5 Things You Should Never Do In A Bodybuilding Gym

What Is A Bodybuilding Gym?

Whilst it is great to see more and more people joining their local gym, it is quite depressing to see so many hardcore bodybuilding gyms being replaced by trendy fitness centers that seem to be geared towards the Instagram generation.

Many of the modern city-center gyms seem to fill most of their floor space with cardio equipment such as exercise bikes, treadmills and elliptical trainers, for example, and are not suitable for the serious bodybuilders who are looking to build muscle.

That’s because there will often be one squat rack and a limited number of strength training machines in general, and the dumbbells will often be insufficiently heavy enough for the serious lifters to use.

Nevertheless it is still possible to find bodybuilding gyms in your local area. You just need to work a little harder to find them, either by searching online or by asking around.

The 5 Biggest Gym Etiquette No-Nos

Anyway the purpose of this article was to discuss some etiquette tips that you should follow when you do manage to join one of these bodybuilding gyms. Gyms can be very intimidating places at the best of times, but the hardcore gyms can be even more intimidating because they are usually full of large muscle-bound testosterone-fuelled men.

So here are 5 common mistakes that you should avoid committing when you first start going to one of these bodybuilding gyms:

Entering The Gym Without A Training Plan

The hardcore bodybuilders gyms are generally full of people who are serious about their training, and know exactly what exercises they will be doing and which areas they will be training on any given day.

So don’t go into the gym and wander aimlessly from one machine to another trying to decide which ones to use because this will just annoy the other members who want to crack on with their workouts. Make a note of which areas of your body you wish to train, and then decide which machines you will use before you enter the gym if possible.

Hogging The Equipment

Although many of the hardcore gyms will have an abundance of free weights and strength training machines, it is still bad etiquette to hog a machine for long periods of time.

You should always bang out your reps and then move on to the next machine, and if you are doing multiple sets, you should let other people work in with you (ie do their workout whilst you are recovering between sets) if they are waiting patiently for you to finish.

Trying To Make New Friends

There are lots of places where you can meet new people, but a bodybuilding gym is not one of them. There is nothing wrong with a bit of friendly chit chat, but please don’t annoy other members by engaging them in conversation all the time.

Whilst many people will politely converse with you, they are probably feeling deeply frustrated inside because all they want to do is to get on with their workout. This will certainly be true if they only have a limited time to spend at the gym, so it is best just to go in and focus on completing your own workout. If you need any advice, ask a member of staff instead of one of the other members.

Using Your Phone In The Gym

Gyms are full of people who are addicted to their phones and feel completely lost without them. Even in some of the hardcore gyms you will see men taking endless selfies of themselves in an attempt to find the best one to post to Instagram in order to impress all of their followers. More annoying still is when you see someone sat on a bench checking their phone when people are waiting to do their bench press.

So please don’t be one of these hugely annoying people, and leave your phone in the lockers. If you must take a selfie, do so away from all the equipment so that you are not getting in the way of other people.

Leaving Your Sweat All Over The Machines

There are many ways to practice good gym hygiene, but one thing that really annoys me is when I see someone sweating away on an exercise machine, and then just getting up and walking away without cleaning it, or at least wiping it down with a towel when they have finished using it.

This is something that annoys many other people as well. So please be respectful and wipe down the equipment once you have finished using it because you really don’t want to be annoying some of the guys who frequent these hardcore gyms.

Final Thoughts

Hardcore bodybuilding gyms focus more on strength training than cardio training, and are therefore frequented by people who are looking to build muscle and bulk up.

These people take their training very seriously, so you need to show some respect and not restrict their workouts in any way. If you do so and follow all of the guidelines above, you will find that these gyms are a great place to work out, and you should hopefully achieve excellent results because they are geared towards success.