Gym etiquette and general info.

[AshG]

Originally Posted by OTIS

I think in a gym, offering unsolicited advice on technique might not get taken well.

very rarely i've received this and i'm not an angry person by nature, but my instinct is to tell them to fuck off.

there is an actual reason i do things the way i do, quite apart from someone's cookie cutter back of the mag anecdotal tips. i find some of the off-time employees of the gym can be bad for this. i suppose they think they're helping, but they're not... in the least.

i'm there at the gym for a focused purpose and i don't fuck around with banter or to explain myself to someone who knows all of chapter 1 of a fitness novella.

edit - that probably sounds angrier than i feel about it, but its one of the few piss offs i've gotten at the gym.
oh, aside, of stanky sauna wood.

editx2 - and by sauna wood, i mean literal wood, tho i the figurative kind would - upon reflection - be much, much worse.

[~atp~]

My hyperbole was inflammatory fun about my attitude when at the gym: serious bizniz. I'm there for a very specific purpose and it is a meditative time for me. No one here is suggesting that Tommy the Monkey and Jimmy the Cro Magnon shouldn't mouth off to each other about their pyramid cycles and what brand of whey isolate leaves them feeling like the biggest clusterfuck of raging myofibrils.

[ChrisD]

Another pet peeve, fucking cover your feet, or at least trim that shit if your doing Body Flow, or Yoga. I dont want to see, or smell your ranky feet girl when Im busting into a stretch for christs sake.

[Subsonic Chronic]

Originally Posted by AshG

there is an actual reason i do things the way i do, quite apart from someone's cookie cutter back of the mag anecdotal tips. i find some of the off-time employees of the gym can be bad for this. i suppose they think they're helping, but they're not... in the least.

It's a tricky area. I once saw a guy using pure swing momentum when doing curls because he wanted to look tough by loading up the olympic bar with 35lb or 45lb plates. He was heaving the bar up and down, risking throwing his back out and basically wasting any chance at building up his muscles properly.

I really wanted to tell him that he was doing it ALL wrong, but had to bite my tongue because he looked like the kind of person that wouldn't welcome such needed advice.

It's easier when you've at least said hey or chatted briefly with someone before to break into that dangerous territory, and although I've never been one to offer advice I've still had important advice given to me, it helped a lot when I was learning the form-heavy exercises like dead lifts.

[R4V4G3D_SKU11S]

Don't use the space where the cables are to lift barbells, just because there is a mirror there. The barbell place is over there, this is the cable machine.

Don't use your pumice stone in the steam room. Don't make a bunch of gross noises in the steam room.

Don't talk on your cell.

[R4V4G3D_SKU11S]

Are other people on here receptive to be being asked re: form?

[ChrisD]

I have no problem being asked, doesn't happen all that often, but does happen. Usually its a front though, especially if your in a gym that has a high concentration of alternative lifestyle community members.

[R4V4G3D_SKU11S]

Yeah see mine does. So I could definitely see it being taken the wrong way.

[eLeKTRon]

Originally Posted by R4V4G3D_SKU11S

Are other people on here receptive to be being asked re: form?

Do you mean other gym members asking you how how their form is?

I've never heard of that.

[the Doctor]

I've seen someone once whom I believed was truly in danger of hurting themselves. A women was running on a treadmill at like 6-degrees incline and 8.0 speed while holding onto the front rail for dear life and pounding on the mill like a motherfucker. It was stupid and everyone was staring at her waiting for her to bail.

Something had to happen so I spoke with a personal trainer at the gym and to one of the membership coordinators who I thought would be worried about the liability of her possibly hurting herself. They told me that everyone who works out at the gym signs a liability release so that whatever happens to them happens to them with no damage to the gym. So much for providing unsolicited advice.

[Hawk Eye]

Originally Posted by R4V4G3D_SKU11S

Don't talk on your cell.

That's one of my biggest pet peeves..i haven't seen it since then though..A few years ago i was at Curzon's..which is now premiere Fitness, and there was this gino who was on the treadmill, talking on his cell phone..Who does that? honestly. I coulnd't believe it.

[Big Cheese]

lol @ alternative lifestyle community members

put away your free weights/wipe down the cardio equip when you're done.

don't talk to anyone or make eye contact when i'm doing my thing.

my time = my time

p.s larisa beat it, this is our thread

[the Doctor]

Whatever G!

I'll leave when ChrisD removes himself from the Girl's Stuff Forum.

[SneakyPete]

Originally Posted by geminigirl

A message to all the stinky fuckers who sweat all over the cardio and then don't even wipe it down. God damnitt take a shower you disgusting pigs and clean off the equipment like everyone else.

At my old gym there were these older men that looked(and smelled!) like they haven't showered in a couple of days and then worked out.

I take a shower in the morning before I start the day. So I am always showered before my work out. I would feel so gross working out without a shower and then sweating all over the equipment that other people use.

Pisssssss me off.

Yeah, it's usually the old men that's smell. I don't mind the regular sweat smell, there's nothing you can do about it, but some older men have these really sour smell that I can't stand.

I sometimes go to the gym after my hockey game; I probably smell like hockey equipment. That's usually late at night or just cardio session where I don't have to walk around the gym.

[Hawk Eye]

Originally Posted by the Doctor

Whatever G!

I'll leave when ChrisD removes himself from the Girl's Stuff Forum.

LOL

[Scarlett]

Originally Posted by Hawk Eye

That's one of my biggest pet peeves..i haven't seen it since then though..A few years ago i was at Curzon's..which is now premiere Fitness, and there was this gino who was on the treadmill, talking on his cell phone..Who does that? honestly. I coulnd't believe it.

I was on a cardio machine and i noticed a woman on her cell phone while she was on a treadmill. She was basically walking at a snail's pace, so i was thinking 'what's the point??'

After about 5 minutes she gets off the treadmill. I didn't pay much attention at this point cuz i was doing my own thing. After my cardio, i went to the weights and noticed Ms. Chatty sitting on a weight bench on her phone as if she was in her living room!! It was the only bench in the room (it was the womens' section of the gym, so equipment is pretty sparse).

I asked her curtly if i can use the bench. She stops her conversation on the phone and looks at me and ROLLS her eyes as if to say, 'how dare u interrupt my convo!!! Then she got off the bench.

I'd say about 30 minutes pass and i decided to call it a day. I went to the change room and was Ms. Chatty...STILL ON THE PHONE!!!

[derek]

i'm pretty focused at the gym. like atp, i mediate through my movements focusing on my breath, and having that focus disrupted can be frustrating. luckily, i workout at non-peak times and rarely run into social butterflies. when it does happen though, i generally engage in the conversation for a minute or two, and then politely remove myself and continue my routine. if it becomes frequent (there was one dude at my last gym that started getting a little chatty too frequently), i just explain my position: i'm at the gym to exercise, not socialize.

my gym needs more dumbells. there's a serious shortage of 20s, 25s, 30s, and 35s. i can have difficulty getting them in non-peak hours.

people talk on their cell phones, drink coffee, and use their pdas while on the cardio equipment. doesn't really phase me though, as my cardio routines are pretty intense (155 to 165 bpm), so i don't notice them. i do find it funny though.

i rarely give unsolicited advice at the gym, unless i see somebody struggling, then i'll simply ask if they'd like some help. but yeah, i see people using poor form all the time.

and jebac, i wish a girl would check me out once n' a while.

[lok]

honestly qq more about being checked out. learn to be objectified and move on. if you're that concentrated on your workout you wont notice. especially guys i mean, women deal with this shit all the time get over it. hell, relish in it. Allow it to fuel your ego. Why the fuck not. The best way to deal with these glances is the "i know you want it but you aint gettin it" look. practice in front of a mirror to get just the right amount of "thanks" but still enough, "how bad do you want it though?"

body language does 95% of your work for fending off would be socialites.

re: a whole slew of weights during prime time
word, but it also works both ways - i'd rather a dude rock a superset and be done faster while I do something else then do many sets of different weights on the same bench/machine etc. I'll personally allow two weight sets before I think they're just hogging.

[ChrisD]

I need a gym partner!

anybody? bueller? bueller?

[Boss Hog]

I do too! But I'm at a different gym.

[deveator]

Oh ya "Gym partner" sounds like a front if I ever heard one boys!

[lok]

yeah seriously.. just like camping buddy

[ChrisD]

oh jesus, you cowboys wish!

[lok]

Originally Posted by ChrisD

oh jesus, you cowboys wish!

oh yeah im just so starved of sexual contact, let me dream more about it

[ChrisD]

jesus!

STOP DROPING THE WEIGHTS - ITS EVEN WORSE WHEN YOUR DOING CHEST BUDDY AND YOUR USING 35'S FOR CRYING OUT LOUD NO ONE IS IMPRESSED.