Gym Etiquette
February 23rd, 2007
Today I went to the gym for two of my three workouts… oh that sounds like a big deal, but really it was a light day (only 90 minutes, 30 of which were commuting on my bike to the gym)… In the process I was reminded about the delicate balance of gym etiquette. In fact I was a party to two cases of poor gym etiquette, one case where I was an innocent bystander, and another case where I was accused of being a perpetrator of poor etiquette.
I thought I would document these cases, in a sense to acknowledge my faux pas, or maybe to ask the wisdom of the community as to exactly how big of a deal these breaches really are…
So I rode my bike from my home to the gym… about 4 miles… and I arrived right before “rush hour” at the gym. My plan was to run for 30 minutes on the treadmill (more on that later) and then swim for about 30 minutes. Now, I have a little problem with the gym, that I will admit I should have corrected a long time ago, but with my busy schedule I haven’t gotten around to remedying. You see, I have 2 different pad-locks (combination style) that I have forgotten the combination to. I am sure that if I played around with them for a couple hours, I could remember the combination… 37… something something-or-other-7… 13… 18.. 28… I’m sure it’s in the back recesses of my brain.
But here’s the thing… they have spare locks at the gym. And they will give them to you if you ask at the front desk, and if you turn in your keys as collateral. So, for the last couple months, I’ve been using these “free locks” when I come to the gym. Of course they don’t have an infinite supply, and maybe twice in the last couple months, they’ve been “all out” when I arrived and asked to borrow one… Ok, no big deal, I just take the risk of someone rummaging through my stuff. I mean, I guess they could steal my wallet, but usually I just have my ID and a single credit card and a couple bucks in a little plastic baggy in my sweaty bicycle jersey… so I figure it’s pretty low risk.
Anyway, it seems like the last couple weeks, even though I go to the gym at pretty random times during the day; the same young lady has been “working the front desk”… And, well, how do I say this… she doesn’t like me. I don’t know what I did to her, I don’t think I’m lecherous or offensive, but she’s been giving me the skunk eye every chance she gets. And today she decided she’d had enough of me. Here was our exchange…
Me: “Hi” (handing over my ‘id card’ to check in to the gym.)
Here: “uh” (swiping my card)
Me: “Do you have any locks?”
Her: “Yes.” (handing over a lock)
[pause]… (I turn to walk to the locker room.)
Her: “You know, we sell locks.”
(she must be joking right, I’ll try to make some fun of this…)
Me: “Oh really… Why would I buy a lock when you keep giving them to me for free?”
(her co-workers get the joke, they laugh)
Her: “They’re for people who forget their locks!” (She’s obviously not joking at this point.)
Me: “Oh… in that case… I forgot my lock.” (Alright, I admit, that was me being spiteful.)
Now, I felt a little bad… but not that bad. She’s really mad at me, and now I guess I have some sense of why she’s been some cold to me for the last couple weeks. Not that I care, I mean, I try to be friendly to most people… and I appreciate that “retail” work is hard work. I used to work retail, and I business is business, which means you always have to work with customers… so I always make a point of trying to be “the easy customer”. I am the guy that picks up the extra dirty towels in the locker room and brings them to the laundry shoot, I am the guy that always says “hello” and “thank you” coming in and out of the gym. I never complain about the high prices, or the crappy parking… I am a model freakin’ citizen… except, I guess, for my inability to remember my lock combination, and my willingness to ask to borrow a lock.
Alright… I’m done venting about it… I’ll go for my run…
Thirty minutes on the treadmill. I decided to run on the treadmill today, so that I wouldn’t overdo my run. I was reading John’s post about Training Effect earlier today, and I thought about how when I run out of the road, I feel like I am running slow, but actually end up running at near race-effort. The good thing about a treadmill is, you can program your speed… you can’t run too fast, or else you bump into the front of the treadmill.
To be honest my run kinda sucked… my foot was hurting quite unexpectedly… not my heel where my stress fracture was… but the arch and the middle outside edge of my left foot. It made me realize that my left leg has continued to bother me since I got my orthotics… I’ve had a slight “awareness” although not real pain, in the outside of my left hip, and my left hip-flexor is far more tender than my right. I am thinking that my left arch is different enough or that my left orthotic was not made properly. I need to have this checked out again.
But to make matters worse… I couldn’t get this “lock” incident out of my head… I kept thinking about it during my whole run. I have this tendency to hold on to things like this…. I still have memories of embarrassing things I did when I was in 5th grade, more than 25 years ago… jeez! What a dork! So, back to our story…
I finish my run and I head down to the pool. It’s “open swim” which means 2 lanes for laps, and half the pool open to random water fun. When I get down there, both lanes are occupied with one swimmer who started 15 minutes ago, and another who started 8 minutes ago… So, I put my name on the list, and expect to wait at least 15 minutes (there’s a 30 minute limit when someone is waiting). But as soon as I put my name on the list, the first person starts getting out of the pool. Awesome! What great luck!
At this point, the person in lane 2 (swimming for 8 minutes) asks if she can take lane 1, because “I’m waiting for someone to join me.”… hmm, ok, strange request, I guess lane 1 is a little wider so it’s easier for 2 people to swim in it. Maybe she’s an instructor, waiting on a student, sounds reasonable. Lane 2 is a little more choppy, because it’s next to the wave making machine… but I don’t care. “Sure, I don’t mind”. (Notice: This is me being Mr. Easy Going gym member.) So, I go up to the “boards” and put my name up for Lane 2, and I even move the name from Lane 2 to Lane 1 for our 8 minutes swimmer. I jump in and start my laps.
Now, here’s an important detail. I get in around 5:18pm… at 6pm there is an Aqua-Fit class, and so the whole pool is shut down to lap swimmers and kids. I know I’ll get my 30minutes in, and maybe even a little extra time, because after all, who wants to swim for just 12 minutes, which is what someone would get if they waited for me to finish my time slot. About 7 minutes later, 5:25, Lane 1’s “other person” shows up… She instructs him to “put his name on the waiting list” and jump in the lane with her and start swimming. I notice this out of the corner of my eye, and think it seems strange, and potentially a problem, but I figure, no worries it won’t effect me.
Lane 1 proceeds to swim with her friend. It does appear as if she is giving him some sort of instruction, although not formal. They practice flip-turns and some other drills… I’m not exactly sure what is going on… are they friends, sweethearts, coach and student… ah, no matter, just swim. Then, the storm cloud arrives on the horizon.
Another swimmer comes up and places her name on the wait list… 5:35. Now realistically, this new swimmer, isn’t going to get a full session. If she knows the schedule, then she should have known it was a crap-shoot to show up at 5:35pm… The pool effectively closes in 25minutes. But, what she sees is 2 people swimming in lane 1, and the official “time” on the board for the start of lane 1 is 5:10, and so in 5 minutes, that lane should clear up, and hopefully she will get to swim… or at least this person in front of her will swim, and maybe she’ll get to swim next… like dominoes falling in order.
To kill time, Miss 5:35 gets in the “open half” of the pool and does some light warm-up… avoiding the kids and wave making machines, and tries to prepare herself for a quick session in a dedicated lane. Much to her chagrin, 5 minutes pass, and she sees the guy in lane 1 get out of the pool, erase his name from the wait list, erase Miss Lane 1’s name from the lane board, and write his name in to the lane board with a time of 5:40. All hope for her to swim a 20minute session has been dashed. As I make my turn I hear her mumble under her breath… “That’s not cool man!”.
Honestly, that’s what I’m thinking too. As I swim out my last 8 minutes, I think… should I offer to let her join me in my lane? Should I offer to give her my lane and let me finish my laps in the “open section”… eventually my decisions is made for me, as the jilted swimmer decides to pack it in and get out of the pool. And I am left with the thought that it is too bad that she didn’t get to get her workout in.
A small aside to this story speaks to stereotypes and body image… It turns out that the jilted swimmer happened to be a very large woman, and Miss lane 1, was a very fit, very skilled swimmer, wearing a “national champions” swim cap. As I watched this whole situation go down, I couldn’t help but think that stereotypes and self-confidence based on the perception of “worthiness” to be at a gym might have had no small part to play in why the jilted swimmer didn’t stand up for herself. As I swam beside both of these women, I can tell you one of them seemed much more serious about wanting to get a good workout in… the other seemed to want to flirt with “her friend”… I could feel myself as that overweight guy, who was always wondering about whether or not I deserved to be at the gym with all those other “serious exercisers”… and how an incident like this would have certainly scare me away from the gym.
Now I ask you all… who was the more impolite gym member? Me for using the “load a lock” program? Or Miss Lane 1, for bending the rules and getting a 50 minute lap session in instead of her allotted 30 minutes?
Entry Filed under: Fitness, Triathlon, Weightloss, Swimming, Ironman, Running, Cycling, Sports Injuries, exercise, gyms, gym etiquette
14 Comments Add your own
1. Gym Etiquette « Zap&hellip | February 24th, 2007 at 1:58 am
[…] (Read the rest of this article on ZappoMan.com…) […]
2. Wendy | February 24th, 2007 at 5:57 am
In our pools we circle swim during lane swims.
The guards place sandwich boards at the far end of the pool indicating the relative speed of the lanes (slow, medium, fast), and you slot yourself in. The sandwich boads have a directionality arrow for which way you swim the circles (at our pool up the right back the left), and icons for speed (bunny=fast, turtle=slow) for those who don’t speak English or French.
3. zappoman | February 24th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Yeah, I’ve swam in pools that have “circle swim” rules… but the problem with the pool at my gym is that the lanes are very narrow and short (only 17yards). It’s not realistic for more than 2 people to be in a lane, in fact, it’s not very realistic for two people to be in a lane.
4. John Rankin | February 24th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I think you borrowing a lock that is freely offered is not a breach of etiquette… however, even if they think you should buy one, they also need to be more considerate how they “remind” you… the customer.
The big faux pas was on the part of the guy who got out, erased and re-wrote the names after they were clearly started… That was not cool.
Interesting observation about the often perceived “hierarchy” in gyms… I have been in fitness centers where the super fit types have sometimes intimidated the newbies. I think it happens more in pools for some reason though
5. sheba | February 25th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
can’t you get your other 2 locks cut off or something? because I would see the fact that you are hogging 3 lockers to be an issue. (we don’t have many lockers at our gym and overnight locks are automatically cut off) the loaning vs selling seems unclear though so in that respect I don’t think you made a faux pas… they keep loaning them to you….
Swimming pools always seem to have weird and different rules. I have always found that frustrating
6. Kevin | February 25th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
I used to have a drawer full of locks with forgotten combos. Then I started buying those master locks where you set the four digit combo. I just use the address and the whole family remembers the combo. My gym doesn’t lend locks so I have to buy a new one every time I forget the lock. So now I have one in every bag and don’t have to worry.
7. zappoman | February 25th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Sheba, Just to clarify, I haven’t left my locks on lockers at the gym… I have them at home sitting in a pile… I just can’t use them.
Kevin, I like the idea of having a lock you can set the combination for, I need to look into that solution!
8. Jenny | February 25th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Yes, I second the four-digit lock solution, that is about the largest number of digits my feeble brain can recall & because you get to set it yourself it’s super-easy to pick something you can actually remember. Those XX-XX-XX locks are only suitable for kids who still have hyperactive memory things going down!
I like the etiquette aspect of your post. I’ve been working hard recently on becoming a better swimmer, and I swear that one main reason I had not swum for 10+ years involved a lifeguard when I was in my mid-20s & was a very shy and unskilled swimmer really brusquely coming over and telling me I was in the wrong lane & to switch to the slow one! It was the first time I had tried to swim, probably, since about 10 years before THAT, and I really felt so chastised that I never went back! I have found having a few lessons very helpful, not just for the skill set aspect but because I can then ask very bluntly for the teacher to explain to me the etiquette at that particular pool. Which has made me see that sometimes when I have an encounter with another swimmer that leaves me feeling upset & quelled it is actually THE OTHER PERSON’s problem rather than mine, otherwise I assume everything is my fault…
Just to say also how much I enjoy this blog! I think I came to it a month or two ago while obsessively researching stress fractures online (I did my first half-marathon in November, with a very painful stress fracture diagnosed a few weeks subsequently), and have since realized that tho my top goal for this year is to run my first marathon (more or less injury free) in the fall, I am also determined to learn how to do triathlons and become an excellent swimmer. I have followed a similar wake-up-at-age-34-and-realize-cost-of-sedentary-lifestyle-and-then-become-a-fitness-junkie trajectory, and it’s great to see what you’re talking about here–I have not yet tackled the cycling thing, don’t even have a bike (waiting to get one until I have really recovered one step more from the stress fracture, because otherwise I am going to overtrain again & the whole thing will start all over), but it all seems very exciting and appealing.
I have already written FAR too much, but more generally on etiquette I think the life-long fit people do not realize the extent to which the inexperienced/unconfident can be put off. I wrote about this recently on my blog, take a look if you’re interested (link’s below); but these things like, oh, I don’t know, the spray bottles on the top of the towel dispensers in the free weights area being kind of too high off the ground for most women to reach are really VERY ALIENATING! You feel like you should not be there, and having someone actually be friendly really makes a big difference, so I urge everyone reading here to just take that little extra minute to give encouragement to the newbies at the gym or out on the road or wherever…
http://jennydavidson.blogspot.com/2007/01/great-long-post-about-running-soul-and.html
9. Muscleman | February 25th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Thanks for your post - I’m always on the lookout for stunning breaches of gym etiquette. I experienced so many ridiculous incidents in the gym that I created a blog about it.
10. noelryan | February 26th, 2007 at 4:59 am
One breach, one not so breach:
1) For some reason, people in my gym think is ok to get straight out of the shower and walk to their lockers without stopping to towel down. Not only do you get a trail of water across the changing rooms like a snail, but then the area around the locker becomes a small lake. The number times I have pulled one of my gyms socks, put my foot down and found my foot has become as wet as a sponge!! GRRR!
2) For some reason, alot of the men in my gym have taken to drying themselves with a hairdryer, rather than a towel. Not sure if they have forgotten their towels (use a t-shirt!) or have really sensitive skin (then moisturise!) but it looks weird seeing a guy blow-dry his legs!
11. zappoman | February 26th, 2007 at 9:10 am
I totally agree about the hair dryer thing… that’s just plain weird!
12. sheba | February 27th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Brad… I thought you were leaving locks on lockers… then if they typcially loan locks they shouldn’t be giving you a hard time.
Jenny said… “Those XX-XX-XX locks are only suitable for kids who still have hyperactive memory things going down”
I teach middle school and I can not tell you how may times a day kids need to go to the office and get their locker combination again… they have more hormones than memory right now so they don’t do so good on remembering their combinations.
I agree with you also Jenny about the women/ newbies feeling intimidated… I hate going to the gym still because it takes me a lot of effort to do only a few machines and I am always afraid I am being laughed at. & god forbid that someone has LEFT HEAVY weights on a machine that I can’t change off. (that is a huge Etiquette thing, I think)
13. MTR | March 1st, 2007 at 9:26 am
Excellent post, especially about the feeling of so many fit people that they are somehow more entitled to the gym.
14. Saturday « John run&hellip | March 1st, 2007 at 9:46 pm
[…] Ramones - “What I Like About You”) Just had a great read of Zappoman’s Gym Etiquette posting today. He made an interesting observation about how it’s very easy for gyms (and fitness […]
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