An Open Letter To People At The Gym

and 8 simple ways to be a better person

My Friends in Fitness,

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What is gym etiquette? What is it that makes normal human decency inadequate as soon as the spandex goes on? Shouldn't the same rules of polite co-existing suffice?

You don't have to live in a heavily-populated city to appreciate the difficulty in sharing a common space with strangers. Gyms are no exception: the gym is a common space where people do very personal things. For example, butt exercises. Few things can make a person feel as vulnerable as butt exercises.

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As anyone who has ever done butt exercises with an audience could tell you, the gym is a sensitive environment where people are as likely to get an exercise high as they are to feel paralyzingly uncomfortable. To make butt exercises less weird, it's important to actively respect one another and the gym environment. Exhibiting respect improves everyone's experience, and can prevent chemical-induced confrontations.

Not only are gym-goers working on improving themselves (and feeling way exposed), they are pumped up so hard on caffeine, pre-workout, and adrenaline that when the weights haven't be re-racked, it makes people like me want to Hulk smash every god damn skinny-calved asshole who thinks that lifting the 45lb plate back onto the rack would somehow make his chest workout less effective.

Though in many instances exercise can be a meditative, soothing practice, it can also quickly turn into a satanic rage under the right conditions of the human tendency to be self-centered pricks.

I have taken it upon myself to begin the long and tedious process of educating the general public on basic gym etiquette. By following these 8 simple rules, you can play an active role in creating a positive gym atmosphere, make fewer enemies, and make it through a workout without getting throat-punched.

To help you be less of an asshole, here are 8 simple rules:

1. Don't be a selfish prick.

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2. Re-rack your weights.

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If you can't lift the 45lb plates off the barbell to put them back where they belong, you don't deserve to be using them in the first place.

3. You don’t own anything.

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Lose the delusion that your towel is going to stop me from using the squat rack.

4. It’s not sex.

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Ssure, exercise is often coupled with sex (you can burn x number of calories during sex! exercising will improve your sex life! if you exercise you'll be as hot as Karlie Kloss and have more sex, probably!) but if you can't put weights up without making bedroom sounds, I'm going to go ahead and assume that you've never gotten around to being invited into the bedroom.

5. Wrap it up.

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I don't know why this is such a serious thing for me, but if you have long hair, tie that shit back. Are you kidding me? What are you doing that is so chill that your bangs in your eyes DOESN'T bother you? Not only should you know that we are all judging you, but it's infinitely distracting to be thinking about your hair and whether there's some ratio of hair style to ease of sleep with, instead of thinking about not smacking myself with a 5lb dumbbell.

6. Do not approach the animals.

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My best friend is, for lack of a better description, the hottest woman I've ever met in my whole life. On a daily basis, she texts me about the gym-goers, personal trainers, gym staff, random strangers, and passerby who approach her in the middle of her workout to "correct" her form or hit on her or both. Dudes…cut it out. This is not the time, for so so many reasons. Firstly, can you see that she's working out? She's here to WORK OUT. Guess where you can hit on her. Later. At the bar. Where she will go with her gal pals and where she will actually exhibit minimal interest in your banal small talk in hopes of getting a free drink, which you will absoultely buy her. But right now at the gym you're going to get a very angry woman telling you to fuck off and when she sees you at the bar tonight she'll whisper to her friends that you're a limp dick.

7. Be nice.

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Being at the gym is hard. It's hard to find motivation and energy for self-improvement, especially when we're constantly surrounded by idealized visions of "perfection." The last thing that we need is to get confronted with some jackass monopolizing a machine, wacking off to the reflection of himself.

8. NO COUNTRY MUSIC EVER.

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This may actually be the most important rule. In fact, your music should never be audible beyond your own earballs, and if songs about wagon wheels and butterflies get you pumped, that is your business.

Go forth. Run. Lift. Sweat. Don't let butt exercises make you feel weird. Re rack your dang weights. Let it be the positive experience that it's supposed to be. Be nice, work hard, and don't you dare let anyone know that you listen to country music at 6:00AM.

Love,

KW