Gym Nuisances

or
Don't Be a Jerk at the Gym

In the almost eight years that I've been a member of a gym, I've gone through several stages of being a gym rat. First, I was the focused newbie loner who didn't take classes, didn't use a personal trainer and just transitioned her workout from the apartment complex fitness facility to the gym because, hey, she could afford it and needed access to more equipment to expand her routine. Then I was the group X groupie, attending practically every class taught by a particular instructor, becoming part of the "regulars" clique and spending time before, during and after class cracking wise and sharing insider jokes with fellow regulars. Next came being a group X instructor and wanting so much to have her own group of regulars and trying very hard to help the people who attended her classes, to stand out from the other teachers--all while trying to maintain her own workout routine. Then came injured, foundering, burned out ex-group X instructor who knew enough to recognize bad form but didn't have the "authority" to correct folks. Finally, I'm sort of back to focused loner, who's just interested in getting there, getting the job done and getting on with her day.

In all these stages, I've observed some very...trying behavior from the folks around me at the gym that just make me--and I'm sure other gym rats like me--either want to laugh and laugh and laugh at the absurdity or damn near scream in frustration. Now that I've become a runner (ha!) and park myself on a treadmill for a good hour or more on the second floor of my nearest location, I have a great vantage point for observing my fellow gym attendees (members and personnel) and either reacting to what I see or choosing not to react (depending on how Buddhist I feel that day). In no particular order, here are the most common nuisance behaviors I encounter.

People Who Forget How to Share
These people don't necessarily hog equipment (although I'm sure all gym members have had their moments of frustration with fellow members who hog a lot of free weights or the step and the Swiss ball and the mat and the rubber tubing and half the stretching/abs floor area), but they do hog space. They aren't mindful of the people around them. I encounter this most often in the free weights area: I'll have my little setup and my little slice of the mirror in front of me, and then Captain Oblivion parks his or her body right in front of me and blocks my reflection.

Am I vain for wanting to see myself in the mirror? I'm sure that could be argued, but a lot of knowledgeable gym rats know that a mirror is one of the best ways for spotting poor alignment and poor form and to stop an injury from happening. With my abused, wonky body, I really do need to be able to see myself perform certain moves because I can't trust my misaligned body's sense of what's "right" and "wrong" when performing these moves. It's like being in yoga class and thinking you're doing adho mukha svanasana right and then having the teacher come over and adjust you and help you understand how adho mukha svanasana really is.

If you're at the gym and you're in an area with mirrors, be aware of where you put yourself in relationship to them and the people behind you.

People Who Forget That Their Moms Don't Work at the Gym
In other words, clean up after yourselves! I can understand that sometimes a weight plate or a band is just sort of left out because a member isn't really sure where it belongs or he or she left the equipment where it was when he or she arrived to use it. But please, if you remove a piece of equipment from a rack, a shelf, a stand, a corner, a stack or wherever, friggin' put it back in the appropriate place once you're finished. It's not that damn hard--my kid's been able to do it since he was about 2 or so and he knows the consequence of not putting away items he's played with.

Perhaps that's the solution: Perhaps we need monitors on the floor to note who leaves equipment strewn about and then making sure that person is appropriately penalized for not having common courtesy. Granted, a lot of the personal trainers at my nearest location would be up the proverbial creek if this system were in place. Half a dozen personal trainers at my nearby location think nothing of leaving equipment behind when it's time to move a client on to some other activity--like being an employee somehow removes you from cleaning up after yourself. Sorry, that name tag carries no such power. (Or perhaps the area franchise needs to put the head of group X over the personal trainers too so she can send them nasty-grams when they allegedly leave a mess like the nasty-grams she'd send to instructors for failing to do some little thing in a group X room.)

People Who Evidently Aren't Toilet Trained
Here's a deeply disturbing behavior I have encountered outside the gym but more so at one: leaving behind your excretory fluids and I'm not talking sweat. Please someone explain to me how you can piss on a toilet seat or on the floor and just walk away. How absolutely selfish and inconsiderate must you be to do this?

When I was at Dell, I knew to avoid the first stall in the women's restroom after 2 PM because a woman in the same section of the floor every day used that one and left urine all over the seat. I never knew who she was, but just as I could count on running into the same three Chinese women having lunch in the break area at the same time every day, I could count on this unknown woman pissing on the toilet seat in the same stall sometime around 2 PM. I still don't understand what type of behavior or physical problem could cause this routine.

On the second floor of my nearest location is a coed bathroom, conveniently right outside the main group X room so that class participants don't have to dash downstairs to the other side of the gym just to tinkle in the middle of class. (It happens.) Perhaps our society's raging obsession with communicable diseases left behind on toilet seats coupled with the fact that men, who aren't all the greatest at bathroom use, use that toilet has led to a larger than usual percentage of women attempting the hover technique for relieving themselves. But here's the thing I wish people would get into their heads: At least one if not several studies have shown that this idea that you can pick up all kinds of diseases by sitting on a toilet seat is just plain wrong. If the toilet seat is dry and stain-free, take a seat without fear. That damn hover technique has led to more contamination than it's prevented.

If you're that damn scared of catching something from a public restroom, then take a moment to take a cue from sex ed--barrier protection. Put a length of toilet paper on both sides of the seat where you cheeks are doing to be. After wiping my son's butt for a number of years and cleaning up after one of my cats who is litter trained but chooses not always to use one of the litter boxes in the house, I honestly think nothing of using a paper towel or some TP to clean up--if the mess is small. Human urine is sterile, after all. If the floor looks like someone's aim was horrid, then I'll make a quick mat with a paper towel (because I don't like my shoes being wet, with water or urine because then they squeak and present the possibility of slippage on the treadmill's track).

But I shouldn't have to do these things because my fellow gym attendees should have the common courtesy to use basic bathroom skills to relieve themselves without making a mess. If you can't do that, get yourself to a urologist and make sure you don't have some kind of physiological problem. Or get to a shrink.

People Who Come Seeking an Audience
Reading about the physical confrontation in a NYC Spin class between two attendees and the trial that followed not only had me laughing uproariously but also reminded me of why some people avoid the gym in the first place: the folks who go seeking attention. Whether it's attention from a potential sex partner or general attention for one's physique or athletic prowess, if you come to the gym more to have eyeballs on you than to workout, then, well, get the hell out. Trust me, you are not all that as you strut around in your $200 "yoga outfit" from prAna or show off your hot-to-trot additional moves in step class or grunt and huff and puff your way through a set of chest presses at 230 pounds. The vibes of neediness you give off are distracting and unnecessary, so please go away.

The gym-as-meat market perception is pretty pervasive and often wrong, so one would think gym employees and fitness professionals would strive in their work to correct this idea, wouldn't you? Evidently not because I've encountered several of those preening, needy folk who decided to make their quest for attention their living by becoming personal trainers. If I seem to dog on personal trainers, I offer this in my defense: It's a service that can really benefit people but it's rife with abuse from so many of the people involved, from gym employers to education organizations to the trainers themselves, and this abuse limits the service's ability to help people live healthier lives. And I'm not condemning all personal trainers. In my time, I've observed and chatted with a number of professional, well-educated, dedicated trainers--and they by and large outnumber the...less-then-professional ones.

But as it is with so many things, you're going to encounter some bad apples. And the former high school star athletes or cutie patootie cheerleaders who decide that they can still get the attention from their glory days by becoming a personal trainer and having the rapt attention of many clients (and the other folks on the floor who have to put up with their obnoxious behavior) can and for some people do spoil the bunch.

Personal trainers, whether your with a client or not, conduct yourself like a professional. Don't whip out a set of chin ups in the middle of a client session just to show off to everyone around you how beefed, buffed, primed and creased you are. Don't wear crotch-crawling shorts or painted-on tops to (again) show off how beefed, buffed, primed and creased you are. Don't high five the gang of lifters or flirt with other clients who also happen to be nearby at the moment. Your attention should be on your client at all times, making sure he or she is performing an exercise properly and providing motivation when the work is tough (without being so noisy and obnoxious that everyone in the gym hears you--which is quite a feat considering how loud the overhead music thumps at times).

Finally, in no particular order, are other grievances I have with some folks I encounter at the gym:

• If you're too shy, insecure or whatever to change in front of people of the same gender in the locker room, then make arrangements to change before arriving. Hogging a toilet stall just so you can slip on your sports bra in private is annoying.


• You cannot be oblivious to the fact that you sweat, therefore you have no excuse for not cleaning up your drips, your drops and your puddles. No towel? The gym has plenty of paper towel dispensers (and disinfectant spray bottles) available.


• Just because you shelled out for a silly nutrition/sports drink to show off how you supposedly need so much extra protein and other nutrients to fuel your ripped bod doesn't mean you don't have to take the bottle with you wherever you go until you can dispose of it in a trashcan.


• While being a gym member is a great way to make friends or spend time with friends, the gym is not the place to swap gossip ad nauseam. Get your workout and get out. Most likely there's a Smoothie Shack or Smoothie King or Jamba Juice or cheap bar nearby where you and your buddy can yak to your heart's content.


• The gym is not the place to conduct business over the phone. Hang up and work out!

For some of us, working out is essential for our mental health as well as our physical health. Don't put our sanity in jeopardy by being a jerk at the gym.