How To: Gym Etiquette
3 min readJan 24, 2016
January is the time of new year’s resolutions. And do you know what new year’s resolution spelled backwards is? Nobody cares.
However, lots of you will probably have decided to get fit, so here’s a helping hand if you’re thinking of joining a gym. Follow these tips and you will enjoy your workouts to the fullest, without irritating the **** out of everyone else.
- Focus on YOUR workout. Although some people may seem like they’re staring at you it’s probably because you’ve walked in the way of the mirror. They were more than likely staring at themselves. Why else would there be mirrors in a gym?!… Concentrate on your set and don’t worry what other people are thinking.
- ALWAYS do a warm up set. There’s nothing more embarrassing than loading the bar up with double your body weight, then giving up after a minute of heavy breathing, amounting to little more than a dented ego and a wet fart. Swallow your pride and go easy to get used to your range of movement. Build up from there.
- Stick to the essential kit. You know those people with wrist straps, knee straps, head bands, shaker bottle, normal water bottle, etc… Anyone can walk into a sports store and get all the shitty bargains. Just get some decent sports clothing that you feel comfortable in and a drinks bottle. Done.
- You probably don’t need lifting gloves. This links in with the above but requires a separate point. Lifting gloves are for hand models and people with emotional attachments to stuffed toys. Unless you get paid to show off your dainty digits or you’re lifting the weight of a small yacht, leave the gloves at home. With your cuddly toys.
- Look ugly. This goes for guys and girls. You are going to the gym. You are there to sweat and look hideous in the meantime. Doing your hair or makeup pre-workout is pointless. Going there to find that specialist someone? There are thousands (maybe 1 or 2) studies proving that an avid gym goer is attracted to equally avid gym goers, regardless of image. In fact, those completely legitimate scientific studies that I just made up also claim that repulsive, sweaty faces are attractive when paired with Nikes. You’re welcome.
- DO NOT sit on a machine or a bench on your phone. You are literally the worst human being in a 12 mile radius. Everybody here now hates your guts; go browse endless Facebook posts in the changing rooms. We’re here to workout and there are people waiting to use that machine, you selfish turd.
- Walking on a 0.5 incline on the treadmill for an hour DOES NOT count as a workout. It’s barely even exercise. It would be more beneficial to sit on a machine browsing Facebook. No matter how many times it suggested ‘Walking at incline’ in Elle magazine, it’s bullshit. Believe me, I can tell a bull’s shit when I taste it. Wait, what? Nothing.
- EVERYBODY SAW YOU JUST LIFT UP YOUR SHIRT AND TENSE YOUR HIDEOUS ABDOMINALS IN THE MIRROR. There’s no point trying to hide it with a corner-of-the-eye glance or a “Oh, I’ve just gotta scratch this itch on my upper chest by removing my entire vest and tensing my biceps, triceps and quadriceps simultaneously”.
- Those massive dudes who can’t walk properly and look like they’re carrying two refrigerators under their armpits are the result of almost-lethal butt injections and no stretching whatsoever. DO NOT aim to be like those guys. They have sacrificed their ability to hug and masturbate (not at the same time) to look like a teenage mutant ninja turtle. Remember to stretch before (dynamic) and after (static/yoga) a workout.
- This one is the most important of all. If you stick at this gym business for a few weeks, you’ll start to get confident. But don’t get all judgemental and cocky. That weedy kid or obese mother of 12 you just chuckled at are just starting out too. You were them once. Hopefully with less kids though.
