How to Behave Yourself in the Gym

by Mark Rippetoe | February 19, 2025

There are several basic rules from which all the picky details descend.

1. You must respect the gym. The gym is where we all come to train, not just you. The gym has changed a lot of lives, and it is therefore worthy of respect for it's own sake.

Don't mistreat the equipment. Take care of it like you own it, because if you get kicked out you will have to buy it yourself, and you'd rather not have to do that. Take it out of the bar or plate racks, use it correctly, and put it back in the rack. Don't leave it on the floor, or on the bench, which means you're expecting someone else to put it up for you.

Don't leave the plates on the platform, because they are a trip-hazard. People in the gym occasionally get tired and don't watch where they put their feet as carefully as they should. Don't add to their problems. Put the plates back on the plate racks, in the correctly organized order: don't mix small plates with 45s on the same rack pin. Pattern recognition is the key here.

Be careful about unloading the plates off the bar. If you pull a 45 off and there's a 5 outside of it, you may become acquainted with the primary injury mechanism in a barbell gym when it breaks your toe. Sliding plates are a general problem for this reason, and this is why collars are always a good idea on a loaded bar.

Don't slam things around. Slamming plates on the bar can break the sleeve collars – I've seen it done. Dropping plates on the floor can break the plates and fuck up the floor. Slamming plates back in the plate rack is just plain old stupid, so don't do it. The gym is already noisy enough without your histrionic bullshit. You don't need to be silent, but don't add to the noise if it's not necessary.

2. You must respect the other lifters, and they must respect you. This means spotting when asked, coaching only when asked, and helping unload bars when you can.

Everybody is there to train, although some are more serious about this than others. If you are doing Starting Strength, you're not just wandering around looking for something to do – your time is valuable, and cooperation between lifters with the equipment facilitates efficiency. If two people, or even three, are squatting at the same time, figure out how to work in together. Spot each other, load the bar together, and learn to see errors that may benefit from feedback. This is how Training Partners (and coaches) are born.

Don't camp out on a rack in a poorly-equipped gym. If there are only two racks in the place and it's late Monday afternoon, you're going to have to make an effort not to be a pain in the ass. If a couple of guys are in a legitimate hurry, let them train through while you do something else. If this gets to be a frequent pain in the ass, you'll need to change gyms. Incidentally, poorly-equipped gyms are how new gyms are born.

3. Don't waste time in the gym with shitty programming and unnecessary assistance exercises. Just because the gym has a reverse-hyperextension machine or a cable-crossover doesn't mean you have to use it.

Most gyms function within the larger fitness industry paradigm – they exist to sell memberships, not to get people stronger. They sell memberships by appearing to have an impressive collection of machinery on the exercise floor, and the general public doesn't know a power rack from an Angus bull. And that's okay, because even people fucking around in a gym are better than people who only play cards and smoke. They might eventually develop better habits and start actually training.

But if this corporate gym happens to have a couple of power racks, fairly straight bars, a bench, and enough plates, you can train there even if the staff has absolutely no idea what you're doing. You may have to buy your own fractional plates and carry them in with you, and maybe your own collars, but there are worse problems to have.

Some of us have to train in these corporate facilities, so we have to get along with the other members and the staff. Which means keeping your opinions about Functional Training to yourself. Don't shit-talk the personal trainers, the “coaches,” or the beauticians. Just train as best you can and leave, thus ensuring that you'll have a place to do your next workout.

This is probably a good place to talk about chalk. If you are training heavy, you are going to have to use chalk, and this pisses them off because it creates a cleaning problem for the staff, and it gets in the AC filters. If they prohibit the use of chalk, you'll have to use “liquid chalk” which is chalk ground up in alcohol. It produces no annoying clouds of dust, which you have seen emanating from your histrionic buddies as they demonstrate their astonishing strength to a roomful of people who do not care. If the gym will not allow liquid chalk, they are just being difficult, and you'll have to go somewhere else.

And that may be your own gym, which seems to be the best solution for many people. You can do whatever you want in your own gym, and if you want to be a slob, go ahead. But you'll find that all these rules still apply, for various reasons. And very soon, people will be wanting to train in your gym, instead of GloboCorp Fitness.