My Top Ten Gym Pet Peeves

We're supposed to stay focused on our own workouts at the gym, but let's face it, we can't help but watch other people. I'm the worst offender. Today I'm going to share my top ten pet peeves from the gym.

Pet Peeve #1: People who wear street clothes to the gym. We have functional clothes for a reason. Why do some people insist on wearing jeans or pants and a belt to the gym? Besides restricting your movement, part of your workout is psychological. The right clothes put you in the mood to work out.

Pet Peeve #2: People (usually guys) who sweat all over the machines and don't wipe them off. Enough said!

Pet Peeve #3: The exercisers who do circuits and you have no idea when they are actually finished with a machine. They do one set on one machine, move to another, then another and then go back to the first and start over. We've discussed this before: you get maximum benefit when you do one exercise until failure or inability to use correct form. You can't do that with a circuit. You must do multiple sets of one exercise with minimal rest in between. Which brings me to my next pet peeve.

Pet Peeve #4: Those people who sit on the machines for five minutes between sets. There was one fellow at our gym who actually read magazines and books between sets.

Pet Peeve #5: Following up from the last pet peeve, it drives me crazy when people sit on the machines playing with their iPods and cell phones.

Pet Peeve #6: People who have wear iPods and dance and/or sing during their workouts. They have no idea how loud and annoying they are. You would think they'd be embarrassed.

Pet Peeve #7: Almost as bad as the singers are the grunters. I'm talking about the extraordinarily loud grunters. You can hear them across the gym. It's really not necessary. You can breathe instead of grunting.

Pet Peeve #8: The ones who grunt for the entire neighborhood to hear are usually also the ones who use humongous weights and drop them when they can't do any more reps. I can't tell you how many times I nearly had a heart attack when taken by surprise by crashing weights.

Pet Peeve #9: The people who come in pairs (or packs) and spend most of their time chatting instead of working out. I'm glad they are having a good time, but they are not serious.

Pet Peeve #10: People who have outrageous body odor. No further comment

What are your pet peeves? Post a comment here. It will be fun.