To be upset at being sworn at by a man at the gym

[HuffandPuffandPuff]

So I’m a long time member of one of those chain 24 hour gyms.

Never had any issues or seen any before apart from the standard men asking people how many sets they have left on machines. Often big groups of men but never really intimidating. Standard gym culture but I’ve never felt unsafe. It’s a friendly vibe.

This morning I was using a machine. I was doing 4 sets of 5 as I’d increased the weight. Was on my phone between sets. I’d done one set and I usually do about 30 seconds rest. I was checking my phone as I’ve been messaging tradespeople for a house job. A man comes up and says “how many do you have left?” I said 3. He then says “no how many facebooks do you have left?” I looked at him puzzled and took my headphones out and said “sorry?” And he said “you’re just on Facebook. How long are you going to be?” in quote an angry way. He then said “can I just use the machine?” I said no. He then said along the lines of “you’re just on your fucking phone just fuck off” at which point I got up and said “don’t speak to me that way” and he told me to fuck off home. He was twice my size and his tone was quite aggressive and he was in my personal space.

I was so shocked, I ran into the staff office and began to cry. His friend followed me in and said “come out you can use a different machine. I’ve spoken to him.” I said no I’m waiting in here to speak to staff as that wasn’t acceptable and he tried to persuade me to come out. Some staff finally came in and took a statement. They said it was unacceptable but just said they’ll speak to him and then log it. They walked me out and the man was with a group of his friends in the machine I’d been on.

I still feel really shaken up. I’m scared to go back to the gym now because a. What if he’s mad that I reported it and b. I’ll now be known as the woman who ran into the office crying.

I also can’t help but think he wouldn’t have spoken to me like that if I was a man or a young attractive woman.

These replies are wild
im part of two gyms and in each literally everyone rests between sets and looks at their phone.
This man sounds fuckin insane and a danger to women.

The response by the gym is no surprise, there is a reluctance to suspend membership for almost any reason unless the police were involved, which they would never be for what happened.

just looked into tabata, this sounds like such a good workout!

Do you go to the gym and if so do you take rests or just exercise full out the entire time?

@Flamingojune that's not how it works. You have to rest sometimes for a few minutes at a time if you're lifting to failure at very low reps.

OP I think you're going to get a lot of replies from women who don't lift and don't understand that rest between sets is a vital part of the workout.

I lift and also know how to share

I'm actually quite shocked at the number of idiots posting who literally don't seem to understand the concept of resting between sets, but seem to feel educated enough to comment on gym etiquette.

As has been stated, if anything, probability is that 30 seconds is too short for you, so you are literally spending less time on the machine than you "should" be doing from that POV.

As long as you aren't taking pictures or videos of people I cant see what the problem is of checking your phone during a timed rest period. It's completely inconsequential for anyone else. Obviously if you are sitting scrolling past a usually "acceptable" rest period then thats an issue - but you are doing the exact opposite.

I think anyone would be intimidated by someone aggressively telling them to f**k off too.

I occasionally ask people how often they have left just to plan what to do next, as I have a specific list of things to do each session. I would always ask politely and make it clear it is not a problem whatever the answer. What this man did is awful behaviour.

To summarise; You are not being unreasonable and approx 50% of the posts here are completely wrong and should be ignored.

I've started using a gym fairly recently and my god people stand there chatting, sit on there phones, all while on the gym equipment.

I'm sure this wasn't the case here OP and go back into the gym with your head held high.

Because a man who will swear aggressively at a woman will of course be great at sharing.

I think the man was clearly rude, but I would have been seriously pissed off too if someone was stopping me from using a machine because they were on their phone!

some people here would have a heart attack if they saw my training plan - depending what I’m doing I can have up to 3 minutes (properly timed in the program app) between sets! I think some people don’t appreciate that importance of rest depending what your doing.

I think we can all agree that the bloke was a giant dick.

But it’s absolutely WILD that people think that just resting and waiting between sets is unacceptable. The idea that you have to be on your phone because it’s impossible to just wait for the 90 seconds is the issue here.

And the issue is that 90 seconds often turns into much longer as it’s easy to lose track of time. We all know this to be true.

Obvs updating your workout stats etc is a different matter because it makes more sense to do that as you go along.

Are people really saying that they can’t enjoy using the gym unless they’re scrolling social media between sets?? That’s a pretty sad indictment of where we’re at. There’s music in the gym, people have headphones on - but that’s not enough for the 90 seconds?? 😳

It’s a bit of an over reaction. All you had to say was your using the machine and you’ll be finished when your finished. The fact that you let him have his way and have the machine will mean he’s likely to do it again. Reporting it won’t help as the gym staff won’t do anything. They can’t exactly “tell him off”

I use my phone to time 1 minute in between sets. I also log them on the app on my phone and possibly change music. But unless someone was behind me they’d have no idea what I was looking at. How odd that this is considered rude.

I am a survivor of DA twice so being sworn at by a man is quite triggering for me.

There are million of reasons people use their phones while taking a rest break none of which include being on social media. I use my phone to log my reps and load, to calculate the load for the next set, to adjust my programming for the day if needs be, to check form videos. And I take minimum of two minutes rest between sets. You want to report me? Go ahead and make a full of yourself. But if you ask me nicely instead, I'll let you work in during my rest breaks and we can share like two normal people.

He was a bully and you should have given in to him. I know you tried to stand your ground.
At gyms ppl do stop to do things on their phone, change the song / find different music or whatever. There's not just one of that type of machine, he should wait or he can go on something else while he waits.

I do not attend the gym I do it at home.

Good luck whatever you decide

I would love to go to a female only gym and swimming pool, sick of men being so bloody entitled!
OP go in there with your head held high, I suspect he will watch himself now he knows he’s been reported.

No it won't but mine logs my workout for me. Yes I could do it manually, set an timer, use a calculator to decide what plates to put on my barbell but I pay for an app to do it all for me.

It's suggested that I rest for approx 1-5 minutes during sets depending on what I'm doing. In that time if I wish to scroll social media then I will do so. I will be done with the machine after my sets. If someone is polite then sure they can share but if someone is going to be a knob about it then I'm not going to go out of my way to be helpful.

There is nothing worse than someone hogging a machine when they aren't using it but before I went in all guns blazing I would give it at least 5 minutes to see if they were using it. If in that time they did a set then they are clearly using it so as annoying as it is I do something else. I would only ask to share if I really couldn't do anything else although I'm more likely to just go home and (maybe) pick it up the next day.

I can be a stroppy cow and I hate sharing at the gym but until I can buy my own private gym then that's what I have to do and I have to suck it up when someone is using something I want to because they are just as entitled as me (even though I wish they weren't!!)

He shouldn't sworn at you.

Bursting into tears seems like a big overreaction to someone tell you to fuck off.

No one has said that they cannot use the gym unless they're scrolling social media between sets, no idea where you got that from. However, it is obviously reasonable for OP to rest between sets, and I don't see what the issue is if she chooses to use social media in those rest periods.

This would only be with really heavy weights, not as a matter of course.

I do think many people don’t realise this as I see people taking long rests between sets with light weights

But ‘light’ is relative.

I can just about bench press 30kg, my 17-year-old nephew can manage 100kg.

I usually wait 1 minute between sets which feels about right.

Exactly this. OP in the wrong but aggressive man massively more in the wrong.