Bronan the Barbarian writes on something I’ve been thinking about lately. He laments the disgusting workout conditions across our nation’s gyms and provides a laundry list of suggestions including washing clothes, taking showers, and avoiding the weight room while contagious. He also writes:
4. Wipe down the machines! My cheap ass gym has one (!) cleaning bottle to be found in the entire weight room, so this may not always be possible. I walk around with a towel to keep my sweat from getting everywhere and protect myself from catching everyone else’s leprosy. If you have a cleaning station, wipe your nastiness off the benches and machines. If not, don’t forget to bring a (CLEAN) towel!
I hope you’ve learned a thing or two with my handy guide to gym hygiene. Go forth with your new knowledge and spread peace, love and the delightful aroma of soap throughout your chosen place of physical fitness!
This is a nudge effect. Within the past year I’ve moved and also switched YMCAs. My previous Y had cleaning bottles located on one table. Naturally, I didn’t wipe machines down. And I sweat a lot, but, no, I wasn’t going to walk back and forth to fetch a cleaning bottle after each set. And I wasn’t going to carry around a little towel with me either. I travel lightly.
But my new gym fixed that problem. It nudges gym rats to wipe down machines by placing cleaning bottles and towels at each machine. Crazy how that works. I’ve even found myself judging others who don’t wipe down the machines, though I will always and forever think that the people who wipe down machines *before* they use them are the biggest assholes in the world.
Related: Seinfeld dealt with peeing in the shower and not wiping down machines.
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My gym peeve is … well, I sincerely want the guy who is chewing gum loudly with his mouth open to choke on that gum and I will not give him the heimlich, LOL.
Who the fuck chews gum while lifting?
Well, if by your own admission you sweat all over the machines and didn’t clean up after yourself like a childish little pig (who can’t carry a provided towel?), it seems a bit hypocritical to then say those who clean the machine before using it are the biggest assholes. I doubt they enjoyed cleaning up your filth.
1. Do Crossfit.
2. Don’t use machines
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!
I’m not gonna lie, I don’t wipe down benches. I hasn’t really crossed my mind til now. I blame high school football lift sessions, where you get used to laying in other peoples sweat after they’re done.
I wipe the cardio machines before I work out (since too many people don’t bother after they sweat all over them) and again when I’m done, as a courtesy to those who follow me. I carry a towel with me so don’t usually leave the weight machines all sweaty, but do occasionally wipe one of those down as well. My current gym has paper towel dispensers and spray bottles at various spots on the walls (and three of them behind the final row of cardio machines) but they’re not as convenient in the weight section.
My gym peeve . . . other than the Negro noise music? Women. They’re either on the phone, chatting with friends, or flirting with the personal trainer. And they literally park themselves at a weight machine forever and have no concept of letting people work in sets during their interminable “rest” periods.
did you switch to the new one downtown?
Bill, being all serious.
Sheila,
I’ve honestly never seen that behavior among female gym goers. I know that’s a big stereotype of female patrons though. My biggest thing about women in the gym is that feminists will sometimes tout gym-going women as some evidence that women are just as into fitness and athletics as men. If women go to the gym as much as men, they’re not working out nearly as hard. The elliptical is the machine for women, and this is so because it is an easy machine. Other than that they’ll do hip aductor and some ab work (maybe). They seem to have the idea that if they just show up at the gym the pounds will melt off.
I generally don’t wipe down benches or resistance machines, just aerobic machines. But a week ago got a stye which I am just now getting under control, so it looks like I’ll be getting a little tougher on the cleaning.
That’s just another example of feminists insisting men and women are the same, just universalized Humans with a little different plumbing. Women are just as into fitness on average but they don’t need the same amount of equipment because they’re not trying to build as much muscle, so they can just watch what they eat and do cardio mostly, so less of them are in gyms and more running around the neighborhood. I see more really in shape men than women, but also more really out of shape and dangerously unhealthy men than women. As often, the bell curve is flatter and wider for men but the average works out pretty close.
you work out at the YMCA?
many in the manosphere, as benefactors of the arts, and as fans of “empowered womyn” have donated large portions of their paychecks to witness athletic events such as this…
I have the same complaint as Sheila, the loud techno music. I hate techno music. People can wear headphones if they want to listen to music.
What a load of BS. I see Bronan has been feminized as well.
My ***only*** concern in the gym is my workout. Period. I don’t care how clean the machines are, if girls train there, the other people, the goddamned music.
You need to be able to focus and block out anything immaterial to your objective. It’s an attitude that is worth more than just the gym. I walk into a gym to test my limits.
You tell me if this guy cares about the music, what’s going on outside of him, the lighting, etc etc etc: Tell me how clean the machines are.
for the record, i don’t disagree in any meaningful way with Bronan or find anything egregious about his post. i just wanted to riff on the lack of proximal squirt bottles. but Ryu wants to turn it into something.
The point is that the gym is a holy place for self improvement. Tell us how to raise our intensity level and to achieve our maximum potential. Tell us to how to crush our limits. That’s what we want to hear.
This is important, Chuck. It is everything and connects even to your positions. What do you hope to achieve in the gym? Do you *need* to be your best, or are you moderate? Riff to us about how you are going to achieve this.
I will help you if you wish. Your other readers here are not helping you and are encouraging weakness. Either personal excellence is a priority, or it is not.
I always wipe down benches I use afterwards, before too if the jackass in front of me didn’t wipe his down. My gym provides towels and it is no effort to carry a towel with me. I think the spray bottles are a bit overdoing it though, and kind of germ-phobic.
As for gym pet-peeves: Sheila is right on the money. There are dedicated gymgoer women (usually the 40+ crowd who want to actually not become fat hogs) who I have no beef with, but the teenage girls who show up are almost always on the phone, hogging machines, and generally being annoying obstructions.
That being said, I hate teenage guys and show-offs a lot more. Teen guys almost universally come in packs and begin lounging around machines in a quasi-use state. Do one set, shoot the shit with the bros for 2 minutes, swap off to the next guy, etc. The guy above that Ryu posted is one of the show offs who I hate. Shut the fuck up and work out, not everyone in the gym needs to hear about your hemorrhoids when doing a set.
I’m choosing to read Ryu’s posts as high satire. Well done sir
ryu,
as per my post, i don’t care all that much about the cleanliness of machines.
but since you’re being obtuse i’ll engage your argument.
so just treat the church like a pig sty with no regard for the sanctity of the place which is held as, as you described, holy? the most devout in that realm are also probably the most likely to try to uphold the condition of the church.
as for any of the other stuff you wrote, i’m in pretty good shape myself as are many people who do actually care about the cleanliness of gym machines. again, it’s not something that i only try to do if it is easy for me to do so. but many of those who do care a lot about it are able to focus heavily on their bodies – on their mission – while taking a scant second to think about whether or not the machines are clean. and if they happen to be bloggers and have some time to kill, they might rope off a quick blog post on the topic that has entered their mind. as usual, you turn nothing into something.
hahaha, Ryu wants to show you Booty Blasting WN style….there will be plenty of grunting and you won’t be able to sit for a week….
or you could just do this…
Zimmerman Sues.
I hope he gets millions.
i too am distressed by what sheila describes as “negro noise music” in the weight room. lifting heavy metal should be accompanied by listening to heavy metal. i want to hear pantera, not rihanna.
this negro noise music, on the other hand, i’d be ok with:
“….though I will always and forever think that the people who wipe down machines *before* they use them are the biggest assholes in the world.”
A germophobe-ophobe. Nice. Or, really, really ghey. Kind of sums up the whole post for me.
It hilarious what dudes will cling to in an effort to show how much of a “man” they are.
Ryu,
can you still skip cleaning if a negro used the equipment just before you?
“the loud techno music”
Do you mean hip-hop or current pop/dance? Techno is very white and it was most populat in the late 80s and through the 90s; dub step is what it evolved to today. Blacks aren’t into either, and in fact dub step kind of disturbs them.
There are a few black employees, but I don’t know if they are the ones who decide what we listen to. It seems it is usually some nondescript dance music that is playing. It isn’t terrible, just not what I would choose to listen to.
Chuck,
Women know a light workout isn’t going to melt pounds away. Most of us just aren’t motivated to work out any harder.
At my gym, there are two co-managers, one white and one black. I have to arrange my visits during those times when the white guy is there because otherwise I get a wonderful hour of non-stop hardcore ghetto rap blasting loud enough to drown out my headphones. The white co-manager’s music tastes aren’t exactly mine, but at least his music choices are tolerable, and he doesn’t blare it at 11.
Just one more little way diversity is our strength.
My gym is in a community center, basically an old junior high, that has mostly people who wander in from the local neighborhood. A lot of old ladies and middle age guys and teenagers playing hoops. There is no music, but the equipment is good, even if there isn’t a lot of it.
I’m referring to ghetto rap – or even “mainstream” rap – anything with no tune or melody, and lots of semi-literate rhyming negro slang, chanted by black males. I don’t have a particular beef with “techno,” but I couldn’t work out to it. I have my own mix of oldies that I like to listen to and with beats that make me work harder (“Victoria” by the Kinks, or “Back in the USSR” by the Beatles). I even have some songs from my older son’s various White Euro metal/opera rock/celtic groups. I don’t even have a problem with older black music – the Pointer Sisters’ “Jump” is a favorite for getting my heart rate up. The vast majority of gym patrons bring their own music and headphones, but I resent having to turn mine up to deafening levels to drown out what the gym is playing – and I’m subjected to it (as well as stupid feminist tv) in the changing room.
When I’m lifting (and yes, I actually lift – not pretend with 5 lb dumbbells) I don’t really care; my music is more background noise in my ears to drown out whatever else is going on around me. I don’t have too much trouble with women in the free-weight section – those that are there regularly usually know what they’re doing. However, plenty of women use the weight machines, often with a trainer in tow – always a non-White male. The other day I could not use the lying hamstring curl machine because a trainer had a woman on it, and they’d do a set, talk for 5-6 minutes, do another set, and so forth. I literally did 3-4 sets each on about 6 different machines and went back to do my final 20 minutes of cardio, and they were still yapping.
Don’t go to a gym ever, at all. Buy some plywood, horse stall mats, wood glue, and screws and make yourself a platform. Buy some squat stands to put on the edge of it. Buy a barbell with enough whip to powerclean but not too much to squat. Buy some weights. You’ll be out about $500 but you’ll never have to deal with another annoying bro again and the filthy conditions. Don’t use machines. They don’t do anything anyways.
Been working out in my decent home gym for over 20 years. Pull-up bar in the garage. Dips and wind sprints in the park a half mile away. Occasionally, I miss the camaraderie and socializing from my gym days.