If you learn something from this article, you may be inexperienced and naive, in which case you get a by, assuming you take the points herein to heart. However if you are you have been training long enough to know better and still are ignorant enough to violate basic etiquette, you should probably be sterilised before you can find a mate of equal ignorance, create offspring (with an extra concentrated dose of ignorance) and effectively contribute to the devolution of humanity.
Without further ado, some ground rules on how to use the gym and not be a complete dickhead. It's basic etiquette; we're not animals, we live in a society, let's act like it.
1. Don't break stuff
Oh, you just managed a clean and jerk with 50 kg did you, big man? And now you are dropping that bar from overhead? Then that will make a big crash and then you'll look really cool to everyone in the gym. Alternatively, lower the fucking weight and rack it or put it down, get a bit of extra work in and save the barbell, plates and platform from extra abuse. Of course there are exceptions, if you are at a suitable facility, with suitable barbells and plates and you are hitting work sets for Oly lifts loads or actually competing in a CrossFit challenge, go ahead, but this is a minority of instances. If you are repping light weights for 'conditioning', warming up or generally fucking around, keep the weight in your hand and stop throwing things around trying to look hardcore. You are not hardcore. Same goes for dumbells, if you feel the need to throw the 15s after a br00tal set of lateral raises, kill yourself.
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| Matthias Steiner cares about gym equipment so much he cushions its fall with his neck |
All gym equipment, as with anything in life, will eventually fall apart and die. Whilst there may be some preventative measures, such as rubber coated dumbells, bumper plates and rubber flooring in place, everything will take a whole lot longer to fall apart if you don't chuck it around like a chimp throwing its shit.
When you sign up to a gym, you are essentially taking part ownership of all the equipment therein. If you break some equipment, in addition to pissing off all your fellow gym goers, it is your retarded self that loses out.
Don't be that guy, respect the equipment.
2. Everything in its place
Look at the picture above. Tiny children, barely able to talk and still shitting themselves, have the ability to put the coloured shapes in the right place. Yet many gym goers can't seem to put the 30 kg dumbells back in the recesses handily marked '30 kg', if you are one of these people, well done, you were literally more cognitively advanced in nursery than you are currently.
Alternatively, you believe that once you've completed what you want to do, it's no longer your problem, even if it leaves the next person inconvenienced. In this case you are a low grade sociopath and should probably seek help. Strip your bar when you are done, put the plates back in the right place on the weight tree (or whatever organisation system your gym has), rack your dumbells and put any specialised equipment back where you got it from. If you see someone leaving the gym, a wake of ditched dumbells, fully loaded bars and random gym items strewn behind them, you have full license to bitch slap them with no further explanation.
Don't be a dickbag, put everything back where it belongs.
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| A place for everything and everything in its place. |
3. Don't get in my zone, son.
No one tends to like strangers getting in their personal space at the best of times, but if that person has a heavy weight on their back/over their face/halfway off the ground, you best stay the hell away. This includes not walking over someone else's lifting platform, not taking plates from someone's rack during their sets, not standing over someone doing a bench/floor exercise. Furthermore if someone is using a mirror to check form (or their pump), don't stand directly in the way.
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| What was that about personal space? |
The same goes for your gym equipment; by all means bring your stuff into the gym, but tuck it away, don't be the guy who uses the bench as his personal bag stand or the guy that leaves his mobility equipment in the middle of a busy walkway. The gym shouldn't be an obstacle course full of protein shakers, foam rollers and brain-dead mouth-breathers with no courtesy for personal space.
Get yourself (and all of your shit) out of the way.
4. Communicate, but know when to shut the hell up
Some people like to promote the ethic that no talking should take place in the gym and that if you are able to have a conversation, you aren't working hard enough. Maybe they are right, it's better than the other end of the spectrum; if you have been giving a blow-by-blow account of your life to someone for the last 8 minutes, chances are they currently want to kick you in the face and get the hell on with their workout. We can probably settle on a middle ground, discussion of training can be useful to all involved and a bit of a social chat isn't a bad thing, but don't forget that other people have things they want to do that don't involve listening to you.
There are times in the gym where communication is a necessary part of proper behaviour. If someone is using equipment you want to use, ask to work in, conversely offer if you can see someone clearly wants to use what you are using, check that no one is using a piece of equipment before you jump on, ask for/offer a spot; these are all situations in which a bit of chat helps everyone.
Just shut up the rest of the time. No one cares.
5. Time and a place for everything
'Functional' exercises are all the rage, I get it, they can be fun, some are extremely beneficial and people think you look cool. Many of them also take up a hell of a lot of space. I love/hate prowler pushes as much as the next man, they are great, but trying to shove a big metal sled through a busy gym at peak hours...not the best idea. Same goes for anything that requires a large space and/or cumbersome equipment: farmers walks, walking lunges, loaded carries, battle ropes, sled dragging, tyre flipping, sledgehammer work ...all great exercises, but don't be the fool who gets in the way of multiple other people and makes a hazard of themselves because they think they'll test their 1RM snatch in the middle of the gym at 5.30 pm.
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| Good exercise? Yes. Suitable for peak time in a busy gym? Not at all. |
Similar rules go for supersetting or (Lord forgive) 'WOD's which use multiple pieces of equipment, you're probably not in danger of injuring anyone, but you are likely pissing them off by hogging all the toys like the kid everyone hated in nursery.
Finally, don't do simple, easily portable isolation exercises in squat racks/on benches/on platforms that people want to use for their intended purpose. 'Curling in the squat rack' has become the cliché, but people are guilty of plenty more, I have waited to use a bench whilst someone (I shit you not) wrist curled on it. Don't be that person.
If you are inconveniencing multiple people so you can do an exercise, just don't.
6. Don't be gross
Wash your gym clothes, have a shower and wear some deodorant, please. There aren't many things worse than finishing a hard set, sucking in some air and finding it thick with someone else's stench.
Further, if your reps for Jesus end up leaving a full body sweat halo like the Shroud of Turin on any piece of equipment you touch, wipe it down, you're not the messiah, you're a very naughty boy, now go away.
Finally, I know we are all pounding the protein shakes, and I know this can cause a bit of bubble-gut in some people, but if you need to send out the old sphincter siren, at least step outside.
Be clean, don't smell.
7. Don't be a dick
Every gym has a few guys that they are the biggest, hardest, coolest guys there, the sort of guys that insist on staring other people out, strutting around chest puffed out and convincing themselves that they are the biggest person there. I'm sure these guys won't be reading this, as they likely can't read, but fuck 'em anyway.
Try not to be too narcissistic either, granted, there is absolutely a streak of vanity to almost everyone who trains in the gym, that's why we are there, but don't take it too far. By all means have a look at the sweet pump you are rocking, but don't spend 5 minutes posing at yourself and lifting up your top right in front of the mirror; if you are small, people will laugh, if you are big, people will assume you have a tiny penis.
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| Bit of column A, bit of column B. |
In summary (of the whole article), don't be a dick and training can be fun for all.
Yip likes this.....Too many dicks about!
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