10 Signs Everyone at the Gym Hates You

Image via Complex Original

When you're peaking on adrenaline, half naked, and in the last set of an especially spirited curl session, you might think it's a good idea to corner a gorgeous personal trainer and brag about your max squat. Think again, bruh. First, the vein bulging from your neck is incredibly menacing. Second, no girl is going to appreciate being bum rushed by a perspiring gym rat.

So, here's a Complex guide to picking up girls at the gym. Grab every 45 pound plate in the weight room and load it onto a bar. Find the hottest girl around you, lock eyes, and give her a wink. Then, settle into your bench press and drop 495 pounds worth of steel on your chest. With your Thoracic cavity caved in, we expect a beautiful first responder to come to your rescue. While she frantically calls for help, you'll be able to strike up a conversation in a way that seems spontaneous and non-threatening. You're welcome.

You know that guy who was semi-athletic in high school, drank his way through a state college, and came back home with man boobs and a venereal disease? Well, you'll be annoyed to learn that he hasn't lost his eye of the tiger. He has a Kevin Garnett-like affinity for throwing elbows and talks more shit than a wine buzzed Donald Trump. This is the guy that stumbles through the lane, turns the ball over, and then yells at his team for not getting back on defense. Hopefully, lil' homie catches a Ron Artest elbow to the head.

Look, we understand that you may need to change out of your sweaty drawers, but no one needs to mince about the locker room butt ass naked for more than 30 seconds. You're just showing off at that point. Are you that uninhibited that you can talk about fantasy football for ten minutes straight with your balls exposed? You're way too relaxed, old man.

CrossFit, like Tony Little's Gazelle in the '90's, is today's prevailing fitness trend. When these Jack Lalanne aspirants aren't doing snatches or handstand push-ups in a back alley garage, they're berating their friends and coworkers insufferably with a newly adopted "Paleo lifestyle." The problem with CrossFit is that it's $200 a month to do ring dips in an underground bunker, so there are a few people who make the economical decision to go H.A.M. at a neighborhood gym price point. If tire flips, double unders, and rope climbs are your thing, that's fine. But everyone at the Bally's Total Fitness will hate you. 

If there's one thing gym rats, Yoga moms, and weekend warriors can rally around, it's a mutual disdain for January's gathering of the beginners. Every New Year, fitness centers throughout the country burst at the seams with people who gracelessly wander the gym with no sense of purpose whatsoever. By February, most of the novices will be back to X-Box Live and the regulars can reclaim their beloved mirror space.

Be aware of your surroundings. Scrolling Twitter on an incline bench like it's your own personal La-Z-Boy is one of the most disrespectful things you can do while getting shredded. You're not hurting anyone, but you're annoying everyone. No one cares that you're at a gym, so you can stop "checking-in" on Facebook, too. Unless you're turning the volume up on "Thunderstruck" or taking a shirtless selfie, there's no reason to touch your iPhone during a workout.

Trying to hide this beer gut under a Nike Dri-Fit shirt is pathetic enough, don't humiliate us further by forcing us to clean up after your slimy ass. We admire your feverish commitment to calorie burning, but you've turned the gym into a lagoon of your DNA. Every free weight and bench you touch turns into a crime scene and you give zero fucks about disposing of the evidence. We have a new lift for you. It's called the towel swipe. 

We get the occasional primitive grunt, but there's no reason to scream in a weight room. You look like a fool. And dropping heavy weights to draw attention to the steel you're pushing is even worse. You can do a lat pulldown without howling like a steroid-addled werewolf. It's actually easier that way.

It's 6 p.m., the cardio machines are slammed, and you're cool with putting along at two miles per hour while thumbing through an issue of Better Home and Gardens. Time at the gym does not directly correlate to pounds off of your big ass. Kick that thing up to a 20 minutes-per-mile pace or walk it on home. You're cheating more than yourself when there's a line behind you. 

Never workout with your girlfriend. That's Corny Couple 101 stuff. It's one thing to carpool to the gym together, but it's another to mirror an ab workout on neighboring Bosu balls. When we see you, we want to puke. And it's not because we just finished a one-rep max in the squat rack.