12 of the Worst Breaches of Gym Etiquette, According to Reddit

We’ve probably all made a gym faux pas at some point. As a beginner, I know I was guilty of using dumbbells right in front of the rack; it hadn’t occurred to me that I was blocking others’ access. But most of us can master the basics of gym etiquette pretty quickly. And then we look around the room and — on a very special day — we may go what the hell is that person doing? Here are redditors’ reports of the worst behaviour of their fellow gym-goers, given in places like r/Fitness’s Rant Wednesday.

Wearing body glitter

You want to wear makeup when you work out? Have fun, knock yourself out. But we have to draw the line at bodily adornments that you’re going to leave behind for others to pick up.

Please don’t wear body glitter in the gym. If you do wear body glitter in the gym, at least wipe down the squat racks after you finish so that everyone else doesn’t get covered in the stuff

Excessive PDA

There are two types of couples at the gym: the ones who split up because they’re independently having their “me” time, and the ones who “help” each other constantly and kiss between sets. Are they hurting anyone? No. Are we going to roll our eyes at them when they take it to extremes? Yes, we are.

Saw some couple show some PDA at the gym today where the guy was doing seated shoulder press machine directly in front of me and the girl would stand in between his legs and spot/assist him during his sets. Then after he finished the set he’d stay seated and they’d just embrace until the next set.

Pro tip: you don’t need to “spot” somebody who is using a shoulder press machine. (To be fair…they probably know that.)

Sitting on somebody else’s platform

Everybody loves to complain about teens hogging a piece of equipment that none of them are using. (If you’re all going to share a squat rack, that’s fine, just use it rather than standing around.) But sitting on equipment that somebody else is using is a bit much.

I had two sixteen year old girls sitting right at the edge of my deadlift platform today. Literally had to ask them to move so I could add weight to the bar. I think a friend of theirs was showing them the gym for the first time but like…. is it not obvious to not sit less than a metre away from this heavy weight going up and down?

Yelling STOP STOP STOP for anything other than a dire emergency

Unsolicited advice isn’t exactly rare in the gym, but it isn’t often given this dramatically:

I was doing Romanian deadlifts, when this personal trainer walked up to me yelling ‘STOP STOP STOP!!! You’re supposed to drop the barbell to the ground, then lift, what you’re doing is a Romanian deadlift, that works your glutes and hamstrings more!

I’m like, that’s exactly what I’m doing, a Romanian deadlift. What are you on about?

Digestive difficulties

Sometimes you can’t help it. But that doesn’t change the smell in the air.

So. Much. Farting. 💨

💀

Claiming machines all over the gym

Circuit training can be an efficient way to do a bunch of exercises in a short time. But if you’ve chosen a circuit that requires equipment in every corner of the gym, you can’t expect everybody to steer clear while you do your whole workout. Otherwise you become this guy:

As soon as you try to use a machine they’ve ‘claimed’ but are not currently using, they run over to tell you they’re using it (usually in a very rude way)… they don’t offer to share it and if you’re too shy to use it despite what they’ve said, as soon as you walk away so do they.

Sexist yelling

I’m not sure exactly how to categorise this, except to say please do not be this guy. He claimed a machine he wasn’t using, much like the example above, and then:

He then proceeded to tell me that I would “see better results” from using the adductor instead of the abductor, because the abductor was “made for male bodies” (can’t even begin with how little sense that makes). I was pretty ready to get out of there then and said I’d finish my sets when he was done, but he insisted I finished. He then proceeded to stand about a foot a way from me staring at me the entire time. To top it off, when I was nearly finished, he tried to go all personal trainer on me and started telling me to “push myself” and that I could “easily do 10 more reps!” I’ve never felt so uncomfortable. My most frustrating and bizarre gym experience to date.

Treating the gym as your film studio

Videoing yourself is fine; it’s a great way to critique your form or ask for help later from a friend or online coach. Filming stuff for social media is also not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you’re considerate to others while you do so. And then there are folks like this:

New exchange students at my uni gym films every set and livestreams their sessions while turning off music to not get copyright strikes. Whenever someone puts it back on they start yelling – They also leave their shit everywhere, never puts away weights and constantly doing 4 supersets across the gym at the same time.

Challenging people to fights

I’ve heard tons of stories of people challenging each other to fights in the gym, and it’s never even about something interesting, always petty stuff like this:

Some older guy moved my water bottle and I asked him why, and then he wanted to fight me. Got to love people.

Leaving weights everywhere on purpose

We’ve all forgotten a dumbbell or a change plate somewhere. But then there are folks like this:

Two older guys benching in the rack next to me yesterday.

“All done, shall we just leave these here?”

“Yeah”

“OK.”

And off they went leaving the bar loaded.

Guys, come on…

Photographing or filming others

People at the gym are not your meme fodder. And your sneaky “selfies” aren’t fooling anyone.

Someone took a photo of me while doing deadlift. Some dude probably thought the way my face looks while contorting would be fun to turn it to a meme so he quickly took a snap pretending he is taking a selfie but he forgets to turn off his flash. I was startled by the light pointed at me and that made me instinctively look directly at the guy who’s trying to contain his laughter while he shuffles to hide his phone away.

If this happens to you, by the way, you can report that creep to gym staff.

Thinking you’ll never see that person again

This isn’t so much gym etiquette as real life etiquette, but if you’re going to break things off with somebody you’re seeing or flirting with, do it like an adult. Otherwise, well:

I see a guy that I sexted who ghosted me at the gym almost every time I go. Shits embarrassing.