My Gym, My Rules

The BBQ Pit
1

What? I just got handed the ownership of the 24 Hour Fitness to which I belong as a member? Listen up, punks…the following changes get implemented IMMEDIATELY:

  1. It’s a narrow staircase up to the second floor of 24 Hour Fitness. You will not walk two abreast if doing so will obstruct people heading the opposite direction you are.

  2. We have one water fountain. It takes you about 40 seconds to fill up your shiny, plastic water bottle. See the two people behind you? Let them each take five seconds to quench their thirst, then resume. I mandate it.

  3. If the locker room is sufficiently crowded, or you find yourself using a locker that is quite close to another in use, and you just got out of the shower, for Og’s sake, wrap a towel around that waist. I don’t need to be bending over to remove stuff from my bottom-row locker, with you standing right next time, naked as the day you were born. Please. I beg you.

2

Even with the new rules, I am so not joining your gym. One water fountain? Claustrophobic stairwells and locker room?

:: Shudder ::

3

  1. If you get caught not stripping your bar, you will be fined five dollars per pound of weight you left for the next person.

  2. If you are lifting a weight too heavy for you, incorrectly, in a “one rep then win the Oscar” format (for example screaming and yelling while using your back and shoulders to do one 120-pound barbell curl), staff is instructed to, in public if possible, remove the weight from your hands and give you a weight you CAN lift.

  3. If all your equipment is color-coordinated and if you have more than one such coordinated piece of flair (ie headband, wristbands, bag, water-bottle, iPod holder), your membership will be increased to the point where your cheesy-accessory income is spent on gym membership.

  4. No dance music shall be played within one floor of any free weights.

4

Underwear shall be worn under the rest of your clothing. That’s why they call it that.

Beautiful rant, by the way. Nicely set up. [golf clap]

5

Those who choose to drop weights on the floor will be beaten with those weights. Repeatedly.

6

(I use the clubhouse gym in my apartment complex, which occasionally causes annoyance)

No, your children really cannot come into the gym, even if you brought them down to use the pool. Children will instantly be confiscated and sold on the black market. Sopping-wet children will be thrown into the river.

This is not a television lounge. Do not come here just to sit on a weight bench and watch the cable tv. Even if you don’t have cable in your apartment

7

I would extend this to people who don’t put the dumbbells back on the rack. If it’s too heavy for you to put back, then it’s too heavy for you to be using at all.

What gets me even more is when people put the dumbbells back in the wrong spot. Maybe it’s just because I’m anal-retentive. Or maybe it’s because I used to work at a gym and I would have to rearrange and pick up the dumbbells at least three times a day because some lazy fucker likes lifting heavy weights but doesn’t like lifting heavy weights.

But what really pisses me off is when I see the 5 lbers laying on the floor. You have to be really lazy to not put those back.

Can you tell I use the dumbbells a lot?

8

Ditto for anyone who finds it necessary to punctuate dumbell presses or flyes by banging the dumbells together as hard as they can at the top of the lift.

9

Grunters and screamers will be sodomized.

10

If swampbear is doing the sodomizing, then grrrunnnnnt ieeee ungh ieeeee grunnnnt

11

Wipe down your bench after use. This applies to everyone, even if you don’t sweat much, and especially if you are someone who sweats heavily. I don’t want to lie in your slime to do bench presses.

If it’s crowded, don’t just sit on the equipment between sets, especially if it’s obvious that other people are waiting and want to work in between your sets. And if someone actually asks you if they can work in, don’t act like they’ve asked you to sell your firstborn into slavery. The equipment is there for everyone, and if the gym is busy then everyone needs to be considerate of other people’s needs.

If you’re at the gym by yourself, for Og’s sake either bench a weight you can handle, or ask someone to spot for you. Because you look ridiculous lying there, red-faced and heaving for breath, with a 250lb barbell lying on your chest. And it’s dangerous.

12

Allow me to preface: just the other day I had a very, very angry gym rant. I was going to start a pit thread for all my anger, but there just wasn’t enough venom (and creative cursing). So thank you, THANK YOU! For allowing me to vent ::does Tom Cruise-esque couch dance:::

I really do enjoy going to the gym as I end up feeling quite accomplished afterwards. What I do not like about the gym is the creepy guys- and lemme tell ya, there is an abundance of creepiness at the gym. I don’t get what they are staring at, but I am constantly oogled (is that spelled right?) while working out.

I’ll be in my own, happy little world jogging away my sorrows while listening to Shakira on my MP3 player and reading Cosmo (What? Don’t look at me like that!). Then I glance up to see some guy across the gym looking me up and down (at what they are looking, I’m not entirely sure). Here’s my thing: if you want to be creepy and stare at girls at the gym-- go right ahead, but for the love of God: be subtle! When I look up at you DO NOT get that big, skeevy, perverted, child molester smile across your face. Honestly, is this an effective pick up technique that I am just unaware of? Is he expecting me to hop off the eliptical machine and run into his awaiting arms (topless, of course- that’s how fantasies work)?

Even then, skeevy staring can be ignored for the most part. But today- oh today set a new precident. DO. NOT. TOUCH. ME. I don’t care who the flying fuck you are. I hate, hate, HATE being touched by strangers under any circumstances.

Today I was on the bike (after running for half an hour, so I wasn’t pretty by any means) and a guy walked by and “bumped into” my boob with the back of his hand. I was startled, but hey- accidents happen. After all, there are pretty tight spaces between the machines. But it wasn’t just an accident was it, Mr. Creepy Man? Oh no! Because when I looked up at you, you stopped, looked at my chest, smiled that creepy pervert smile, mumbled a sorry (while still grinning) and walked off.

Even though I should have ran up to the front desk, I was too shocked to do anything. I kept biking for the rest of the half an hour, then I moved on to the various machines. While doing the pull down one (for your back and stuff), a guy walked up and said, “Hey darlin’, lemme help you with that.” “No, I’m cool. Thanks.” He then proceeded to put his arms around me and “show me” how to pull down properly (which is EXACTLY what I was doing before, but did involve his hands being under mine, his arms pressed against my chest, etc). “I TOLD YOU I am fine. THANK YOU.” He mumbled something about me being testy. How about you just don’t touch me or" help" the poor, helpless little girl unless she asks, k?

So, in my gym there would be bouncers. Big, scary, ex Navy Seal bouncers who would pummel creepy jerks into submission. And I could laugh. Oh how I would laugh.

13

I can’t stand the dumbells at my gym. If you hit them together they ring out like an actual bell. It is so annoying. And there are times when I do exercies where I want to bring the dumbells together. And the lighter the touch the louder the ringing

Anyone know if this is how dumbells got their name.

14

I should clarify…

  1. The stairwells aren’t claustrophobic…just not wide enough for two people to walk abreast and a third to pass comfortably.

  2. One water fountain on the lower level. Sure there is one upstairs, too. But you already know how I feel about the stairs. :rolleyes:

  3. It’s not the gym is so claustrophobic, either…just that there are these benches right in front of the lockers, so you have little room to manuever. That means that post-shower dripping naked dudes have to either:

A) Squeeze past me :eek:

or

B) Straddle the bench to get to their locker :eek: :eek: :eek:

Neither is ideal.

15

Scumpup’s Standing Orders to All Gym Members:

  1. The gym is a place of excercise. If your primary goal is to socialize, get the fuck to a tavern_off the equipment_and out of my way.
  2. I don’t want to talk to you; the only question I will respond to is a polite request for a spot.
  3. The sauna is cramped; so STFU. It is impossible for you run your mouth telling Joie the Dogfaced Girl lies about how you were partying last week in Vegas w/ Prince, Demi Moore, and Ashton Kutchner w/o driving me into a killing rage in the process. (hint: next time you try to tell a whopper like that one, learn how the names of the B-list celebrities iin question are actually pronounced.)
  4. If you stand on the bench in the locker room after showering because the floor is too icky for you, I will strangle you with your own sweaty jockstrap. Seriously. Get a fucking pair of shower shoes, dumbass.
  5. Don’t offer me advice. I don’t need it.
  6. Don’t ask me for advice. There are staff members available to you.
  7. Strip the bar, you fucking weakling.
  8. This isn’t high school and you aren’t back on the football team. If you bellow conversations across the gym or locker room at your buddy, especially “I’m so pumped!” drivel, I authorize the closest person to cave your skull in with a dumbell.
16

DiosaBellissima

Talk to management at the gym, and then change gyms. Now. Seriously - nobody should ever touch you without your permission, and clearly these guys think that it’s okay behavior at the gym.

I don’t have a lot of gym complaints - the gym I attend is open, airy, has paper towels at every row to wipe up after yourself with if you forget your towels and gym-goers who don’t bother each other except to say, “can I work in?” or “excuse me.”

17

The swimming pool is not a recreational pool for kids and teen-agers to goof around in. Also, the pool has lanes for two people to swim laps, DO NOT swim right in the middle of the lane when you are sharing. Do not do the backstroke if it means you will be exploring the entire lane (left, then right then left then right) as you attempt this. Swim in a straight line! For Og’s sake, do not jump into the pool to cool down right after you got out of the steam room. You are slimy and sweaty and there is a reason there is a sign that says “Please shower before entering the pool”.

18

An encounter about a year ago:

I walk up to a machine that’s being used by a guy with a trainer, I’ve seen the guy around the gym before. He’s cool. The guy is just sitting on the vertical press machine, between sets.

Me: “You mind if I work in?”
Guy: “No, sure go ahead.”
Trainer looks at me a little funny.
I hop on, they move on. I think the trainer just didn’t want to be interrupted or something.

It’s a chest day, so after 3 sets I move on to the fly machine and guess where they are now. And the guy is resting on the machine again.

Me: “Mind if I work in?”
Trainer: “You were working over there, now you want here?”
I kind of freeze, I can’t fathom how this could possibly be a problem.
Meanwhile he’s lookin’ at me like I’ve insulted his heritage.
Then it finally just pisses me off because this is my biggest peeve about the gym anyway.
Me: “Maybe you trainers should teach your clients not to rest on the machines.”
Trainer: “Don’t be telling me how to do my job!”
Me: “I just did.”
He walks off in a huff. He acted like he was gonna jump me for months after that then he thankfully dissappeared.

Asshole.

19

1] It’s designed that why so you can *accidentally *rub up against some hot stud
2] This is to encourange you to by those $2 bottles of water.
3] Most people go to the gym just to experience this.

Yep, gyms are tres Gay. :stuck_out_tongue:

20

Expanding on Scumpup and DiossaBellissima:

If I haven’t started a conversation with you, leave me the fuck alone.

Polite howdies, a little wave, ok.

But please for fuck’s sake don’t feel we need to discuss SportsCenter, or that “babe in the pink spandex” across the room, I’m not there to chat with you. I’m there to get my workout in - lift, run, bike whatever. Even if it looks like I’m not doing anything that would disqualify me from being your pal, I came alone and I like to workout in some kind of solitude. I didn’t join the gym because I like to chat with smelly guys, I joined because that’s where all the workout shit is.

Got it? Now go the fuck away.

I’m really no anti-social most of the time, just leave me alone at the gym, ok?