This was published 8 months ago
Opinion
Don’t be a dumb-bell: Gym nasties must learn to exercise restraint
Gary Nunn
ContributorIf you’re a gym regular – as many beach-body conscious Sydneysiders are – look around your usual stomping ground this month and you’re likely to see some new and perhaps unfamiliar faces.
My sincere wish is that you do the polar opposite of one employee of a major gym chain popular in Sydney – who posted a Facebook status saying they “wish the fatties will hurry up and give up on their gym resolutions because they’re hogging the equipment”.
Don’t muscle the rookies: gym-regulars can create a community rather than a clique.Credit: James Alcock
Sydney, especially, has a reputation for hardcore gym bunnies with huge muscles or visible abs making non-gym regulars feel intimidated.
If ever you want to feel both ugly and titillated, go to Bondi Beach’s outdoor gym – even more intense than LA’s “muscle beach”. I braved it once. I spluttered and wriggled to approximately eight and a half pull-ups on the bar, feeling reasonably accomplished and exhausted as I completed them. It was a short-lived feeling; an unfeasibly ripped, shirtless man immediately jumped in and did 40 without breaking a sweat. Comparison is both the thief of joy, and human nature.
Unfeasibly ripped man was doing nothing wrong here – his workout prowess was really none of my business as I watched, mouth agape in envy and awe. I’m a gym regular and feel reasonably confident walking into any gym and cracking on – yet am still partial to moments of doubt and vulnerability. Imagine what it’s like for those setting foot in a bewildering gym for the first time.
I’ve occasionally observed a nasty, superior attitude from some Sydney gym regulars. It’s playground, in-crowd, if-your-face-doesn’t-fit stuff - and it needs to stop.
This could be your daily gym buddy very discreetly whispering and sniggering about someone’s size, sweat or struggles to use equipment properly. Not cool. But it could be even worse than this.
One friend caught the Sydney gym manager of a discount chain and his friend filming her using equipment incorrectly and laughing. She caught them in the act. She has felt too humiliated to return to a gym.
It takes courage, discipline and sheer guts it takes for someone to walk into a gym for the first time.Credit: Nicolas Walker
The #gymfails hashtag on Instagram – the ultimate thief of joy – has 378,000 posts. #GymFailVideos has 15.9k posts. Admittedly, some are self-deprecating. Others are set up for the meme. But the general vibe is to create a culture that mocks people with incorrect form or clueless/dangerous use of gym equipment, or even those who have a more eccentric, outside-the-box way of keeping fit and healthy.
If regulars had any idea about the stores of courage, discipline and sheer guts it takes for someone to walk into a gym for the first time, they’d think twice before such behaviour. Perhaps they’ve been going for so long, they’ve forgotten their first time, and the nerves at the risk of public humiliation.
Gyms can be hostile places, full of bravado, toxic masculinity, A-type personalities and people whose testosterone has obliterated their empathy. They’re also public spaces for everyone, not a social Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest hellhole.
Of course, not every gym is like this. The best ones employ trainers who combine expert knowledge with a warm and welcoming demeanour. They smile rather than snarl. These things are important, and a key part of their job – not just the “go hard or go home” drill-sergeant motivational mentality.
My late dad was a gym instructor; he showed kindness to anyone making the effort to go to the gym: disabled, elderly, overweight. I remember him telling me about training a middle-aged woman who’d lost all her self-esteem. She only felt able to step inside the gym with his assistance and, week by week, she grew in confidence, until she no longer needed dad’s expert advice, and could do the work-out on her own.
This is also how I learnt – by hiring a personal trainer to show me correct form and use of more complicated equipment.
Significantly, and especially during this cost-of-living crisis, not everyone can afford a PT. They’re expensive. It’s elitist to laugh at people making the effort when they can’t actually afford someone to show them how to work out correctly.
As a gym-regular, you can play a role here in creating a community rather than a clique.
There’s a quandary for regular gym goers: approach someone and correct their form or risk embarrassing and patronising them?
If done discreetly and gently, it can help people reduce the risk of injury or further embarrassment. “I hope you don’t mind me making a small suggestion?” could go a long way. “I’ll be just over here if you need any more advice, or feel free to tell me to mind my own business!”
Such courteousness could make the gym a place of humanity, as well as of endurance.
Gary Nunn is a freelance writer.