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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have a moan about the gym?

44 replies

Thisnamechanger · 30/05/2018 21:14

I'm normally a very live and let live person but my god the weights room at my gym tests my patience!

It's almost always all blokes in there and some of them are just so RUDE....shoving you out the way when you're trying to lift... aggressively lip syncing to rap music...air boxing...and mostly the bloody roaring noises and then droping their (obviously much too heavy weights) either back onto the machine with a huge crashing sound or virtually throwing them on the floor. It's like they're a caveman who's just slain a buffalo and dragged if home. It makes everyone jump out of their skin! It's so unecessarily agressive and intimidating...I feel like I'm going to have my foot broken any second by a flying dumbbell! Angry

OP posts:
FASH84 · 30/05/2018 21:17

I go to a gym with a women only room, it's bliss, well equipped, plenty of space, range of equipment and I don't get other people's sweat flicked on me. I'm usually very pro uni sex spaces but some men at the gym are gross physically and in terms of their rude aggressive behaviour, some of it must be steroid enhanced I'm sure....

ThistleAmore · 30/05/2018 21:18

Idiots.

I'm lucky enough to be a member of a great gym, who take their female clients very seriously, and they wouldn't put up with this sh*t.

I'm very into Olympic lifting, and am passive aggressive enough to really enjoy casually strolling over to a bench or platform and press/lift the weight that the last sad fcker left on the bar, quietly and with ease, while they're grunting at the mirror and eyeballing me, but that's just me, because I'm an asehole.

Can you have a word with the management? Presumably you're paying the same subs as the twats (and also leaving plates/free weights lying around is a massive H&S risk).

HoundOfTheBasketballs · 30/05/2018 21:19

I feel your pain OP. The throwing down of the weights and the aggressive shouting and grunting really get my back up.

Although the noises always remind me of when I was giving birth to DS and the midwife politely pointed out to me that making lots of noise only wasted energy I could be using to actually deliver him! I often feel like going over to one of these lads in his muscle vest with his MASSIVE bottle of water and telling him if he piped down a bit, he might have the energy to lift a bit more! Grin

Lottapianos · 30/05/2018 21:20

I hear you OP. It's all a bit pathetic. There are signs on the wall in my gym that say stuff like 'dont drop weights on the floor, put them back on the rack when you're done, no grunting, no screaming, no perving'. And yes it's always men making a scene in the weights area, women lifters just find a quiet spot and get on with it

RJnomore1 · 30/05/2018 21:21

You're going to the wrong gym.

I love free weights and I've never been in a gym where the men behave like that. Quite the opposite in fact they've always been very helpful and encouraging.

I'd definitely shop around. There's bound to be a place near you that isn't full of arseholes.

ThistleAmore · 30/05/2018 21:21

@Houndofthe Basketballs

I often feel like going over to one of these lads in his muscle vest with his MASSIVE bottle of water and telling him if he piped down a bit, he might have the energy to lift a bit more!

GrinGrinGrin

Original poster
Thisnamechanger · 30/05/2018 21:25

I'm very into Olympic lifting, and am passive aggressive enough to really enjoy casually strolling over to a bench or platform and press/lift the weight that the last sad fcker left on the bar, quietly and with ease, while they're grunting at the mirror and eyeballing me*

You're my actual hero.

I'm pretty weak but because of my hobbies I can do loads and loads of hanging straight leg lifts in a row. The boys are really overprotective of their stupid pull up handles so I nip in when they're wasting time shoving eachother etc. and watch them get miffed when keep going for ages.

OP posts:
ThistleAmore · 30/05/2018 21:28

@Thisnamechanger, you're very kind - and I love you, because it is my ambition to get better at body-weight pull ups!

Can just about do two (grunty!) ones ATM, aiming for five by the end of July. Grin

Original poster
Thisnamechanger · 30/05/2018 21:31

They're not pull ups..it's like where you do a long arm hang and then lift your legs straight up in front til you're a right angle....does that makes sense? Hurts your tummy! I do trapeze and stuff so am generally not that strong but have good core. Sometime I add on some upside down sit ups just to piss them off (even though they are PAIN) Angry

OP posts:
ThistleAmore · 30/05/2018 21:33

Oooft, that sounds even harder!

I am IN AWE of your trapeze skills...I can lift stuff, but I am no gymnast (I can't even do a handstand, TBH!).

Original poster
Thisnamechanger · 30/05/2018 21:35

Tbf I can't either, they are ludicrously hard! Static trapeze is very lifty Grin Flying trapeze isn't that hard physically it's just fucking terrifying!

OP posts:
DandelionAndBedrock · 30/05/2018 21:36

I want enough muscles to piss people off at the gym Grin.

I was on a machine with my PT, and he went off to find extra weights. Some muscle vested man swept up to him, pointed at me and said (to my PT) “you done with that?” I glared, my PT said “she is literally still using it. You need to wait.”...then kept me there for the next 20 minutes until the guy gave up.

StrawberrySquash · 30/05/2018 21:41

Throwing weights down means you are not releasing with control. A missed opportunity to develop those muscles, chaps. The classes I do the down is as controlled as the up.

RJnomore1 · 30/05/2018 21:45

The down is more important than the up.

I do negatives sometiyto improve my lifting - controlled lowering of weights I can't lift up yet with a spotter to lift them with me.

I hate bloody vanity lifting.

Original poster
Thisnamechanger · 30/05/2018 22:09

“you done with that?” I glared, my PT said “she is literally still using it.

Ha! Excellent.

OP posts:
LighthouseSouth · 30/05/2018 22:17

OP i hear you
It's one of the reasons I gave up on the gym
I do really miss the elliptical and the rower but now have weights at home and do cardio outside, def a challenge in winter.

Your trapeze skills sound amazing!

There's a nicer gym a bus ride away but I don't want to add on the journey time. The two within walking distance are full of the wankers you describe.

justilou1 · 31/05/2018 00:21

I wear a t shirt to the gym that says “Go Away” in about ten languages. Not putting tickets on myself, I am 46, overweight and have had twins. It’s obvious that I’m not there to chat, pick up, waste time, etc.... I got followed around by a guy that took great delight in saying “Are you done with that?” no matter what I was using. I asked if he’d been to his doctor as his roids had either affected his vision or his cognitive function. I then said loudly enough so that everyone could hear it that if were to continue playing this stupid game that I would call the police and have everyone in the gym sign a witness statement. He fucked off pretty quickly muttering about women under his breath, and I filled in a report at the front desk, made a formal complaint about him and asked to be escorted to my car, despite it being lunch time.

namenotknown · 31/05/2018 09:50

I have to agree with you, Thisnamechanger, it is rude. Although, I never been pushed out the way because I do weights in the empty studio at the gym. I will stand at the back of the room facing the mirrors so I can check my form. On many occasions there is always someone walk in and start exercising in front of me. The studio area is massive and the mirrors are all along one wall, so there is plenty of space for several people. I have also seen a few men take their tops of while posing in the mirrors, taking selfies, that annoying too.

Also my gym has been refurbished and there is a couple of boxing bags there so and now every man think they are Rocky or they are bouncing around air boxing. Bloody annoying pratts.

As for the weights machines, I hate it when people don't control the machine and allow the weights to constantly bang. They not getting a workout if they can't control the machines.

Sorry rants over. Grin

Heroo · 31/05/2018 09:53

I'm very into Olympic lifting, and am passive aggressive enough to really enjoy casually strolling over to a bench or platform and press/lift the weight that the last sad fcker left on the bar, quietly and with ease, while they're grunting at the mirror and eyeballing me, but that's just me, because I'm an asehole.

I think I love you just a little bit!

Original poster
Thisnamechanger · 31/05/2018 13:24

I hate it when people don't control the machine and allow the weights to constantly bang.

I absolutely hate it...it's SO bloody loud it makes me flinch!

OP posts:
Luxembourgmama · 31/05/2018 13:33

justilou1 OMG I need that tshirt. My bitchy resting face isn't enough to dissuade the 'helpful' comments about my workout.

Freaklikemeee · 31/05/2018 13:38

Awful. I only use the pool at my gym but I can hear the cavemen weight-lifting types grunting and roaring when I'm in the changing room.

Don't let them intimidate you.

YouTheCat · 31/05/2018 13:45

People who constantly throw weights down are arseholes.

Then there's the idiots in the boxing room that has big signs up saying not to kick the bags. They always kick them. I presume they can't read.

I don't mind the grunters - gives me something to laugh at. We had one who made sex noises when using resistance machines (not even on a high weight). He doesn't do it anymore as I think someone might have had a word.

Justilou, I'm a 48 year old mother of twins (now grown up), am over weight (a lot). There was a staring man at the gym a few months ago. Used to do one class but just sit ogling women the rest of the time (not me, just the young, fit ones). I haven't seen him in a month so I'm hoping he got banned.

Tbh, the gym I go to not often enough isn't too bad. Most people are just there to get on with it. except that one woman who admires herself in the mirrors, taking selfies and then looking around to see who's noticed her .

PurpleStarInCashmereSky · 31/05/2018 13:46

Urgh. This is why I almost never venture out of the women only room in my gym. Have never had issues in there even when busy. Women just work their routine around what is available.

I can hear the bangs of weights coming from the main room. There are big signs with rules including don't drop weights. They have whiteboards with the amount of people banned that month. Its always at least a few.

iklboo · 31/05/2018 13:46

At DH's gym the regulars make a point of putting tools like this straight. It's not that kind of gym (you know, the kind that's full of 'leg day skippers' who look like Foghorn Leghorn).