For a little over a year, I have been working out at a gym. Initially, it was for health reasons, now it is for health and because I enjoy it.
There are five gyms to choose from in the small town I live in. I chose the second largest for reasons I will go into in a moment.
I go at least four times a week and work out for about an hour and a half each time, which at my gym makes me hard-core, though I acknowledge there are those who frequent their gyms more often and work harder than I do.
Significantly for what follows, I am in the gym at the same time each day at the end of my working day. I am often in the gym with the same people every day and that has taught me a thing or two about gym etiquette and the hidden philosophy of gym-going.
Let me start by telling you about the people. The reason I go to the second largest gym in town is that the largest and most popular is replete with poseurs who spend more time in front of the mirrors than the equipment. [1]
The people in my gym are in a different world—their world. They work-out in relative silence with only brief engagement with me or any of the others. At most, there will be a smile or a wave across the room as acknowledgement of my presence.
Even so, over time you get to know something of them, or assume you do. I share the gym with two massive men. Both would be over six foot seven and look intimidating with their magnificent beards and no-nonsense demeanours; yet, because I work out at least as much as they do and often harder, they are among the first to help with techniques and modifications to my exercise programme. They are gentle giants.
Then there are the former gang members. I assume they once belonged to a gang because the facial tattoos suggest such and I assume they no longer belong to a gang, because most gang-pads have their own home-gym or own one elsewhere. There used to be four or five guys, but they stopped coming when vaccine mandates arrived. I miss them—they were always friendly in the distant way of the dedicated gym-goer.
The most dedicated at my gym is a girl. I commented to the gym-owner that she is in the gym every time I am there and she works hard but never smiles. He replied that she is indeed the most frequent gym goer he has and is painfully shy.
These are the people—the good people—who populate my gym world and share a philosophy of co-habitation.
But there are
people whom I am not so keen on. Let me tell you why—their habits.
There is an unwritten gym etiquette based on, in my belief, common sense and
common courtesy. These guys, and they are mostly guys, have neither. Here are
my pet hates. Do you agree or disagree and are you able to add some of your
own?
- People, mostly young, who use the gym equipment to sit on when sending or reading texts, often for protracted periods.
- People who don’t put the
weights away, expecting someone else, will.
- People who simultaneously use
three or more pieces of gym equipment, effectively depriving their
use by others.
- Young people, mostly male, who
congregate around a set of gym equipment (often using it just to sit on and
talk) passing the equipment between themselves in rotation, thus having the
same effect as above.
It is interesting that the last mentioned happens a lot more frequently since the departure of my “gang” friends.
I know I sound like a curmudgeon, and an elderly one at that, but come on people—common courtesy! Fortunately, I have Fryday to vent my frustration. Also, for the same purpose, a punching bag at the gym—that’s if one of those toerags doesn’t get to it first.
[1] The second reason is that my gym doesn’t have the classes such as Pilates, Zuma, etc, run by raucous hyper-active advocates of the body-perfect. I prefer to work away in silence.
