Having been in California for a year now I'm in a position to be able to take stock, perhaps not criticise my hosts but certainly flag some odd behavioural traits. As Englishman in America, where to start?
A combination of the obsessive part of my personality, the incessant Californian zest for healthiness (yes I have tried wheatgrass and will never again) and the fact that we're constantly warned of slowing metabolisms and the dangers of inactivity have meant that I have become an increasingly regular gym user. I did work out in the UK and cycled to the office, as any self-respecting liberal leaning, Guardian reading always-eat-my-veg person would do, but "The Gym" has become an almost daily part of my life in the States and actually, I enjoy it. More accurately, I enjoy listening to my music and the feeling after The Gym but that's almost the same thing.
A wise friend, when discussing at length annoying things people do on The Tube once nodded sagely, "It's the old problem of people treating it like it's their home." The rule is the same for the gym as it is for The Tube. Incidentally, unacceptable public transport behaviour in my book includes feet on seats, eating smelly food, women doing their make-up or clipping nails and, worst of all, playing music through the tinny speakers on a mobile phone.
Observed behaviour in The Gym has gone from illiciting a "please don't do that in front of me" response to, "You belong in a zoo, you weirdo!" I read recently, "there are good people and then there are people who don't wipe the machines after them" but what I have seen goes far beyond general courtesy, it circles craziness, has a pit stop in Freaktown before ending up in Sick Puppy World. So in no particular order, I thought I'd share some of the more eye-opening experiences I've witnessed in the last year.
The fully clothed steamroom sweatout
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| Outside please |
After a good workout, a relaxing ten minutes in the steamroom or sauna is a perfect way to unblock pores and let muscles relax, but people listen. Well actually, Californians listen, because I have seen this behaviour in San Diego too. You don't go into a sauna fully clothed. You don't go in wearing the rank sweaty clothes you've just been working out in. You certainly don't go in wearing bloody shoes. It's unhygienic and you stink. If you're wearing your workout clothes (I've even seen people in there in jeans, jumper and trainers) I can guarantee you've had a shower before going in. Filthy. What makes you people think that the sign "swimming costumes only" doesn't apply to you?
Whenever I see these clothed wet area frequenters, I wonder what the Icelanders would think because they are meticulous about showering before going into such areas and rightly so.
The gym is for working out
Let's face it, no one really likes being there. So you've made the effort along with a hundred others and now there's a queue to get on a machine because don't forget, it's the cardio that's important. Guaranteed to make my blood boil is queuing when half the people on the machines aren't even breaking a sweat. In fact, they're so unsweaty that they're able to read a good novel, chat on the phone, even make notes on an assignment.
My favourite violation has to be the man on a cross-trainer, wearing a coat, scarf, ski hat and playing chess on his iPad. San Francisco's such a lovely city, I'm still baffled as to why he just didn't go for a nice walk or may be ski-cross-train-ipad-chess is the new fad the kids are into.
Don't get your sweat on me
Inevitably, if you're not on your iPad, you're in the zone, you're going to work up a sweat. Rule of thumb, if there's a machine free that's not right next to the one I'm using, go on that one. Let's keep our distance. For most blokes, this is easy. Instinctively we want distance. It's urinal politics. For the most part this rule is observed and sweat crossover on the gym floor is kept at a minimum.
However, let's get back into our increasingly infuriating, not relaxing, wet area and in San Francisco we find large contingents of Chinese combining the hot air with a mixture of what can be described as vigorous tai chi and Catholic style, self, or even mutual, flagellation. I don't think I need go into why the mutual bit is wrong in a public space. I know that this is liberal San Francisco but at the very least rapid movements in a sweaty environment (includes arm swinging, leg jostling and leaping) cause Bellagio type fountains of contaminated sweat to ricochet around the room. When that touches me, there's violence. Well alright, there's English grumbling and the odd harsh tut.
Hold it in or leave the room
Not a pleasant gripe to read or write about so you may want to skip this one, but it's an affliction that's more prevalent with the early morning gym types. For all our sakes, use the goddamn toilet before you start working out or, if the need to go manifests itself halfway through your workout hold it in, or use the facilities. Personally, I'm a strong believer in better out than in but that doesn't mean out into everyone's faces. I have to give kudos to my gym in SF who keep the toilets clean, even though they're open twenty four hours a day and, as you may be guessing by now, have a large amount of weirdos passing through continuously. There may be a guy in the next cubicle on a conference call as he sits and, well you know, but that is not your problem. That is the problem of all the other poor sods on the other end of the line.
No weird noises
If lifting weights means you're groaning, grunting, pulling some weird sex face or risking an anal prolapse, drop down a size or two. Please. You see the English, unless drunk, will do everything possible to minimise the amount of attention drawn to oneself. In America, less so. If you're ever in doubt, if it'd be frowned upon in Wimbledon, it's going to irritate your fellow gym members.
Don't leak in the shower
So far, apart from sweat contamination, everything else is actually personal preference. Who am I to tell people how they should conduct themselves in the gym? After all, they have the right to be there as much as I do, but if I ever see someone as I did two weeks ago stand over a drain in the shower and take a leak I'll be turning into a supergrass and getting the management down, because really if you want to do that in your own shower that's your business. Though I think it's pretty grim, the toilet is in the same room after all, to have no shame at all to do it in public, you need your head examined.
Well I feel better now I've got that off my chest do please let me know your own peeves when working out, it would be interesting to know if this is San Francisco's relaxed morals going too far or if freakish gym behaviour is more of a widespread problem.
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