FOUR CRAZY WAYS YOU’RE DOING IT…AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Listen right up!

I bet you anything your gym behavior SUCKS.

Bigtime!

That’s both if you’ve just acquired your first, brand-spanking new membership, and you’ve never been inside a gym or if you have been going to gyms for a few years and you think you know it all.

Yes – it’s that bad.

And something needs to be done about it – NOW!

So you better read on.

 

WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY?

So who am I to preach anyway?

Am I that perfect that I think I can tell everyone else what to do?

Nah, it’s nowhere even near that.

I’m as fallible as all the rest of us.

Thing is, I have been in and out of gyms around the world for 25 years now, both as a member and as a top class facility owner.

And I cringe now when I think of my earlier days when I thought I knew my shit…but I was just as bad as everyone else.

In fact, if I could roll back the clock, there are some apologies I would really need to make to a few people.

Hell, I even fuck up now sometimes after all this time.

Twenty five plus years later and I still don’t do everything right.

 

WITH GREAT POWER…

I do believe I have learned a lot of things over the years – so if I can save a gym member from any stupid behavior and any facility owner from unnecessary anguish, then here you are.

You see, after all these years, I am still amazed at how many people have absolutely no idea how to behave in a gym.

And, as I already said, that goes whether you are a complete newbie (we’ve all been there) or whether you consider yourself a seasoned gym rat who knows how it all comes together.

Having been there from both sides of the game, I can tell you right now that most people are your prototypical gym asshole.

Whether they realize it or not, their behavior is usually lacking in one or more areas.

So here are just 4 (believe me, there is a lot more where this came from) top things where people screw up in a gym.

And how they should be fixed.

Here goes nothing:

 

#4 – CHOOSE YOUR GYM WISELY

Every gym has its own modus operandi.

Just like any other criminal organization.

One gym will operate in a certain way, another facility would not be caught dead doing it.

Each particular place works according to what they think is best.

Westside Barbell have their own way. Metroflex have another.

Crossfit boxes live on their own planet.

And talking about planets, Planet Fitness have things planned around Uranus.

That is the way it is.

So, when you get around to choosing your place, choose something that fits in with what you need and want.

I have seen it happen thousands of times – clients enroll for memberships and, after a while, start to complain about how the place is run and how they are “treated”.

Worse, they insist that their demands are met – because the client is always right.

Well, a big “boo-fucking-hoo screw you” on that one.

The client is not always right – not anywhere close.

Scope your gym out, see how things work, and ONLY join up if you like what you see.

Granted, a lot of places will just slam the membership papers on the front counter as soon as you pop your wallet out of your pocket.

Why am I thinking it’s the same thing a cheap hooker would do as soon as she smells the money?

That, in itself, would scare the hell out of me.

Signing up to a gym that did not care about taking the time to meet and talk to potential clients means that it’s a free-for-all in there.

That’s NOT my kinda place.

That’s why at The Forge, we sit down and talk properly to each and every potential client that comes to us BEFORE we let them sign the papers – because we care about what kind of people we let inside our facility.

Some people are a good fit, some are not.

That is how it is.

Some people appreciate this; others don’t.

I like the fuckers who think they can complain about our initial Discovery Session.

Basically, I couldn’t give a flying protein shaker about the latter – if you don’t like what we do, please don’t come to us.

A gym that takes in anyone is like a desperate cook trying to put all the ingredients they can lay their hands on into the pot and hoping something turns out right.

Well, it won’t.

The reality is that it’s going to make for a pretty disgusting meal.

 

#3 – ONCE YOU SIGN UP, CONFORM WITH THE RULES – OR JUST DON’T SIGN UP AT ALL

If I have seen it once, I have seen it a million times.

After a while, you get people wanting to do things their own way when they obviously know it’s against the rules.

Some places won’t allow you to smash the weights on the floor – why the fuck would you insist on doing it?

Planet Fitness has what they call a lunk alarm.

You can boil me alive in broccoli soup and I would never tell you Planet Fitness is a great place to train but hey, flash news Lumpy – if you don’t like the fucking lunk alarm, don’t fucking complain about it.

Why are you in Planet Fitness in the first place?

Just get the hell out of there.

Other places don’t want bodybuilders and/or powerlifters hogging the whole place and scaring away potential clients.

Why the hell would any bodybuilder/powerlifter want to go there to scare people anyway?

Go to a bodybuilding/powerlifting gym and roll with your peers, would you?

You get some kind of rush scaring people and being a general asshole?

If you don’t agree with something a gym does and it’s their steadfast policy – then you have no right to complain at all.

And complaining behind people’s backs just makes you a douchebag anyway.

No one likes you. Yeah, everyone knows that the backdoor complainer is one big fucking douche.

Stick to the rules of the place you are at, or simply fuck off.

 

#2 – YOU SWEATY ANIMALS

OK, so by nature, the gym is a sweaty place.

It comes with the package.

Yeah, kinda like sex means you have to get pretty close to someone to actually get anything done at all.

We understand that.

What we don’t understand is people who like to drip their sweat everywhere and leaving it there to disgust all the other members.

Hey Alexander Dumbass – however highly you think of yourself and how much of God’s gift you are to humanity, here’s a lightbulb moment.

Your sweat is GROSS.

It’s also a great portal for disease.

So please, unless we are having sex later on, keep your body fluids to yourself.

No one wants them.

Get two towels – one to wipe yourself down with, and one to sit on.

Don’t just use the towels to sit on during your set – if you are sitting anywhere else while you are resting in-between sets, use the goddamn towel to sit on too.

Not sure if you ever realized it, but your ass is just as wet – whether you’re grinding out your reps or whether you are catching a breath.

Oh and here is something some of you won’t believe.

Sweat drips off your arms too and, unless your ego is big enough to have its own gravitational field, it’s going to drip right down to the floor.

So wipe your wet arms off frequently.

And, if by some amazing fluke of physics, you do get your sweat on a machine, then…guess what?

Wipe that shit off too.

Not sure if you get the general idea, but, just in case – yeah, dry yourself, wipe it off and stop grossing other people out.

 

#1 – THE GREAT UNWASHED

There is another thing that has never ceased to amaze me simply because way too many people don’t seem not to notice it.

Your body makes its own smell

It’s nature – that’s how it is.

The thing is, a lot of people just don’t like other peoples’ smells.

Especially if said person is right next to you, sweating like a pig next in line in a meat factory, whilst repping it out, exuding their funky aroma to all and sundry.

You just can’t run away from that damn shit unless you leave the gym.

And even when the greaseball has left, the smell tends to linger there, creating its own fetid atmosphere.

I have just one rule for you in this case.

Shower before each and every fucking workout, would you?

Yes, don’t even stop to smell your pits and think about it.

I don’t care if you think you don’t stink.

Just shower anyway.

Oh and use soap too – cause plain water just doesn’t cut it baby.

And while you are using that soap, might as well use it properly – put your elbows into it, work up a lather and scrub the hell out of your nooks and crannies, your cracks and your jingle bells.

Smelling fruity is something that will happen to even the best of us at some point.

I always believe honesty is the best policy – if you show up stinking, I am going to ask you to go home and use the shower.

And no, I don’t give a dripping showerhead if you get offended or not – you offended me in the first place by showing up smelling of armpit and crotch soup.

True story – a few years ago, this guy shows up at The Forge, wanting a membership.

On the first interview, pre-booking, he seemed pretty normal.

He just smelled a bit ripe but as he wasn’t training that first day, we booked him in.

The second time, when he actually started off his membership, I unfortunately was not there as I was out with private clients.

When I did turn up later, I found a lot of complaints waiting for me about “the stinker”.

It wasn’t just one complaint either, it was from about 8 different people too.

I took it up with my trainer and she was pretty embarrassed about it – yes, the guy did stink but she didn’t know how to take it up with him properly.

Ah, really? Let me show you how it’s done.

The third time, I actually was there when the guy showed up and damn, as soon as he walked in, the smell that billowed off him literally hit me in the face like a bitchslap from Georges St. Pierre.

My grandmother used to raise livestock when I was young and the instant the smell hit me, I was reminded of the billy goat she had trotting around the fields behind the house.

Damn thing was all horns and balls and smelt every inch like it too.

This guy was the same – minus the horns and definitely minus the balls.

So, before he went in, I called him into my office.

“So, John, how is The Forge so far?”

“Hey, I like it, like it a lot. Lots of nice people here.”

“Yeah, I know. We love nice people.”

“Yeah really love to be here man.”

“OK, that’s great man. Could you do me a favor though?”

“A favor?”

“Yeah, just a little one. Do you mind having a shower before you come in to train?”

Silence.

I let it settle in.

Then…

“A shower? How do you mean?”

“It’s just a rule here. We always tell our clients to shower before coming here to train.”

Narrowed eyes.

“You saying I stink?”

“No, I haven’t said that. I just said it’s a rule that our clients shower before the come here to train.”

“No, you’re saying I stink!”

“No, but I can if you’d like me to. You stink, and pretty badly too!”

Another, long drawn out silence.

Then, he looks somewhere to the left of my head and mumbles out:

“Listen you. I would like to point out to you that I shower religiously.”

“You do huh?”

“I’m not finished. I shower every Tuesday. Without fail. Just so you know.”

“I’m sorry…did you say every Tuesday?”

Keep in mind this is on a semi-tropical island in August, where the usual temperature averages 35 degrees Celsius during the day (that’s 95 degrees Fahrenheit for my non-centigrade friends) and the humidity for the summer months almost never drops below 80%/

If you don’t know what that equates to, allow me to tell you it’s damn hot and sticky all the time and you sweat rivers down your ass even if you think too hard.

“Yes! Every Tuesday. At 7pm. Without fail. So now you know.”

For about 1.8 seconds, I debate whether this is some kind of joke I am not getting.

Who the hell washes any less than 4 times a day during a summer like ours?

Does this man seriously wash once a fucking week?

Then the guy moves again and his aroma St. Pierre-slaps me around the face again, making my eyes water.

It makes me a bit dizzy so I do my best to come up with a compromise.

“OK then, you need to show up every Tuesday at 8pm, right after your shower man. Hit all the bodyparts, and then rest for a week. Other than that, if you don’t shower before you come, it ain’t happening.”

The guy stood up and walked off.

Yes, that really happened.

 

WANT MORE?

So, what do you think so far?

I would love to hear your opinion, both if you are a gym member (complete newbie or seasoned pro) or if you run your own facility.

Am I ringing anyone’s bells?

Do you know people who are just bad gym material at your place?

Worse, do you think YOU might be one (this is going to take some balls).

If I am pushing some buttons, let me know and I’ll hit you with a few more ways you might be know of, or even be a persona non grata at your facility.

I might be saving you and your gym a lot of grief.

 

 

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