Gym Rules.

So, you’re ready to go back to the gym? Protect your towel.

Maybe you are ready to start going to the gym again. I started going to the gym a few months ago. I’d get onto an elliptical and push the “Start now, just start exercising, no one cares what numbers you do” button. Then I’d push the arrows until the calorie meter efficiently ticked away at 10 calories a minute. I think that should be a minimum caloric rate if you are going to waste an otherwise perfectly good hour at the gym. I’d do the default workout, one hour and five minutes. Then I’d step off, wipe my face with my towel, and go sit at one of the cafe tables overlooking the pool.

It’s a little baffling that there are zinc cafe table and chair sets overlooking the pool, when there is no actual cafe. There is no cafe because there is no food. I’d take a break, watching swimmers debate who gets to use the open lane in the pool, watching the guy flirting with the lifeguard—there’s always a guy flirting with the lifeguard, watching the other gym goers on the floor.

It’s noticeable. Inside the gym, there are some rules. Here they are. This is not gym etiquette. There is no etiquette at the gym. These are rules about how the gym works. If you are going to spend time there, you may as well get used to them, because the gym will bring out some specific behaviors and it doesn’t matter what the posted rules are. This is what’s going to happen at the gym.

1. Everyone has their favorite machine. One machine has a mysterious black gum residue on it, and must be avoided. Another makes a creaking noise. Another makes a click. Another has a broken cup holder. That one over there is too close to the first stationary bike, the one the volunteer firemen like to use. Other volunteer firemen like to stand next to it and chat. If you choose that elliptical, and there are two volunteer firemen in the gym, you are not going to hear Adele blasting from your iPod. You are going to hear what they did last weekend or what they ate. Don’t use that machine.

2. Some people never leave. The people you see all the time at the gym, who you think have your same schedule: they do not have your same schedule. They just are at the gym all the time.

3. Men should not wear little shorts. Seriously, if you are a man, and you want other gym goers to put up with you being at the gym, wear some longer shorts. Those little shorts are exactly what Alberto Salazar wore when he won the Boston Marathon in 1979. That was a long time ago. The Little Shorts on Men era is over. I bet even Alberto Salazar doesn’t wear little shorts to the gym now. I mean, think about it: he wore them winning the Boston Marathon. You are not winning the marathon. You are not even running the marathon. You are at the gym. Wear some clothes.

4. If you are a man who is a gym goer who decided the previous rule does not apply to you, and you are going to the gym wearing little shorts, then this rule does apply to you: Men wearing little shorts should not be doing leg lifts. Really, stop it. Stop it! Like, now, already.

5. There are guys who chew towels. This is a thing. I don’t know, maybe they didn’t get enough chewable food as a kid. When one of these guys uses a machine next to you, it’s a good idea to move your towel away from him. I feel about these guys like I feel about a teething puppy: keep stuff out of reach. Protect your towel.

6. You can’t spend time on an elliptical without a sound track. It is impossible. If you just got on a machine, hung your towel over the handle bar, stuck your cold water bottle in the cup holder, pushed all the buttons and turned on your iPod, and then found that the iPod is out of charge and you have no soundtrack, give up. Leave. Go plug your music device into an outlet at Starbucks, and drink a latte. Have a pastry. The key thing is: if you do not have a functioning music device to get you through a workout, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. You must give up.

Do not tell me about those two professional gym ladies who are running along on adjacent machines, and talking to each other at the same time, without earbuds. It doesn’t matter if they can do it: they are professional gym ladies. You are an amateur. You can’t do it.

7. Recumbent bike machines are baffling. They look like they are no effort whatsoever. I acknowledge there must be at some minimal exercise benefit to using a recumbent bike. But they look like they are for people who are just too tired stand up on an elliptical. Nevertheless, the guy on a recumbent bike, reading his phone, is still technically exercising, as long as the pedals are turning and his feet are turning them.

8. The girl on the mat in the mat area, in a yoga pose, a lame one involving folded legs, is not exercising. She is just someone taking up space in the mat area, reading her phone.

9. There are many people are taking up space in the gym reading their phones. There is nothing you can do about this. Honestly, it’s probably safer that they are reading their phones at the gym, instead of after they just pulled out of a parking space, but before they put the car in drive and moved forward. You would be surprised at how many drivers in the gym parking lot use the time normally used to shift from reverse to drive to check their phones. So it’s better that they are checking their phones while in mid-yoga pose in the mat area, or while sitting on a weight machine, than mid-shift in the parking lot.

10. It is not really necessary to have paneled lockers, carpeting, or flattering lighting at the mirrors. The guys constantly vacuuming the gym, with the canister vacuum backpack, are not doing anything really necessary, either. What they are doing is giving you a place to hang out. The gym is a sweaty living room.

11. Weight Machines are Sweaty Living Room Furniture. There are people lounging on machines, checking their phones, instead of actually doing a few reps and getting out of your way. There is nothing you can do about them. I agree this is worse than the girl in the folded leg pose on the mats. You probably don’t need to use her section of the mat. But you do need that machine. Your trainer told you to do reps.

But you can’t do anything about it. There is nothing anyone can do about the people checking their phones while sitting on machines. If you ask them if you can work in a set while they are “resting” in between sets, they will get angry. They are working out. Can’t you tell? They are sitting right on the machine. They were just about to do another set. And then you came along and ruined their concentration, and now the whole set is going to take longer. Didn’t the trainer tell you to rest between sets? Don’t you know anything? The phone-reader was doing the workout the right way. You would be doing it all wrong. You probably shouldn’t even be allowed to use the machine. They just have to rest through one more email. Okay, maybe five. And maybe after rereading the last two—Wow, I can’t believe she wrote that. What’s wrong with people? No, you can’t work in a set. I am about to do my next set. Can’t you see? I am working out.

12. There are people reading their phones while midway through washing their hands, drinking bottled water, and changing their clothes. Yes, the people in the stalls in the bathrooms are reading their phones. Try not to think about it.

13. The gym is a place to not eat. So, do not bring shakes or blends, or whatever else they are selling down at Smoothie King. That stuff is sticky. A drippy Smoothie King shake is probably the source of the black gum on the unusable elliptical. If you are on a juice fast, do not bring that green juice in with you. People in the gym are there to get away from all food, including lettuce juice. Don’t bring that into the gym! Stop it already! I don’t care if you already lost three pounds.

14. The oldest people in the gym wear the fewest clothes in the locker room. These people are all older than you. It doesn’t matter how old you are. They shower, half-heartedly cover up with a tiny, gym-provided towel, and then drop the towel in front of one locker or another, maybe theirs, if you are lucky. But they might not remember which one is theirs. And then you are not lucky.

One of these people might drop a towel in front of your locker, even though you are sure it is yours, because it has your favorite lock on it, the one with the combination that you’ve been able to remember for years. The older-than-you person who drops a towel exactly in front of it will not, at first, believe that it is your locker, if you bring the topic up. It is very important that you do not bring it up. Let the naked person figure it out. Otherwise, the naked person will turn to you, towel-less, to discuss the lock and the locker. You do not want to have this conversation.

15. You need to get out of the gym. Despite all the people around you, working out is mostly a solo activity. So go outside. Play a game. Hit a ball. Me, I think I should play more golf.