Exercising etiquette: Don’t be a gym diva
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Elsewhere in the gym, Gregor and other fitness professionals note, problems also can include hygiene-challenged people who skip deodorant or wear smelly workout clothes; those who douse themselves in perfume or cologne and strut around trying to make a love connection; and those who don’t just grunt when they lift weights but scream.
If they aren’t causing an all-out ruckus, all of these behaviors can be, at the very least, highly annoying.
Lethal hands, hazardous heels
Nicholus Odem, 43, of Chandler, Ariz., couldn’t believe what he saw another gym member do in the locker room. “He left a stall in the men's room and headed straight for the gym without washing his hands,” says Odem, noting that this man also tends to wear the same old gym clothes day after day.
“He completed his full workout going from machine to machine,” says Odem. “Since then I have an industrial size bottle of hand sanitizer in my car … I bathe my hands in sanitizer after I leave the gym.”
Jay Averill, 32, of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is still troubled by something he witnessed at his gym a couple years ago.
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“The inappropriate behavior was actually a part of a workout routine of a middle-aged, skinny fellow who used to frequent the gym I go to,” says Averill. “His routine focused on pelvic thrusts. He would do them standing up, lying on his back, on his side, and yes … he'd lie on his stomach and do pelvic thrusts. He'd do them with weights, on benches and on the sit-up mats, all the while not even showing any sign that what he was doing may look a little odd. To top it all off, he would always wear tights.”
The man’s actions were so extreme that Averill just couldn’t focus on his workout. “It's really hard to do the military press while a grown man is making love to a bench beside you, although I wouldn't describe it as love so much,” he says. “It's really hard not to look, and it's even harder not to laugh out loud.”
Also in the absurd-and-annoying category, Nardini had one participant who came to yoga class in 8-inch stilettos, a skimpy leotard, fishnet stockings, legwarmers and a white fur coat. “She’d come in dressed like an exotic dancer, which I later found out she was.”
Nardini warned her against doing yoga in heels, but the woman insisted on it, saying it was practice for her work. “She poked so many holes in the mat that we had to charge her for it,” says Nardini. “It looked like Swiss cheese when she was done.”
Among other disruptions Nardini has seen in her class, there’s the man who would “breathe like Darth Vader” rather than practicing typical yoga breaths and another guy who plopped himself down in the middle of the room and did headstands and other moves of his own choosing, regardless of what she was teaching.
Dealing with divas, dolts
So how should you deal with these divas and dolts at the gym? If someone is hogging the triceps press, you could politely ask if you could take turns. Or if they’ve left huge weight plates on the leg machine, you could ask the person to please remove them.
But Gregor and other instructors generally recommend speaking to a gym employee about bigger complaints. Taking matters into your own hands can breed animosity among members, sometimes even causing brawls.
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They say good fitness professionals stay on top of bad behavior and nip it in the bud when it starts. They talk to the offender, which usually goes a long way. In some cases, they may need to give warnings and even revoke memberships if the behavior doesn’t improve.
One instructor has some unconventional ways of reprimanding naughty exercisers. In what he’s dubbed “flipping the bird,” he throws a stuffed bird at offenders, a sign that they have to go to the corner and do the day’s punishment — such as 30 push-ups or 20 mountain climbers.
“When someone talks too much, slacks off, drops a weight or anything I or the group may deem undesirable, I flip them the bird,” says Bobby Kelly, owner of the Results Only gym in Phoenix.
“The person must immediately perform the bird punishment or I flip them the bird again,” he says. “It makes people laugh and it gets my point across.”
When members are particularly obnoxious, Kelly has another form of punishment: the undesirable T-shirt, which reads “I am the problem child.”
“If they’re really bugging me, they have to wear it for the rest of class,” he says.
Kelly insists it’s all in good humor and “there’s absolutely nothing mean-spirited about it.”
Sometimes he even pokes fun at himself, wearing a T-shirt that reads “EOA” — Equal Opportunity A******.
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