Dear New Gym Member,

I appreciate that you are including weight training as part of your strategy for meeting your health-related New Year's Resolution. You have made the right choice: being fit also means being strong, in both mind and body, and weight training will help you get there. I wish you the best of luck as you proceed on your journey, and hope that you stick with it.

However, on behalf of your fellow gym members, I respectfully ask the following:

1) Please don't camp out on a piece of equipment between sets. You can finish that "Self" or "ESPN" magazine article while you are on the elliptical. It's polite to allow people to work in (i.e., do a set on the equipment while you are resting), and it's even more polite to move off the equipment while you are resting so that they can don't have to ask you to move.

2) At the same time, it's polite to allow someone who is doing a timed workout to finish the sets they need to do on a piece of equipment. These lifters, often called cross-fitters, are easy to recognize: they are the ones who rush from exercise to exercise -- usually free or body weight exercises -- without breaks and with purple faces. Some wear funny shoes that look like a cross between your kid's water shoes and a pair of gloves. Others are trailed by goats (HT to Cheryl).

3) If you move a piece of equipment, please don't move it in the way of another lifter. For example, yesterday, that bench that you didn't want in your squat cage? It was rude to move it so close to my cage that I couldn't add plates to my bar or do a full squat without hitting the bench. It was just plain obnoxious, not to mention dangerous, to deposit it next to my cage *while* I was in the middle of a heavy set.

4) Please remember that other lifters need some space to complete their range of motion. If you casually saunter in front of the hanging leg raise station while you are fiddling with your ipod, you may disrupt someone's workout... or get kicked. Many seated leg press machines swing outward. People swing upward on back extensions. And so on. Do your own thing, but also be aware and attentive to what's going on around you.

5) Please don't sneeze on the equipment. And, wipe it down after you use it, sneeze or no sneeze. If you're sick, stay home.

6) Perfume / cologne intensifies when the wearer sweats. There is no need to reapply perfume in the locker room before you go work out. "Spicy" scents, in particular, smell about as attractive as the four-week old Indian food I forgot was in my fridge. Both induce strong gag reflexes.

7) If you are strong enough to lift a weight, you are strong enough to put it away. This goes for barbell plates as well as dumbbells.

8) Most gyms don't have enough space to accommodate lifters who travel in packs. If six of you are hanging around a bench while one lifts, the adjacent equipment is likely unusable. Besides, if there are more than three of you sharing a bench, you are resting too long between sets.

9) If your gym has a no cell-phone rule, respect it. If your gym doesn't have a cell phone rule, please respect it anyway.

10) You have just as much right to the equipment as other lifters, no matter their size or shape. You don't have more right to the equipment than other lifters. Take turns, share, and be considerate.

11) Tricep kickbacks are a waste of time. You're free to waste your time if you like, of course, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

I'll see you at the gym!

//b. strong

And, when you replace your 65 pound dumbbells, kindly put them in their marked location lest you be followed by a lifter so anal, like, e. g. me, that he has to put down his 50's, resolve the problem that prevented you from properly replacing your 65's, then move them, then return and put his 50's in their right location, being somewhat proud of himself for, at last, being able to lift both 65's at the same time, unlike 95's which he can't, even though as a child I was taught I'd have extra stars in my crown in heaven for doing such deeds, and don't believe anymore in a heaven where I lord it over other souls that I have extra stars in my crown, nor do I wonder if in heaven I'll end sentences on the same subject I began with.



[Not to mention switching third person to first person and that sentences ending with a preposition thing.]

Beautiful Kaw. Absolutely Beautiful. And, as I walk in today, the first day back in the gym for more weeks than I care to admit....I may add to your list.

Actually what I was thinking as I read through this was. "KAW has a healthier approach to dealing with these kinds of annoyances at the gym." I on the other hand become resentful and angry and hold a grudge against the offender for like....forever.

Thanks so much for compiling this and posting it. Good advice and reading between the lines I understand that these things happen and annoy all of us no matter our level of experience in lifting in public.

Cheryl and her goats....SEE THERE IT IS AGAIN!

I think I got lost in Bill's post! Help!

I was once at the gym and watched a guy park himself on the leg press for at least 45 minutes. I know, cuz I wanted to get on. And he wouldn't share. I don't know how long he stayed, cuz I left.

Thanks for reminding me WHY I spent sooo much money for a HOME GYM!

That said, I LOVE this for gym goers...brings me back...good times...good times!

Love this.....

Question for you....tricep kick-backs are a waste of time? How? I didn't know that!

Bill - I was always anal like that too. I would fix the dumbbells because it bothered me so much that they were out of place. Good thing I go to a gym now where stuff has to be put away or else.

Bill, I wish men in general would put their weights back because I can not lift those 100 pound dumbbells! And if the bar is over my head, I can not get the 45 lb weights off either. I think it's unfair that women have to trail behind men and re-rack their heavy weights in order to put lighter weights on it.

Great list!

I have one silly one to add:

Please women, if you choose not to wear a sports bra, or any bra, please, please do not use the hem of your shirt to wipe your brow. Most people use a hand towel...and a bra, but that's another story.

I've never noticed anyone working out without a bra.

Mine would've been - if you are in a locker room, please at some point put some clothes on, wrap a tall around yourself, something! Don't tell me you need to walk around for 10 minutes naked in the locker room while I'm getting ready.

Ahahahaha...yes...THIS^^

I've already complained about this on another thread, but it bears repeating:

Please do not hang your heavy down-filled winter coat on the equipment that I'm trying to use.

There is a thing called a locker room, and it has coat hooks & lockers & stuff. Heavy winter coats & boots belong down there.

Don't spread that coat over a weight bench while you do something else.

Don't place it on the plyo boxes.

Don't fling it over the barbells.

Don't hang it on the end of the protruding weights on the cage.

Don't glare at me if it's in any of these places & I carefully move it so that I can have access to them.

Let me add:

Please, when sharing a rack of DBs with a crowded gym, please don't take all the ones you think you'll need for your entire workout and keep them at your bench, refusing to share. Instead, take the size you need, use it, replace it, and then take the next size you need.

I know this is a serious thread, but it really made me laugh...and feel better about my gym!

I guess some people should at least get longer t-shirts!

As you kind of say in #10, your choice of workout doesn't make the gym more yours than anyone else's. If you need priority access to the equipment, you need your own equipment.

Yeah, I mulled over this one for a bit. Crossfit gyms are popping up because of this very problem -- many crossfit workouts don't meld well with conventional gyms, and they can be "equipment hogs" (e.g., the one where you're supposed to set up three barbells with different weights and alternate between the three). But crossfit gyms aren't available everywhere, and the (sole) one in my town is ridiculously expensive (IMO) and has inconvenient hours. I often let the one or two student crossfitters who work out in my gym move ahead of me in the queue if I can tell they're doing a timed workout. More often than not this will be in an off-peak time at the gym, so there are other things I can do & it's no great inconvenience. (Besides, I've done my share of timed workouts. Karma, you know.)

But, I agree 100% with the general point.

//b. strong