Going to the gym is, contra to what the Telegraph says, an enriching experience, particularly for the masculine man, but also for women and men who are not masculine, but wish to be. In addition to training your body to be stronger, faster, and more dexterous, the gym is also a place that implicitly trains your mind to be more goal-oriented. This can even be repurposed into forming the masculine tribe that most of us lack in today’s de-gendered world.
Some would also argue that gyms are a good place to get some strange for the evening: while nubiles in yoga pants are certainly a welcome distraction, I can’t help but feel that people who go to the gym primarily to have sex and secondarily to actually exercise are people that are half-assing their workout—or are the prototypical gay “gym bunny,” neither of which should be your reasons for going to a gym.
So, assuming that you are a novice to the gym who is going for the purpose of bettering yourself as a man, here are a few tips on how to properly conduct yourself in the gym. These will help you get the most out of your workout and turn yourself into the “local paragon” of fitness.
1. Keep your shirt on
Not that I doubt that you have the physique of a Herculean Adonis, but keeping your shirt on serves a variety of purposes—not the least of which is hygiene–leaving sweat and body oils on the bench or chair can lead to a variety of dermatological problems such as groin irritation, fungal infections, dermatitis (commonly referred to as cradle cap), and general rashes and hives.
Plus, leaving your myriad greases on the equipment makes it more difficult for the next person, which is just plain inconsiderate (I have actually seen a guy slip right off a machine because it was covered in the last guy’s sweat).
While we’re on this topic, I’d also like to say: please stop wearing those shirts that have no sides. While this will sop up the majority of the sweat from your chest and back, it still leaves about 30% of your torso exposed and sweaty. In addition, these just may make you come off as more of a douchebag than just taking your shirt off completely. Is it just me, or do these shirts look more like a bib than anything else? Well I suppose that it’s only fitting you wear a bib if you’re going to catch cradle cap and diaper rash as well.
2. Wipe your station down
This is related to the previous one, and it’s pretty simple: Wipe down the stuff you use, particularly any exercise that requires you to be in a supine or seated position. Any halfway decent gym will have a bottle of disinfectant and a hand towel hanging from the wall to use.
In addition to this obvious advice, might I also advise you to moisten that same towel and wipe any chalk that you use off the bar. While it won’t cause skin disease, it’s still fairly irritating to the next guy to get your chalk on his hands.
3. Use headphones
We all know that the music they play in most commercial gyms is, to put it bluntly, dogshit. My gym plays the most bland, interchangeable top 40 “music” you can imagine. Luckily, this can be easily remedied by using headphones—a memo that a few people who go to my gym didn’t seem to get. These people instead chose to bring speakers and blast their music—and their music was the worst sort of butt-rock that was only marginally better than the bubblegum pop on the loudspeaker.
4. Don’t stare at the yoga pants clad asses
Yes, they’re very nice. Don’t stare, don’t make little suckling motions with your mouth, and for god’s sake don’t start masturbating in the gym—it increases blood pressure and causes a drop in testosterone, which will ruin your workout. If you want the girl, go up to her and get her phone number like a proper man.
5. Don’t scream, grunt or drop the weights
First of all: Yes, I’m fully aware that screaming and grunting can have a positive effect on your strength for the same reason that martial artists use kiais—it forces the muscles of the back and abdomen to constrict, giving you an extra burst of power due to that proprioception stuff I’m always talking about. Regardless, don’t do it.
Secondly: By grunting and screaming, I’m not referring to the involuntary snort or grunt you’ll do when you’ve properly inhaled before the lift and the weight literally forces the air out of you—that’s the proprioception that I have repeatedly mentioned. I’m referring to the guys who will scream and holler before they’ve even lifted the weight, and keep up a continuous stream of vocal gibberish during the lift.
“But the guys in the World’s Strongest Man competition do it!” Yes they do, and they’re competing for huge cash prizes and sponsorships from every supplement company on the planet. YOU, in contrast, are not them. Of course, I freely admit I’m not nearly in the category of those WSM competitors either, but I don’t draw attention to myself by acting like a howling simpleton.
Also, if you’re really doing a heavy lift, you won’t be capable of forming multisyllabic words (And yes, I’ve seen and heard this), so stop doing fake screaming to help you with that oh-so-heavy 100 pound overhead press.
And stop dropping the weight on the ground, Ivan Drago—it’s distracting to the other gymgoers, it’s dangerous, and the owner of the gym ought to smack you upside the head for increasing his insurance premium.
6. Use a squat rack and power cage for their intended purpose
I’m hardly the first person to point this out, but: your double bicep curl does not need the use of a rack and Olympic bar. The rack is for men who want to do real exercises like squats, overhead presses, and deadlifts, exercises that absolutely need the rack to be done properly. Frankly, I have much greater esteem for a guy who uses these apparati to do body levers, v-sits, and other gymnastic static positions: while they could easily do these on a pull-up bar, parallel bars, or on a tree branch outside the building, these are at least useful and functional exercises. If you want to do bicep curls, use a smaller bar, dumbbells, or go find a bathhouse to join instead of a proper gym.
On that note:
7. Don’t do a million pointless exercises, use compound lifts
Many people when they start working out, will putter around doing a julienne of isolation exercises. Don’t do this—boil your workout down to 10 or so compound exercises that will work your entire body. It’ll make you bigger and functionally stronger, and save you a lot of time.
And finally:
8. Don’t walk around in a shower cap and nothing else
This is an affliction that seems to affect the elderly more than anything else, which has led to me seeing more pockmarked elderly penis than I’ve ever cared to. Perhaps it’s just that they’ve long since ceased giving a damn, but I still feel that for courtesy’s sake you should at least wear a towel. Plus, hygiene!
The tips enumerated above are simple and effective tips to help you get the most out of your workout, and ingratiate you to your fellow gymgoers.
Read More: 5 Questions To Identify Who Really Rules Over You
9. Stop taking selfies
I want you to be joking. I want to believe there aren’t assholes at the gym shooting selfies after each rep. At very least, I want to believe it’s limited to the girls on the ellipticals.
Turns out the universe doesn’t give a damn what I want, though.
Saw it when I used to frequent my college gym
I once saw three dudes making an entire documentary about themselves lifting weights. Took up the entire free weight station. The owner kicked them out after that.
9- to infinity. Build your own Gym in your own house.
We need to campaign to get the music completely turned off at all gyms. That way those who want music can bring headphones and those of us who want to be able to concentrate can.
Honestly, the atmosphere in almost all commercial gyms sucks these days. As you say, it’s the bland music, the multiple TVs, the anonymous people with headphones…and the women are mainly a distraction. It feels like working out in the gym equivalent of a supermarket.
I think we need to create real gyms. Smaller, more intimate, men only and with inspirational music. Where you get to know each other, not just disappear in an anonymous mass of mediocrity.
That would be cool, but probably not commercially viable except in large
cities. That’s unfortunate, since I think I would join such a gym.
But it also depends on what kind of music you define as “inspirational”
in that setting. A lot of big lifters seem to think death metal at max
volume is inspirational… no thanks: I graduated high school a long
time ago.
I reckon a place like that wouldn’t be a democracy. Those who own it or are there the most, they’ll pick the music. If you want to change the music, you’ll have to earn it by becoming one of the main guys there 😉
A gym like that probably wouldn’t be run for profit. More like plus minus zero.
Agreed… that sort-of brings us back to home gyms, though; with one guy getting a bunch of equipment and giving access to his buddies. That’s an expensive proposition, though.
Yes. I imagine you can start these kinds of small gyms if you have 5+ friends who’ll all pitch in to pay for the equipment and rent. You start with the minimum and you’ll expand with more as you pay off the earlier equipment and new needs arise.
With a home gym, you’ll have to pay for everything except (extra) rent yourself. Here you can split it 5+ ways and hopefully get a larger selection.
How about: No music. Fuckin peace.
I never get people complaining about music in gyms. I have never heard any music in a gym. I have headphones on. Dafuq everyone up to here?
Well, I don’t complain either, when I’m there. Don’t wanna be an ass, after all. But I seriously hate the guts out of that mellow pop rock. Argh.
Yeah but I mean how would you even know what is playing in the gym with your headphones in?
Fair enough. I guess I didn’t think of doing that.
The only time I encountered a problem with the music in a gym is the time my damn MP3 fried in the middle of the workout. Their music at the time was some soft romantic R&B. Not the kind of theme to throw around some weights.
Lol! Don’t you like deadlifting to Cher?
In one college town in Colorado, there’s a gym built under a pizzeria dedicated to power lifts. It’s cheap, small, and staffed by actual lifters.
If I didn’t already have access to a free gym, that’s the kind of place I’d go.
It depends, I was on holidays recently and the hotel was in a rural area and shared the gym with the local football club. It had no music or TVs and it was both compact and essential with mostly lads and older men coming to keep in shape for their matches or if they were coaching. Hardly any women as it was primarily for the local football,soccer and rugby teams, and it had a real communal sense about it where the guys would be talking between exercises about what was happening locally etc.
It was a very different experience to the big gyms in urban/suburban areas which are quite anonymous and full of shit music with everyone doing their own thing within their own little bubbles. Kind of sad, isn’t it?
There was a 40-ish guy using the gym at work who liked turning up Def Leppard while working out – every time. While I was a 20-something in the 80s and liked DL, I would rather not hear them as workout music, and especially not every time.
You still complaining about that whipper snapper and hos darned rock andor roll?
Dominic, is that you?
Wut??
Some people have come up with that idea already, like The Captain Power who used to write articles for ROK, or some of the people Jack Donovan associates with.
Indeed. I’m not claiming originality here. But it was worth saying on an article relating to the modern gym experience.
But I think we should act upon that idea instead of being part of these mass market commercial gyms that dominate today.
Join a MMA gym. Your better off there and know how to whoop some ass then just moving weight.
At my old MMA gym, tnere were girls. Terrible fighters. But the coaches always kinda protected them and praised their ‘technique’. 😀
I found only one place so far: my old college MMA club. The club president and VP were a Muay Thai boxer and a BJJ purple belt.
Every week we had a few girls come in. They never came back, because all the guys were invested in their own technique and their own practice. It’s probably the only time I’ve seen a girl in a pushup bra and makeup get so thoroughly ignored – it was clear she didn’t know or care about the sport, so for that hour we didn’t care about her. She left 20 minutes in, and I never saw her again.
Haha, niice. Is there a greater thing than the confidence to not even bat an eye at a 10?
Solid 8. But no, there is not.
Haha. WHen I was searching for a boxing bag, I came over an online review of the ‘Boxfabrik’. Mostly negative reviews. One was from achick who said she called there and the owner had no patience for her stupid questions. The other reviews wrre by some schlobs saying that the place was full of criminals, pimps, dealers and machos. That moment, I decided to buy my gear there. And I was not disappointed.
The owner was a real man. He actually was suing the city because they threw him out of public baths after he refused to force his son to wear water wings. Stupid fags. They came with a police squad to get him out of the water and he stayed in the water and said ‘Come get me if you wanna get wet’!
Oh, and his son. Like 8 years old or so, but with perfect posture and has already fought couple dozen boxing matches. The boy made fun of me when I demonstrated my girly low kick, heh. Good people.
Its really weird that I cant find a gym pnline only for men. Maybe forbidden? Maybe the way to go is to make the atmosphere so nonchalantly masculine that girls and fags wont even want to train there.
Women are easy money. They pay for personal trainers with no actual experience or skill, they pay for gym memberships they don’t use, and they only tend to wear out the easily-repaired machines if they do show up. Heck, most of them bring their own yoga mats. In this case, I think most gyms don’t exclude women because there’s just too much money in it.
If you build it, they will come. I reckon you could find a few interested guys and set up your own gym, so long as you don’t advertise in public.
Thats the problem. You shpuld be able to advertise it, make a fucking sexist macho empire and franchise out of it. You should be able to put up a sign with a woman behind a keep-out symbol with the caption: We have to wait outside.
The Nips are the only people with the stones to ‘discriminate’ in the civilized world. And that generation will probably die off within 30 years
Nips? Whats that?
Japanese. From the word “Nippon”.
Weird, Kapanese peops always strike me as insecure and wussy. Maybe its just a stereotype.
There’s a severe divide in Japanese culture between extreme Traditionalism, and MGTOW to the point of completely leaving the sexual marketplace.
Culturally, the latter is winning, but government -wise, Traditionalism is on the rise.
Just this. Women and the resolutioners are important. I’m in the gym twice a day during week and once a day on weekend, I am rough on the equipment, I leave skin in the knurling of bars. They simply do not make a profit on me.
They keep the lights on with those other jerks. They are annoying, but necessary
If you can get your hands on a small-ish warehouse property and some basic equipment, you can set up the equivalent of a home gym. With three or four other investors (gym rats), you can have pretty much any setup you want.
I figure a single squat rack (with dipping station), a deadlift area, one bench, assorted weights, and a few mats should run the group less than $1k. Divide it up, and that’s three months of membership at many gyms. I reckon that setup can support a few dozen people, if you schedule three at a time in hour-long blocks.
Same principle goes for other types of gym. You can hang a few punching bags and draw a ring to make a simple boxing gym. You can lay some thicker mats to have a BJJ gym. Heck, you can get some relatively exotic equipment and set up a martial arts studio. Whatever floats your boat.
Which is why I have invested in my own weights and cycling machine for cardio if the pool is closed at my apartment complex. I unplug my internet and phone, turn up my workout mix that consists of Ozzy, Judas Priest, Slayer, and other Metal music acts that I’ve enjoyed since forever and lift for an hour or so four or five days a week.
The only distraction is my wife, but she’s pregnant and looking for exercises she can do safely. I told her she could always watch and be quiet or go to the other room.
What’s an unnatural music act?
Dammit, meant Metal. Thanks for pointing that out, will fix. Ha!
I don’t go to the gym for male bonding. Its annoying when somebody I don’t know calls me bro. I don’t like being around men who work out in groups of 3-4 and take over a rack, and they end up talking the whole time like the 3 stooges. I want to get in and out.
It seems we are in the minority and I had to stop going to bro gym because my gf said all the dudes were eye fucking her and she wanted to go to one with a females only section. We also like to get in and out and never socialize. You think group workouts are bad try personal trainers with fat girls who wont shut up between sets because 25 lat pull downs are kicking their ass, they sit on the machine for at least 20 minutes.
“Anonymous people with headphones”…
I’m there to improve myself, not to expand my social circle.
So am I since these modern mass gyms don’t really contain many people I’d like to talk to. But if things were different, if I could find people there I could actually admire, I reckon I’d like to talk to them between sets.
I’d like to join a men’s only gym. Problem is, women will sue to join, then join, then be offended by masculinity, demand safe spaces within the gym, and eventually start their own ladies-only gym like Curves. You can’t do a men’s only anything anymore because this process will inevitably ensue.
Personally I hate music when I’m lifting. I wish they would have no public music at all and let people bring their own player with headphones. Since they generally play the public music so loud you can’t hear your own with out risking damage to your own hearing gives another reason to not have gym music.
Don’t stand around talking.
At these commecial gyms today, who’d want to? But if it was a real gym where you admire and connect with the others there, I see no harm in talking a bit between sets.
That would be cool, but probably not commercially viable except in large cities. That’s unfortunate, since I think I would join such a gym. But it also depends on what kind of music you define as “inspirational” in that setting. A lot of big lifters seem to think death metal at max volume is inspirational… no thanks: I graduated high school a long time ago.
So long as you’re not in the way, talk all you want. No skin off my ass.
Why? It’s good if you get talking to other people about training and stuff, you can get good tips etc and it’s just social too.
Its uncool to be social.
Who says? Who gives a shit about being cool? This is just another convention or rule that dumb asses follow.
Misanthropes.
Maybe they lost the ability to speak?
Then they couldnt say it, tho.
Chicken or egg.
I dont know. Just let people do as they please, man. I agree with wiping off sweat and chalk and not blasting your own music, but some of the other stuff is petulant in my eyes.
If someone wants to glimpse at a yoga ass, oh well.
If someone wants to scream, so what. I like freeexpression. Shaming it because one is not a first class athlete … wtf?
Dropping the weights, at least I read so, is the proper way to do deadlifts (if that is the right term, dont remember).
People walking around naked? Wow, big deal. Omg, a penis! A fucking penis! Get over yourself, ffs.
Always these fucking ‘rules’…
I think dropping the weight eliminates another motion in which exercise can be achieved. The strongest guys I know always lower their deadlifts, while the assholes drop them.
It does limit how much you can load onto the bar – you’re doing about 1.5x the exercise per rep – but a gym is not competition space. At competitions, where they only measure how much you can get up, you should absolutely drop the weight.
Hm. It may be a case of training differently more than training better. I dont know. Sounds reasonable, tho.
Are you headed into the military? You’re not going to make it. Unless its chAir Force or Coast Guard
Alright, mate.
You will be forced to do what you’re told without comment by an idiot while you know another way that is ten times better while what you’re doing is utterly pointless anyway, a waste of your life. You will not have any choice, you will be forced to conform to a million stupid rules that you don’t understand and will not be granted a single FUCK.
You make me want to go back in so I can watch a few more like you cry for your mommy. Remember me when you cry. If you come back without graduating you will never be able to face me, we’re all thinking the same thing about you, you’re a failure.
I hope you make it.
Will you get to the point?
What makes you think I am interested in facing you? As far as I am concerned, you are just some angry fuck on the internet who would like to see me cry. A waste of time indeed.
The point is that your head is full of shit childish ideas and you’re about to get your bubble popped hard. I hope you make it through training and don’t quit and grow up a little. If you do quit everyone respectable will look down on you.
I’m gonna get my bubble popped hard? By whom? You? Get lost, punk.
Aren’t you joining the military?
Not really. What gave you the idea?
Comments you’ve made and your avatar hover message
Ah, that message is a bit misleading from your perspective, I can see that.
No, I am not going to the military. I despise it. Which probably means that you despise me as well, but I can live with that.
No that’s not true but you’re actually a little like I used to be before I went in
That message is from a time when I did Muay Thai very regularly. I can’t do it right now due to psychological problems, but I fucking look forward to being able to train again. It may not be the same as military, but hell, it is on my own terms.
It’s better than nothing. I hope you get your head straightened out. Jesus healed me multiple times, and others I know. I hope you can do it without drugs.
Listen, I know you probably mean well, but your remarks come over as condescending, so I don’t appreciate them. While I respect your experience, I am personally a big fan of psychedelics and meditation.
Yes, I am very condescending- you’re going to hell after a life of misery and dysfunction. Unless you repent and believe. It worked for me after psychedelics and nihilism.
Well, man, that is just your opinion. You are free to have it. I am free to disagree.
I believe you’re forgetting that today’s US military has suffered ~8 years of 0bama.
They’re pretty soft but the Army and Marines will definitely take his little individualist freedom fetish and drop a hot steaming load on it and make him eat the dookie pile up real quick. I’ve seen some guys crack under the physical pressures, but the vast majority of washouts simply can’t hack the soul crushing uniformity, no complaints are allowed, no witty comments, no rolling the eyes, not even if you have a better way and your superior is a blithering idiot, nothing.
I hope you’re right but what you describe doesn’t jibe with the accounts I’ve been hearing of the weed-out process in the US military since Dubya lowered the standards to drum up recruits and 0bama, continuing a grand Democrat tradition, neutered it.
Dropping deadlifts?
No.
There doesn’t seem to be quite a consensus over it:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=138922323
Guys dropping deadlifts are idiots showing off, trying to front that they’re oly lifters to the even bigger idiots who wouldn’t know the difference.
I don’t see how “showing off” has any logical connection to a particular technique. Someone who doesn’t drop weights can be a show off just as well.
Dropping a weight is not a “particular technique.” Dropping a heavily loaded deadlift bar is terrible for the bearings etc. That’s why it’s against the rules. Those idiots you found are on a bodybuilding forum anyway. That should tell you something.
Here is legendary coach Mark Rippetoe on the subject;
“If you drop the bar, i.e. let go of it at the top and let it fall unimpeded from the top without your hands on it to guide the descent, you are being a histrionic fool. This is disrespectful of the gym and its equipment, and lazy to boot.”
Well, of course you need to be respecting the gym’s rules. That’s not my point. A gym can, if the owner so wishes, have some mats (or whatever) to dampen the impact and allow this technique to be practiced without damage or even a lot of sound.
If your gym has a rather sensitive floor that would be damaged, I agree, don’t do it.
You need to ask yourself why you’re arguing about deadlifting on the internet when you don’t even deadlift. You might be looking at an internet addiction problem. I had one and it feels great to cut down. It opens up all kinds of energy and mental power.
People always make a problem out of everything. It is not.
I left my last gym because the music was fucking awful. I swear to Christ, if I ever meet Zara Larsson I’ll break her nose for raping my ears for the better part of a year.
But its democracy, man. Most people love it. Just wondering where those most people are, cause I dont see em.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXhBEes3Dwg
Reposting.
Don’t know why, but I thoroughly enjoyed that sketch.
RERACK YOUR FUCKING WEIGHTS.
That is all
I was waiting for this one.
Also, don’t Bogart. We’ve all seen the guy who sits there on the bench sipping water for five minutes, or the guy who leaves the rack loaded up and complains when you set up for your set. That guy is an ass – don’t be him.
5 min is the rest time between sets for strength training
7 min is actually another recommended rest time
Oh, and put your dumbbells and other weights back in the rack after use…..and don’t sit texting on a machine that others may wish to use for half the day as it’s extremely annoying for folks who’ve a routine going.
How is it that this failed to appear on the list at all? Should be number one
When I see dudes texting and craning their necks downward for 30+ minutes as they walk around the gym noticing absolutely nothing beyond their screens, it looks femme-y and undisciplined. You might was well be sucking your thumb with a “blanky” in your other hand, as far as I’m concerned.
I try to avoid headphones pretty much everywhere. Nothing says, “I really, really don’t want to interact with other people” quite like wearing headphones and looking at your phone.
Mostly, it’s hard to get someone’s attention when they can’t hear you and aren’t looking at you. At the gym, that makes it difficult to ask people for advice, correct bad form, ask for a spotter, ask to work in, and all manner of other useful interactions.
Find a way to turn your personal hatred for the shitty music they play into the rage that makes lifts better.
My gym, like clockwork, always plays classic rock in the early morning to mid-afternoon and EDM from then to close around 11:00 or so. I make it a mission to go in the morning. Agreed re headphones, and to add, they’re clunky, get in the way, and often can get tangled in the weights and equipment. (unless you’re wearing literal headphones and not earbuds.)
I also get hyperaware of my body when I’m lifting. I feel every bit of pressure and tension, and headphones add to that in a distracting way. It’s usually better if I just suck it up and listen to that godawful “Take Me to Church” song for the ninetieth time.
Same; I focus on the task at hand, put in an substantial workout and am out in half an hour. Headphones slow it down.
I would honestly prefer Hozier over my gym’s afternoon mix, which is essentially all the songs on the Billboard Dance/Electronic chart on shuffle.
I think headphones in general are a bad idea because it affects situational awareness. The music at my gym sucks but I put up with it. I find I can block it out. Still good music would be better.
” Nothing says, “I really, really don’t want to interact with other people” quite like wearing headphones and looking at your phone”
Unless I am with a few other male workout acquaintances – I have no desire to give the impression I want to chat up anyone.
This is absolutely true of any hormonal driven beasts at the place – in fact I take great pleasure in making sure I face / look away from any attention whore in the house and she notices this. Attention is currency to females and I aint giving it out to them.
Boom. Dead right.
I would find a gym that has a couple of PT on staff. Usually in between clients they’re more than happy to help folks out with pointers and tips. That’s what they’re being paid for.
When I attended the gym, there was an important rule to observe: do not rest on the bench or machine you are using between series. Somebody else might want to use it while you are recovering (which is usally 2 minutes or more).
When someone asks you permission to use the machine while you are resting between series, all you should have to do is nod, not stand up and move off the machine. Moving off the machine should have been the very first thing you did after completing a series.
I dont see how the “Don’t do a million pointless exercises” is an etiquette rule. And personally, I dont care if people yells before, after or during the lift, honestly. If that helps them to get motivated, good for them.
Last week I moved up to 175lbs on flat bench. I don’t think anyone is going to walk up and bench the same oddball amount. Etiquette in the case of free weights dictate that the person waiting let their presence be known, not that I share the equipment. For machines, etiquette would be to ask to use it even if someone is standing next to it, and to share.
Maybe etiquette has changed nowdays since I went to the gym, what do I know.
You have to be kidding me right, I most likely say no unless they are lifting the same weight. Gyms are overloaded with so much equipment now their is no reason why someone has to jump in and ask to use a machine.
How about not giving out unsolicited advice to other guys lifting at your gym?
Alright, it’s time to list some gym annoyances:
1. Guys who leave a huge mess out of the free weights area. Rerack your fucking weights!
2. Utterly mediocre girls who act like they’re hottest thing ever to grace the gym premises.
3. Thirsty guys who immediately drop whatever they are doing to swarm any reasonably attractive girl that enters their field of view.
4. Attention whores. The type that does handstand splits right in your face.
5. Serial shitters. The kind of guy that always uses the gym’s facilities to empty his bowels, never at home.
6. Guys who stare at other guys.
7. Roided up guys who can’t lift for shit but act like they’re the king of the gym.
8. Self-proclaimed “experts” bothering (senior) gym members with unsolicited advice.
9. Guys who never seem to have heard of basic hygiene practices like showering, stinking up the whole gym.
Love #5; that happened to me just this morning. Had to go, but thought best to hold it until I got home.
I got absolutely no problem with handstand splits right in my face, ladies.*
*Yoga pants without panties preferred. Fat chicks need not try – it’s demeaning to everyone.
That’s just it, that’s the problem. The overweight females are trying to copy the look of the 1-2 slender females in yoga stretch pants, and that ruins it.
-People who inject Snythol. Leave the gym, go buy a gun, and blow your brains out.
Serial shitters? Too damned funny – and I agree.
#2 — haha Big asses and bellies pouring out of spandex that doesn’t fit. The outward “yeah, you *wish* you could have me” attitude coming from some of the nasty sub-5 flabby post-wall shlongmongers at my gym is its own form of comedy. They strut their shortcomings and pretend it’s the new hotness. They missed out on a nice bit of reality — I, like many others, would have actually been rooting for them to get in shape if they weren’t such self-centered weirdos (I actually am glad to see overweight men/women working out, working on it, I quietly encourage that and give them props for the effort).
I can only imagine these self-obsessed girls are mostly lonely and sexless. They talk loud and laugh at nothingness. Ignore them forever.
No. 2 – absolutely. Not even mediocre, most butt hurt solid 3-4’s.
As per #5:
Have you ever taken a N.O. booster?
oldschool Jack3d used to make my guts go full nuclear. Pretty much any of those types of drinks have made me shit within an hour of taking them.
“My bad bro”
Never understood 6 im assuming sizing each other up?
Who would be stupid enough to start jacking it at the gym? That goes for any public place while we’re at it.
Jacking it jacking it jack, smacking it slapping it slap.
I literally just came back from San Diego and read that…what a world.
9. Don’t use any equipment of any kind as a table to place your water bottle, phone, keys or to hang your towel.
dont drop the weights? Is this planet fitness?
So you drop weights and think it’s badass?
You must go to one of those gay gyms that’s just a front for down low butt sex.
Zinger!!!!
“and for god’s sake don’t start masturbating in the gym—it ”
Does something such as that even need to be mentioned or has things become that fucked up at the gym these days?
Any schmoe who’s pounding one out for himself in a fitness center shower should be aware the high likelihood that a CCTV camera is recording the event.
Have you heard of Charles Haley?
I’ve heard, what I suspect, at least a few guys cranking one off in the shower (divided stalls) next to mine from the slapping and grunting sounds I hear.
Gyms are terrible places for so many reason. Build your own as I did or go to the park and do calisthenics. You don’t need machines, just barbell, weights and few kettlebells. I have built a shelter so I don’t get soaking wet when it’s raining.
I have a horizontal bar and parallel bars too. You can build those yourself too, it’s very easy – you need cement, metal post support bases, timber fence posts and long metal bars. Dig the holes, cement the posts, drill holes and install the bars.
Having a gym in your garden has a myriad of advantages but for me the most important is that I exercise outside on fresh air and get some sun shine if it’s sunny. It’s very beneficial for your testosterone production.
Then you can yell as much as you want, drop the weights as hard as you can and listen to the music of birds …. or airplanes LOL.
Here is another one.
If you are using a machine and there is a line waiting for one keep your use of it to about 30 minutes. Don’t be that guy who decides he is going to run a marathon on the treadmill instead of just doing it outside and doing it in the park.
And here is a tip if you do need to use a machine for longer then 30 minutes, go during off peak times. Don’t show up at 5:15 after work and expect to use the elliptical for three hours.
Women are guilty of this one, especially when they’re in packs. They’ll especially hog the leg equipment.
It’s really annoying. I can go do free weights for 15-20 minutes waiting for a machine to open up, but after that I am just standing around messing with my phone. Women generally don’t have consideration for others anyhow. Doesn’t surprise me that the gender which is self absorbed and self entitled in just about everything else in society would hog equipment with no regard for others around them.
I don’t so much mind the guy doing a marathon, it’s the asshat that is doing so little they don’t break a sweat, but are on the machine forever. At least the hardcore person is actually accomplishing something!
Solid article. I completely agree with #7. ‘Nautilus’ machines or any other bullshit is pointless and wastes time. I haven’t messed with the ‘chest fly’ in years.
P.S. Guilty as charged on #4…..sans making noises or jerking off haha
#9 Put Your Weights Back When Your Done
Seriously, you should have learned that by kindergarten.
Hahaha. Women, dont poke and play with another woman’s pregnant belly in the bench press area please.
I asked a female on the ab machine once if she was pregnant. I really thought she was. She gave me a go to hell look. lol
Not a good idea ever lol
That sounds like giddy fun
I’m strongly opposed to the culture of headphones in the gym, as it’s typical new age isolationism that breaks the communal and social culture of the old days when men would encourage and spot each other into performing heavier lifts and cranking out more reps. If I fail half-way during a bench press (even if I’m at the end of my workout and using a lighter weight) I would hope that the person next to me would be able to hear me in my moment of distress.
I agree. There is often appropraite communication occuring reguarly with people that cannot hear you. Annoying when they initiate and have haedphones…
Agreed, I miss the real old school gyms that would just blast heavy metal music. You never needed headphones back then because the music kicked ass. I’ll be damned though if I’m going to be subjected to R&B type shit they play nowadays while I’m lifting, which is why I use headphones. Wish it wasn’t so.
Mostly fine, but anyone who says don’t scream or grunt never deadlifted over twice their body weight. Yes, grunting is abused in gyms. But when I am north of 400 on my deadlift or north of 225 on my 3rd bench rep or north of 300 on my squat you best believe that I’ll be making noise and anyone who doesn’t like it is free to ask me to stop. However, I doubt they will. My general rule is that if you are making noise the bar better be bending.
The thing missed here is, if there is an upper and lower locker and I have a lock on the upper and you put your shit in the lower instead of like 100 other lockers then you are a faggot
No shit, like a wall of urinals and the asshole picks the one right next to you.
There are unwritten rules!
You don’t need to do deadlifts in the power cage stop hogging it for a workout where you keep the bar on the ground
An addendum to #2. WAIT UNTIL THE EQUIPMENT GETS WIPED DOWN BEFORE YOU START WORKING OUT!! How many times I’ve gotten off a machine and someone just sits down and starts pumping even before I have a chance to wipe the seat. Have some fucking decency people.
You forgot a major rule… Leave your phone in the locker, or if you can’t, for gods sake don’t text or talk!
So between sets I should just stare blankly at a wall? Maybe count the hairs on my arm?
Or you could think about why you are there and what you must do.
Shower and bath regularly. Old cheese sweat is disgusting. Also wash your gym clothes after a workout.
^^ This. There’s nothing worse than having your nostrils assaulted by the stinky bastard whose olfactory sense and hygiene died years ago. Dirty bastard.
As he stands there wondering why he can’t get laid.
Well put comment Sir.
Couple points i disagree on.
With the assault on masculinity everywherey, you mean you wanna try to tell me i cant anyway , groan or scream when I lift some heavy shit? Fuck, they are even seeping into the heads of traditionally man spaces. I dont mind hearing guys letting out primal noises they’ve held back every damn other place.
And I’ll do bb curls wherever the fuck I want. Right in the squat rack. There is no one lining up to squat nowadays anyway and I always rerack my weight.
Leave your headphones and smartphones at home. Nothing is worse than waiting for a machine and having to watch some indecisive loser choose his song for his next set and having to sit and wait while he then takes a snapchat/insta video of his training partner working out. The gym is not the place for snapchat faggotry.
About points 6 and 7, i dont get that kind of advices from a fat guy totally out of shape and nobody should.
Bicep curls are made in real gyms (i dont get what you mean with that part…) and a lot of isolation exercises are good, along with compound lifts.
#8 should be punishable by public humiliation. Mind you, a chick I used to go to the gym with said the women are just as bad. One time this gnarled gym freak, stark naked, bent over right in front of her.. she got an eyeful of pink and brown that nearly made her quit then and there.
Leave the cell / mobile phone in the locker.
The one thing I hate the most is somebody that sits on a machine on a smart phone. When somebody is waiting o a machine I always offer to work in with them . Your rest between sets is their reps. Leave the cell phones at home
– HighIntensityIntervalTraining guys- stop claiming more than one work station at a time, you cant be using three stations at once. Dude had two towels going on, he’d leave them at the stations he wasnt using while using the third, then said to another guy who removed the towel bc he didnt see anyone there, “Dintcha see my towel?”
– leave your cellphone at home
– throw out your nasty leather workout belt from 1994
USE THE DAMN THING AND GET OFF! YOU’RE NOT HELPING YOURSELF BY DOING MORE THAN 3 SETS IN A ROW AND YOU SURE AS HELL SHOULDN’T TAKE 20 MINUTES ON ANYTHING!
Worse than this is those cretins who throw the weight on the ground so hard it bounces! Why? Normally they do this with the fixed weight barbells and then they later wonder why the weights come loose. Anyone who does this should be gently placed on the ground and then have the same weight bounced off of them so they can appreciate what they are doing!
I would extend the T-shirt rule to no cotton shirts. Cotton shirts absorb your sweat rather than disperse it and leave an oil slick behind on every machine you use. Get a dri-fit shirt instead. More breathable and comfortable too.
Last I cannot recommend wearing big clunky headphones. Your ears are vital to your balance and knowing where you are in time and place. Dre Beats might look cool but they are ruining your work-out. Learn to focus instead.
I agree. If the weights are so heavy that you have to drop them, then you either need a spotter, or are lifting too heavy.
Nobody has mentioned the biggest annoyance to hit gyms in the last 10 years.
FUCKING SMART-PHONES.
Every time I go to the gym now, I see dozens on guys just sitting on machines, swiping away at their phones. They do a couple off piss-weak lifts, and then spend 5 minutes updating their facebook.
Not only does this piss people off who are waiting for the machine, but it also shows a lack of focus on your workout.
The serious guys I see, are either listening to something on their mp3 staring into space for interval between sets. Or spotting their partner.
Even worse, and the complete tools who take photos of themselves in the gym, and then immediately send them to someone, or post them onto something. Admittedly, most of those guilty of this are women, but since when has being a women been a valid excuse for being a narcissistic poser.
A lot of great points, but I can’t fully get behind #6. Look, if my routine calls for upright double straight bar curls and the shorter bars I need are all taken, then I’m setting up shop in the squat rack for bicep curls, sorry. Gyms that want to avoid this problem need to add additional equipment. I work out super early, so it doesn’t really affect me anyway.
Now it seems like every two-dollar jackass either fancies themselves a personal trainer or worthy of physique competitions. I work at a health-food store and everybody that walks in who looks like the cookie-cutter Instagram attention whore millenial I ask “So when are you competing?” as if I have tourettes about it.
Thank you for the “Do not drop your weights” advice. Good grief the wannabe muscle head morons at my gym do this constantly and it is irritating and senseless. I know you are super duper bad a** dude but you aren’t Charles Atlas (I’m not either) so please behave yourself and show some manners. If you were training for the Mr World competition you would not be working out at the local gym. You aren’t as buff and muscular as you think you are. Knock it off
This is the exact reason my gym is setup at my house. Peaceful, tranquil and I do what I need to do.
5. Don’t scream, grunt or drop the weights
well …i disagre and this is my point .
Im start training in real gyms with real weights in my young age but now the gyms are most for manginas anmd girls used to go and make nothing just ” POSING and take SELFIES ” soo.. the diferenci is IM go to work my body not to a social meeting .. Yes i drop my weight when my hands cant anymore with that , I get some last words for me like Grunt ..for motivate me ..and i dontr care who listen and who not ..im go to training .
7. Don’t do a million pointless exercises, use compound lifts
I disagree …
in the past we have only a few bars , barberls and machines now like oxigen gym in kuwait the gyms get inside alot of machines for a perfect movement in biomechanic …the FALSE MYTH of training hard with heavy weight and growth like a beast is only for genetic mosnters and not for all humanity with alot of problems like joints, etc ….the point is make the exercise for train your muscle not your ego.
dont fall in stereotypes .-..be yourself ..Build yourself
I use a towel for the benches etc but I am not going to clean shit after the workout. The gym should hire somebody to clean if they want everything to be impeccable, there are a lot of unemployed people in our days. Also I look and enjoy the view of women with provocative wear. Practically strech pants are a type of underwear. If they dont want people to look at them there are modest clothes to choose.
Seeing a lot of comments about guys not wanting to expand your social circle. I get it. Everyone is an independent alpha wolf. But one of the best, if not the best ways to get stronger and improve in the gym is to not only lift with a partner, but to lift with one that is stronger than you. In my experience, the huge guys moving lots of weights tend to be the most approachable in terms of tips, advice, and providing a spot when its needed, and yes, it will be needed. Don’t be afraid to seek out mentorship from a stronger more experience lifter.