clientele, and they seem to avoid doing that–an example of the “gym culture” thing that running coach was talking about.
My only real complaint (which I often mention in these threads) is people who go for a leisurely stroll on the two-lane running track, side-by-side, as I am trying to run.
There are signs telling slower runners and walkers to keep on the inside, but it still happens. It is always a pair of women chatting as they amble along blocking the five-foot wide indoor track.
I give them two or three courtesy laps where I say “excuse me” before I pass, then if they persist in being thickheaded, I simply squeeze past them while saying my boisterous “excuse me,” slathering them in copious amounts of sweat.
When I was a runner, I was a slower runner/jogger. I used to keep to the middle so the walkers could walk on the inside, and the real runners could have the outside. There would still usually manage to be three women walking abreast, and even if one was technically on the inside, they reached more than halfway across the five-lane track. Sheesh. This was at a Y, which was on a big parking lot, with several choices for walking outside on a flat surface, that would have been inconvenient for running because it would have been tortuous for a fast runner-- blind curves and all-- but fine for walkers. When it wasn’t raining, or really, really cold, I didn’t see why the walkers couldn’t be outside. Heck, half the time I was one the outside track anyway.
Not to mention, unless it was pouring rain, I biked to the Y. It always seemed silly to drive there to work out. Heck, I could have biked there, not even gone in, biked home, and gotten a pretty good work out.
I understand some people have issues, like arthritis. My point is, the track wasn’t JUST for the walkers, but they seemed to act like it was.
Don’t get me started on the people who would walk back and forth in the swim lanes of the pool. Yes, I know people with back issues and knee issues really need this exercise. But could you pick a time when all the lanes are open for swimmers, and not a time when only three lanes are open, and the pool is free for kids to rough-house? Two swimmers can share a lane, but it’s hard to share a lane with a walker. One walker reduces the available swimming area by 33%. During the time when the whole pool is swimming lanes, there are 10. So one walker isn’t so bad.
There’s one inclined bench at my gym for doing sit-ups. I do one set. It only takes a minute or two.
So last week I went over to the bench to do my sit-ups. There’s a guy on it. I came back 10 minutes later. He’s still on it. I go off to do something else, then come back. He’s *still *on it. :mad: I then watch him to see what he’s doing. He would do 10 or 20 sit ups, and then lay there for many minutes while playing with his phone. Lather, rinse, repeat. He finally got up after 25 minutes.
Assholes who don’t unload their machine or bar. And the ones that do who proceed to bury small plates under large plates on the rack pegs. I’ve even found safety collars buried under several 45s.
Totally with you on the fucknuts who sit on the equipment playing with their phones forever, and the douchenozzles who work out directly in front of the dumbbell rack so that no one else can access them.
To these I’ll add the twatwaffles who leave their stuff on the equipment and wander away to go chat with their buddies on the other side of the gym.
I’m guilty of dropping the weights after an intense set. The third set is the hardest, and I can’t always predict how many reps I’m going to be able to do; sometimes my muscles just give out. I fail to see how that inconveniences anyone else.
Occupying a machine or piece of equipment but not actually using it.
Being in the front row of a group class but not following along with the instructor.
Being in a group class and chatting loudly with the person next to you.
Setting up multiple workout areas like it’s your personal crossfit gym circuit.
In the locker room:
Leaving a huge puddle of water on the floor in front of your locker. Wringing your swimsuit out on the floor.
Being casual about nudity as if it was your home bathroom: sitting naked on the benches, shaving while leaning your junk against the counter, strolling naked around the locker room, talking to strangers while naked, sitting back and watching tv or reading the paper while naked, etc.
Doing self-grooming as if it was your home bathroom: slathering ointment on your taint, clipping toenails on the bench, dumping foot powder all over the floor, blow drying your balls, etc.
If you mean you can’t put the weights down as carefully as you could before the set because your arm is fatigued to fuck (as it should be)…I’m with you brother. That’s fine.
But if you literally let go of the weights from a high position? You’re…you’re no brother of mine! I can’t relate to that; I’ve never needed to let a weight go into freefall, and I’m pretty stacked.
How it inconveniences others? Main thing (I accept that annoying noise is not that significant) is: it’s dangerous.
I’ve never seen someone actually hurt, but I’ve seen plenty of times dumbbells or even barbells bounce near someone who was crouched or lying and just missed them by luck. I’ve had to stop weights that were rolling toward me. And several times I’ve seen mirrors get shattered or dents put into walls by wannabe shot-putters.
I think most of the standard complaints have been covered, but I didn’t see this one:
People who cluelessly position themselves between you and the mirror. Usually they are doing this while simultaneously blocking everyone from getting at the dumbbell rack.
I have a friend who said he saw a sign once that said “If you are having trouble putting your weights away, ask the nice ladies at the front desk and they will help you.”
In those situations I just reciprocate the gesture.
Aw come on! A guy’s gotta air the balloons, fer cryin out loud!
Anyone trying to commandeer the muzak.
Juice monkeys plying their wares.
Something depressing about the Original Universal Gym. Not the more modernized “sections” that would comprise an original, but the original itself, which, IIRC, was ubiquitous in just about every educational/sporting institution from about, say, the 60’s until, say, I dunno - mid 80s?* Perhaps I’m subconsciously making negative grade eight associations of having to go through “the circuit” (yes - that goddamned circuit you had to follow on this big wall chart with colourful graphics), having to wait in a dreary, cold, weight-room mini-line-up to go on to the next weight exercise.
*Heh - and then the Nautilus machine took over? Or maybe I’m getting my time-lines mixed up.
