The worst people at the gym

I live in a big city - well, it is big by my standards. At a mere 1 million people, Chiang Mai certainly isn't going to get a light rail system anytime soon, but they certainly do have a traffic jam at least once a day. This high level of people also leads to my medium-size gym being quite crowded during certain times of day and I try to avoid this as much as possible. However, sometimes I have to go during "peak hours" because my life has a schedule also. I know that when i go from 5-8pm that the gym is going to be filled with hassles and mostly this is because of other people's behavior / lack of gym etiquette. Here are what I believe to be the worst people that can be at any gym.

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The grunters / screamers

Gyms are filled with noise, normally loud motivational music and the sound of metal hitting metal. This is pretty typical. Every now and then there are certain people in the gym that need more attention than others and these people are a scourge to every workout environment and subsequently increase headphone sales around the world.

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If someone is the size of Arnold in his prime and has to grunt during his last two reps on some absurd bodybuilding rotation then I think it is ok - these pro guys work really hard to get / maintain that size and I suppose they get a pass, probably because everyone is afraid of them. However, this is not the screaming people at my gyms. Normally the screamers are someone who barely has some muscle definition and certainly wants recognition for it.

If you need to shout to get through your 40 kg bench press set of 6 reps, I'm not going to judge you for not being strong: I am going to judge you because you are a moron - you need to step the weight back. Also, shouting doesn't inherently help you do this at all, you could simply exhale.

These people are selfish and if they are unaware how ridiculous and annoying they are in the eyes of everyone else at the gym, they are delusional. It is strange to me that the guys who actually do have a program and are "swole" are very rarely the ones making any noise.

I once was a member at a gym that had a strict noise policy and it didn't matter if you were juiced like Lou Ferigno, if you were an audible nuisance, this tiny little Thai lady would come and reprimand you. She was awesome (and strict AF.)

people who refuse to re-rack

Every gym has the policy that you are supposed to put the bells and plates back after you use them, yet so many people neglect to do this. I can only think they believe the rest of the world works for them.

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While my current gym isn't that bad I was once a member of a small gym in Krabi that the selfish nature of a few patrons made the gym almost unusable for the other patrons. There would be people that would come and pick up the gym's only 20lb dumbbells, move them to the other side of the gym to do something they definitely could have done next to the rack and then when they were done, they would leave them over there.

I can't understand this mentality of selfishness and at one point I watched a guy move nearly every piece of gym equipment to a new location and then leave. I shouted at him out the door (in Thai, so I probably sounded like a dick) and asked him if his Mom was coming by to clean up after him.... He said it was the staff's job... prick.

The social media users who occasionally do a set

While I am not going to get on anyone's case for looking at their phones at the gym, because I do so also, there is a fine line between looking at a few memes on 9gag between sets and using the machine for a chair while you make an entire Partiko post.

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This is a recent phenomenon. Everyone uses their phone in the gym and that is fine. We are all using our phones all the time anyway. However, i think that some people need to understand the concept of other people being around them.

My gym only has two hamstring machines: One traditional one where you lie face down (I hate these) and one newer style where you sit facing up (preferred by me.) There was a guy that must have been watching an entire Family Guy episode while never even using the machine. This was not a set break, this was a person using this unique piece of machinery as a chair despite the fact that there was an unoccupied sofa right behind him. I don't like to be a dick but I found out that if you simply stand and look at someone doing this for a little while they will either start exercising again, or get off the machine.

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tl;dr

I normally try to go to the gym in the dead of afternoon because there are so many people during peak hours. This wouldn't be a problem if people just exercised (pun intended) a little courtesy while there. The actions of a few individuals can ruin the experience for many others and if people just focused a little bit on not being a selfish asshat, the entire experience could be streamlined for everyone.

If you are one of the grunters, the non-re-rackers, or the social media gym queens, please reflect on this and change your ways.... it's for the betterment of humanity.