Picture this. 

You walk into the gym super excited to crush a great workout you planned for yourself. You put your stuff away in a cubby and walk over to the machine you want to use… to find it covered in sweat with four 45 lb plates on each side. 

Now, maybe I’m over exaggerating a bit. It’s rare to find an RWU student lifting that much weight, but the sweaty bench scenario is one that I encounter quite often. In this gym rant, I’m going to list my personal pet peeves in the hopes that maybe, someone who does these things will see them and never do it again. This one is for the gym-regulars. 

The chatty-Cathy’s

Those of us who workout regularly are there for one thing and one thing only: to exercise. Don’t come up to me trying to start a conversation. I’m typically not the kind of person who likes to workout with people, so I’m normally at the gym by myself. I’ve been told I look slightly pissed off at the gym, and I wear headphones, so I don’t understand why someone would come up to me and start talking to me in the middle of my workout. It’s simply not the time or place. This brings me to:

The people who do everything but workout  

 

We all know those people at the gym who talk to everyone, take phone calls or stare at themselves in the mirror for a whole 60 minutes. The worst is when they sit on their phone for 10 minutes on a machine you want to use. If you’re going to be on your phone, don’t hog a machine. It’s also super obnoxious listening to a lengthy phone call that no one else wants to hear. Please step outside because we really don’t care. There’s also the large packs of athletic teams that come into the gym at the same time. I understand there are required team lifts, but more often than not, I see teams come in and do the bare minimum while hogging up the entire free weights area. I applaud the athletes who actually put in work when they go, but it’s not something I see often. 

The machines are falling apart

At RWU, it is impossible to go to the gym without seeing four or five machines out of order. The cable machines are barely functional. There is always at least one StairMaster machine or bike out of order. The smith machine hasn’t been properly working for weeks. It would be nice to have some modern equipment here that doesn’t look or function like it was made in the 60s.