Proper Gym Etiquette

I've had a gym membership for a few years now and the lack of etiquette and rudeness seems to get worse and worse. When did the gym become your living room or another room in YOUR house. People camp out on some of the benches and leg machines like they are Barcaloungers.

We all pay for our memberships on a monthly basis, so in my mind we are all renting the equipment and the space. But apparently some of the members were able to buy certain pieces of equipment and camp out by it feeling it's theirs. I never saw that in my contract. Damn! Missed that opportunity. 

But NO! The equipment is not for sale. It is supposed to be shared by all. 

But of course you are going to have people who believe their workout is more important than everyone else's. And it probably is, to them at least.

I HATE THE GYM

I hate the gym. But, it is a necessary evil. All of that testosterone in one room can't be good.

The problem starts with the initial contract you sign. In the first gym I joined down here in Mexico, the rules were clearly laid out. There was a rule about being loud and vocal when lifting, be it weights or machines. The new clients just gloss over the rules and since the trainers or managers never really enforce the rules it becomes a free for all. The contract also states that you may not use cellphones while using a particular machine or set of weights. Also not enforced. Clean the machines and weights after use. Not enforced.

What is it with these people? The machines, benches and weights are thought of as a part of their living rooms at home. The fucking kids gather around a machine, pushing, punching, and joking with each other like they are on recess at school. I pay monthly for this and I don't want to have to deal with these immature brats falling all over themselves and the machines.

I have literally seen people do one set of about 8 reps, stop, get up, grab their phone, sit back down and start texting. WHAT THE FUCK IS SO IMPORTANT? CAN IT WAIT?

And the selfies, THE SELFIES. LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME! I'm in the gym.

I guess cellphones now have this magnetic piece of shit thing that allows people to just stick their phone on whatever machine they are using. No more pockets or sticking the phone up on the top of the machine. The magnet just holds it there until they are done with their 8 reps and ready to start scrolling or texting again.

When did people stop considering that there were OTHER PEOPLE around. Has it always been this way or have I been in hibernation. I used to go to the YMCA with my dad as a teenager and I don't remember all the mirrors. For that matter I don't remember the machines either.

WHAT'S WITH THE MIRRORS?

These people stand in front of and walk around these mirrors unabashedly flexing as if they had achieved some form of muscle growth not ever seen by another human. And these are Mexicans. Not known for their highly sculpted bodies, but more for their COKE and TACO consuming bodies. Belly is the word of the day. This is an overweight society. And these men and women are proud of their bellies. Not at all like the Acapulco cliff diving bodies of the '70s.

NOW, WHAT'S WITH THE MUSIC 

Most of the customers or clients are using ear buds and listening to their own music. Does the gym really feel they need to provide music to the patrons? Apparently they do....because they do. And don't even think about calling it music. How about we call it crap. It's one less letter than music so we save there, but please don't call it music. 

A LITTLE BIT ON HOW MUSIC IS CREATED

First, you need a laptop that costs more than your car and a subscription to approximately 47 plugins you don’t understand.

Then you open your DAW and spend three hours scrolling through drum samples, because apparently choosing between “Modern Trap Kick 47” and “Modern Trap Kick 48” is the creative process now and the key to success.

Next, you make a beat by dragging four loops onto a timeline. Congratulations—you are officially a producer, Quincy.

You record the vocals, preferably while standing six inches from a microphone in a bedroom closet surrounded by blankets or egg cartons, whichever is easier. If you can’t sing, don’t worry. There’s Auto-Tune. If you still can’t sing, there’s Melodyne. If you still sound terrible after that, simply call it “experimental.”

Then comes mixing, which mostly involves turning things up until they sound louder than the previous thing. Bass? Louder. Kick? Louder. Vocals? Louder. Everything clipping? Perfect. It’s called warmth.

Finally, you send the song to a mastering engineer, who raises the volume another 14%, because apparently the goal of modern music is to make sure your headphones die before you do. 

Nah, just joking about the mastering engineer. There is software specifically for that. The theory behind mastering is that your shit just needs to be as loud as the other shit out there. Software will do the trick.

That's how music is made. Live instruments? You're kidding right?

MUSIC VOLUME IN THE GYM

And who decides what the volume level will be for the day. Sunday is pure perfection. Volume is low, as is the volume of people. So you can bet I'm there on Sundays. Monday is pure HELL! I DON'T NEED MUSIC TO WORKOUT!!! I need to be able to hear myself think. I'm a thinker. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. all the same. The only thing that changes is the volume. Why that changes I don't know. It must be a free for all for the master volume. Tape the number on the volume fader or highlight it and walk away. Don't we have masking tape or highlighter pens for that? Or maybe those products never made it to Mexico.

Oh, and you can even get free haircuts by some man or woman who claims to be a hairstylist. After all no licensing necessary down here. But probably they are just claiming to be pros so they can get a free membership.

I get that the gym is trying to be high-tech so we have apps on our phones and upon entering the gym our phone is scanned by a little scanner on the counter near the entry. But there is only one and half the time it doesn't work. So it creates a line of people waiting to get in. Can you just buy another scanner to get things moving more smoothly rather than a line of people waiting?

The soap dispenser in the men's bathroom has been broken for over two months. Easy fix? Guess not. Are soap dispensers really that expensive? And on the subject of bathrooms, they smell like raw sewage. A very common smell down here, so I guess it doesn't bother people.

Now none of these last few paragraphs are about proper gym etiquette but they are about proper gym maintenance. If people are going to be paying for monthly memberships, at least have the place in working order. But as I've said many times, Welcome to Mexico, where the broken stays broken and the smells keep smellin'.

One thing the management and gym employees could do is enforce the rules. I you have in the contract no cellphones while using the equipment, then enforce the rule. The only time I witnessed any enforcement was when a really stupid dude came in with a tripod, put his cellphone on it and started doing a video of himself, and of the unfortunate other people who just happened to be in range which the contract clearly stipulates, no video filming in the gym. Respect people's privacy.

One of the managers came over to him and was probably saying to him that you can't do that here. She left and he kept right on filming. She came back and it seemed like he was asked to leave. Why can't you do that with all of the rule breakers? Because you don't want to risk losing any money. So it's basically a free for all for the members.

I have some pictures of which I had to surreptitiously take as I myself was breaking the rules, but fuck it. There are no rules in Mexico. So I'm posting the pictures of these idiots and their texting workouts.

That's all I got. Leave a comment on the comment page if I can figure out how to create one.