What is Up with People Refusing Request to Work In?

People who sit on machines using their phones in between sets wasting time need to be refunded and thrown out

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But then almost all gyms would go out of business.

People on phones irritate the shit out of me too. You can tell when they’re logging data and when they’re down a TikTok rabbit hole without consideration of others’ time.

In this case I have no problem being a gym asshole. I like asking if they’re going to lift or watch tv. They either move and mutter some bullshit or get snarkier so it’s a catch 22.

Leg press is tough because you’d have to physically move someone being obstinate which would likely be a gym ban, but I have grabbed a spare barbell and “shared” deadlift platforms & hopped under a squat bar once someone racked it.

If gym management isn’t going to enforce common sense and create an everyone for himself scenario instead, I have no problem challenging the new status quo.

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Ask:
“How many sets do you have left?”

Followed by:
“You mind if i work in bro?”

People usually dont want to say “no” more than once. Often times, they will up and leave within a set or two, even when they say they’ve got 8 sets left or some bullshit.

It helps if you can warm up with their working weight.

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That’s pretty much exactly what I’ve done in all of these cases.

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Ban phone zombie pukes

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No gyms enforce phone etiquette. Cunt mfs

Phone zombie dildos

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I go to what you would probably call and power lifting gym and this would absolutely not be a problem at my gym. If I ask someone if they have many sets left, they will pretty much always say, do you want to work in.

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Is this a parody? I really hope so. Because as much as I think people hogging equipment are assholes, in this situation, you are absolutely the asshole.

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Does this mean you mumble it to yourself? You might want to say it out loud, otherwise people could think you sound like

or a

or even a

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I’ll take “Shit that never happened for $600, Alex”

Define “an appropriate manner” without using the words “appropriate” or “manner” please.

TBH, sometimes I scroll Reddit or something just to give myself a break. I do timed rest periods, and most gym sessions, I just don’t even look at my phone (I use a separate workout timer gadget for timing). With the timed sets, sometimes I am just spent after a tougher exercise (out of breath and feeling mentally spent). I feel like going home, but those few minutes scrolling refresh me it seems. I don’t do this between sets, and I don’t do it while occupying in demand equipment.

Another reason I’ll do some scrolling is to avoid being creepy TBH. Sometimes it’s tough to not check out the ladies when I am just resting between sets. A bit of scrolling distracts me.

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Yeah, I agree with this. If you lift you have an understanding and interest in anatomy like many of us do, so I’m always checking people out and trying to see body shapes, what lifts they do, different techniques, musculature, joint fluxuation, etc.

I had to learn how to be subtle and break observations into seconds. Got a lot of phone numbers, mostly guys, when I looked at them around the minute mark.

Ironically, when I try to encourage people to go to the gym and they feel self-conscious, I’ll tell them “Don’t worry, everyone there is looking at themselves, not at you.”

The hypocrisy.

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In the 6th decade of me working out in a gym, I can attest that gym etiquette has drastically changed. I am lucky to have had my competitive years in gyms that held to what is now ancient gym etiquette. Some aspects of the old etiquette respected the old “dime holding up a dollar” understanding.

Now everyone sees themselves as a dollar. It is what it is. But even if it still stood as etiquette, in my latter years I am the dime holding up a dollar. And I honor that today, as I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t.

As to phones in the gym. It is one of the best innovations in technology, that I really wish I had in my competitive days. It is a tool I use for every set: the stop watch as a timer.

And to video of lifts: 80% of the people I see trying to squat should video how comical their attempts at squatting are, especially the taller “squatters.”

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I agree wholeheartedly with this and I used and still use my phone every training session. I have countless videos of training sets from my powerlifting days and I still use my phone to log all my training.

That said, I’d guess that the large majority of people on their phones at the gyms I now end up at are not using their phones for anything training related except perhaps listening to music. Of course, there is no way to know and I’m making assumptions based on what I see them doing. I’m sure a huge part of this – and the issue that led me to start this thread – is that I no longer train at a gym that caters to serious lifters. So perhaps I need to ease up given where I’ve chosen to lift when I go to the gym.

In fact, in the 1960’s and '70’s most all weight rooms catered to serious lifters and never the general public. No one in those days opened a weight room (gym) to make money. They did so, primarily, because they loved the esoteric quest.

I credit Pumping Iron as the pivot point of public acceptance of weight training for the general public. Though you must also credit sports that at about the same time finally realized that weights didn’t “make you muscle bound.”

The public was ready to fork over the big bucks. In the 1970’s my gym dues were $10 per month. Quit coming to the gym? Save $10 a month. The corporate gyms were selling contracts, hoping the new members would tell all their friends and then never darken the doors of the gym again. I wonder what percent of the gym members of the corporate gym that I attend pay dues, but rarely workout there.

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True. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

Planet Fitness does not have enough equipment or space to effectively suit the number of members they have. Their business model only works if most of their members don’t show up.
I’m sure they are not the only gym like this.

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Thats why I take a month off in January. Stick with the home gym, visit family, do outdoorsey stuff, just be a lazy sack of shit. After that, it’s fine to go back.

But yeah, those year-long contracts are most of the revenue

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I take the opposite approach.

I urinate on the weights and equipment (not the cardio stuff - they can use that) to mark territory and let them know they aren’t welcome here.

Doesn’t work, gym is busy year round since covid came and went. My theory is that malls are dead and gyms are always full of people. It’s the new mall for teenagers with absentee parents, so the kids just show up to hang out and cause drama. Why else would they be lifting in flip flops, PJ bottoms, a Jesus chain, and no headphones?

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