How many of you started off the new year with good intentions? You know, cutting out the booze, eating well and heading to the gym to trim up and get sexy. Three weeks in to January, how’s it going? Given up? Well, stick at it because it’s doing you good and improving your life. But if you do stick to regular visits, please abide by some unwritten rules that can irritate your fellow fitness fanatics and the people who work there. We hooked up with Alex, a dashing gay PT from London, who shares with us his dos and don’ts of gym etiquette.
You attend the gym for a reason.
The gym is a place of absolute truth… It’s where you identify your weaknesses and build on your strengths. It’s all about being focused on a goal and do what it takes to achieve that goal. So leave all the bullshit at the door. No one cares how much you earn or what car you drive or how much sex you get. And if you’re buff don’t go swanning around the place like you own it just to say ‘look at me’. It pisses everyone off. Attending the gym is one of those rare times in our lives where literally nothing else should matter in that moment. We want to be there to have fun but also to make a difference to our lives. But don’t give up too quickly. If you are not seeing the results that you want or expect, then change it or work harder.
Don’t show off on the equipment.
Treadmills and other moving machines should be stationary when taking off items of clothing. Don’t be that guy who thinks he really cool by trying to take his jumper off whilst walking on an incline and ends up hitting the deck and being shot backwards still wrapped up in ur badly fitting Lycra. Not a great look!
Be careful and seek advice.
If you’re going to the gym with the intention of improving your health and fitness then you MUST ask for help. You can read all you want online or watch YouTube vids but a PT is going to be able to make sure you’re doing it safely. There are so many people who work out and actually injure themselves because they don’t actually know what they are doing to their bodies, so it is very important that you’re not putting yourself in danger.
Tidy up after yourselves you mucky pups.
Put your f*cking weights back after a session! If you are just so pumped after your set that you get distracted by your incredible muscles and you forget to put the weights that YOU were using back where you found them then you should stop looking in the mirror and be a better human being. The poor person who is working that shift on the gym floor will spend the better part of an hour at the end of a ridiculously long shift lugging your 40kg dumbbells back to their correct place. If you can’t put them back then don’t pick them up!
Be wary of you exercise grunts
If you find that you are a noisy lover in the bedroom (another place to get a good workout!) then you’ll more than likely be noisy in the gym. With that knowledge you should be aware that the same noises you make in the bedroom will resound around the gym and distracting the other gym dwellers. Just saying.
If you drip, mop it up!
There’s only one thing worse than going to a public toilet to sit down and the seat is already warm … And that’s sitting/lying or touching something in a gym that is wet from sweat! It’s not only unhygienic but also so, so gross. So please. Wipe it down people! Getting covered in someone else’s sweat should only ever be when you’re up close and personal with someone.
Try not to irritate or intimidate others in the locker rooms
For those of you who regularly attend the gym, you’ll know the locker rooms are full of very strange goings on. You have the show boaters, the ones who flaunt themselves around the place like it’s their own personal stage. You have the awkward shy guys who hide away from prying eyes, petrified of even a pube being seen by anyone else. Then you have kids. Yes, I understand that it’s tough having to deal with kids at the best of times but bear in mind having kids running around a locker room full of naked men without a filter, can be far from pleasant. For example, just recently I was in a changing room when in walked a father and two kids. While the was hastily slipping into his gym gear, the kids irritating scampered around the lockers, hiding in lockers and jumping about everywhere. Then all of a sudden one stops and says very loudly ‘daddy… Why is that man’s willy bigger than yours ?’ Bless dad! He blushed, said nothing and hurried away.
Leave the waxing until you get home.
The steam room/sauna/jacuzzi and pool are places to chill and relax but there are a few things that really do get to me. For example, people shaving their legs in the sauna or steam room. WTF people? Wait until you get your hairy ass back home and then do it all in privacy. Leaving razors and hair is not only dangerous but totally gross. Secondly we all sweat but please gently wipe your brow with a towel not your hand and splash it all over the other people in there. It’s just rank!