Have you ever been to a gym where you are so disqusted you don' t want to train before you clean up a bit? I have, lots of them, it's not fun, it's not pretty and it does not have to be that way. Every person who uses a gym whether it be someone's home gym they open up to you to train at, a commercial gym where rules are posted everywhere for members to follow, a garage gym or an industrial gym.
I have trained at gyms where people leave their garbage everywhere, empty water bottles, chalk every where, leave their equipment and gear there, don't put plates back etc, etc. I wonder what these people's houses would look like when I think about it, do you do this at home ?
We take pride in our home gym's, we have two of them, our "Kettlebell Studio" and our "Powerlifting Gym" and we are continually trying to make them better, bigger, more equipment and cleaner, today we purchased carpets for under the brand new bench and monolift, yesterday we doubled our Kettlebell inventory, someday our dream is to open a bigger gym.
We continue to make our gym user friendly, clean and safe and hope that everyone using it appreciates the time, effort and money that goes into having it.
We are fortunate because for the most part we have a great crew of people that comes to train here, and it is a hand selected group not open to the public. Having said that sometimes there still needs to be etiquette, manners, rules to coming into someone's house and being part of a club, a team, or being taught a class. Here are the top rules I would follow if I was to train at someone else's gym, home gym or commercial gym.
1. Always bring indoor shoes, take your outdoor shoes off at the door and not walk across someone's floors with your dirty wet shoes on. Even in the gym on the rubber flooring we don't need dirt and water, indoor shoes always.
2. Be on time, when a class or training session starts at a certain time be on time. I understand circumstances come up, people have commitments, kids, traffic etc but be respectful of the group you are training with, your lateness distracts the others, and puts everyone behind.
3. Unload and put your plates and dumbbells back when you are done and before you leave. Don't just train and leave, leaving 8 plates on the belt squat machine for the next person to unload, or plates on the squat bar or bench bar, a place for every plate and every plate in it's place.
4. Don't leave your garbage laying around, I have been to so many gyms where people just leave it laying everywhere, there are garbage cans everywhere, use them.
5. Stay to help out your training team members. Just because you are done doesn't mean everyone is done. Help spot, unload their plates, take video's, it's a team environment where everyone should help together, coming to train yourself then leave without helping takes the T right out of TEAM.
6. Don't invite every Tom, Dick & Harry you know to come train, don't bring extra people without checking first. You don't bring extra people to your commercial gym without memberships, private gym's space is limited, training is exclusive to invited or paying members so don't assume it's ok without asking first pretty sure this is a rule with most gyms.
7. Respect the equipment, most is bullet proof but some is not and understand that some items do wear out. Be mindful of that and that someone has to pay for all that equipment you are using.
8. Chalk, let's talk about chalk and baby powder. We all use it, it can be contained and kept to a minimal if used properly, don't need to spray it all over the entire gym, keep it over the chalk bucket and baby powder on your legs.
9. Don't leave your gear bag or water bottle/protein shaker on top of the equipment someone else may want to use that equipment and water stains on bench pads ect sucks.
10) Last but not least and my biggest pet peeve, don't drop the weights when you deadlift, you can't drop it from the top in competition you shouldn't do it in training, not to mention there are neighbours who have to put up with the banging. Home gym's floors aren't as resilient as commercial gyms to dropping that much weight may crack the cement floors.
11) Ok thought of one more, gear. If you are a Powerlifter and plan on competing then you need to get the equipment you need. For example wrist wraps, belts, singlets, knee wraps. You can't expect to always borrow someone's stuff, get your own and train with it on, it's available at Elitefts.com at very reasonable prices.
Call me fussy, call me a girl, I don't care, these are the top 11 Courtesy, Common Sense, Etiquette rules I would live by if I trained at a gym and would expect the same back from people coming into my home gym or any gym for that matter.
Like I said, we have a great crew, lots of these rules reflect back to some of the gyms I used to train at, appalling to say the least and as a gym owner I would never let that happen to my gym, or do it to someone else's.
Training is serious, can be fun and is an important aspect of most people's lives, enjoy it to it's fullest !
#driven #livelearnpasson #strongher #keepthegymsclean
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