No Grunting, They Said, and He Was at the Gym
 

I think this whole "image" thing is just ridiculous. We have some simliar type things in our private cooperative gym but nothing as extreme as "no grunting,"
Private gyms can apparrently discrimate based on sex since there are women only gyms.

Errrrrrrrrrr.....

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Errrrrrr.....

Heh. OOOOkay. Grunting at a gym? Who would have thunk it. This is so bad is seems made up.

Hunh. Well, it's positioning itself as a beginners' gym. Makes sense that they'd cancel your membership once you get advanced enough to... grunt. :shrug:

There is a guy that makes very loud noises at my gym.

It does bother me... this isn't like just grunting when you go up.

This guy does it like

AH II UUU EEE OOO

in a fast rhythm about once a second.

Very distracting, and very annoying.

The grunting pisses me off too, but this is a bit extreme. It seems strange, however, that one could get kicked out of a gym after a single offense. I would've expected him to get at least a talking to - a warning if you will.

it's like saying no farting at taco bell...

Oh noes, grunting at teh gyms?!?!

This is just stupid. I've never heard of a "no grunting" policy. People breathe. People breathe more, and more heavily, when working out. It's not a tough concept that a person doing heavy lifting will exert their breathing so forcefully that it makes a grunting sound. They're not just sitting around making pig noises, they're working out.

I like the list comment about "because libraries are just too noisy." This place's policy is ridiculous.

I also find it hard to believe what she claims, that he instantly became "very offensive and very loud" because she wanted to kick him out for grunting- especially given that he's hardly the only person who has a beef with this absurd policy. Go ahead and run your business the way you want, but you are putting your business' success in danger when you do stupid shit like this.

I hope he wins.

You know, I also agree that this is a ridiculous policy. But guess what? Don't work out there then. I wouldn't. I'm actually glad they pointed this out to me, save me the hassle of signing up and then have to get kicked out for some weird infraction. To each their own. If that's what they want, fine. Grunters of the world unite! And spend our money at a different gym!

I can't imagine that they'll stay in business very long. And I'm sure he intimidated the clerk just by looking at them, especially if they felt there was a chance that he might grunt at them!

Without a base of lifters that care about what they're doing this gym will constantly churn through members.

Grunting and making noise at gyms is the favourite gripe on most bb'ing forums.

Generally it boils down to the namby pamby gyms who want the average schmoe in there who doesn't really do anything, but pays the membership anyways. 'Hardcore' people who get to the stage where its almost inevitable to grunt arn't welcome because they are a minority that scares off the affore mentioned people.

Then there are the people who do 20lb barbell curls and scream with each rep...

Thats why i workout at home, loud music, i can grunt on the last few reps, and generally make a fool out of myself without anyone else noticing.

I think the only thing about that is this is a town of 5,000 people. How many other gyms are there likely to be?

I dont' think this is a case of a simple grunt. If this goof is anything like the muscle heads I have seen, he was making a way more than just a grunt.

Now, I can appreciate the need to make some noise but most of these guys are just doing it to seek attention.

A Yellow Pages search for "gym", in zip code area 12590 (Wappingers Falls, NY), shows 3 listings for Excercise & Physical Fitness Programs, 20 listings for Gymnasiums, and 67 listings for Health Clubs. Not all of these, of course, are in Wappingers Falls itself, but are located within the immediate area.

You asked.:D

It's the club's rule to not grunt. He joined knowing that you would be kicked out if you grunted. He grunted, and now he's kicked out. Why is this on the news?

Yes, the rule is ridiculous, but it's not like it's a hidden rule or something. The gym is KNOWN for being "grunt-free," so how can you be surprised when they enforce their own rules? It's like going to a boot camp and wearing jeans during training and wondering why you got your ass kicked by the officer.

I see a lot more pencil-necked beginners grunting and making a nuisance of themselves at my gym, than I do the big boys. The pencil-necks are the ones with no gym etiquette (largely) in my experience - they don't put weights away or wipe the machines down, and clang their little ten pound dumbells around like they were trying to win Olympic gold.

No question... but like everything, there is a bell curve. The guy in this scenario is likely at one end and your pencil-necks are at the other.

The rest just want some quiet and some gym etiquette.

Oh my god, I absolutely detest when people grunt at the gym! I feel like saying "If you need to grunt, then you are lifting too much." Seriously it just looks stupid. Are guys trying to act macho when they do that?
I was at the gym one day and there was a guy on the treadmill running at a pretty fast pace. He kept shouting out very loudly "WOO!" and everyone was staring at him like he was a complete idiot. What a knob.

this reminds me of that adam sandler song titled "sex or weight lifting". In the song, adam sandler plays a tape of people making noises and asks other people if the tape is of people having sex or lifting weights at the gym. Lyrics can be found on google http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...ng&btnG=Search

Boy - I can't wait till I work out enough to use the term "pencil-neck."
Then I'll know I have proper gym etiquette. :lol:

Seriously, though - IMO, people can grunt all they want - just don't get up and walk away expecting me to use my towel to clean up your sweat. That's my pet peeve.

I'd have to hear the noise to judge. Some people really get carried away with the noises, where "grunting" is tantamount to screaming like you just got eviscerated. I could understand policing this etiquette in a starter gym, and in fact I think it's not a bad idea. A lot of people are thoroughly intimidated by the "gym scene". If they are cutting their niche by discouraging the sorts of things that make people shy away from the bigger places, kudos to them. If it's a bad policy, they'll lose customers. Hooray for Capitalism.

It's a lot like clubs that won't let you in unless you're dressed a certain way. You just gotta do what they ask, or don't go. It's that simple. This isn't even worthy of a news item. Private club has a rule, guy breaks it, gets the boot.

And last but not least, there's 2 sides to this story. One side claims he was being hostile and physically threatening, the other side says he was bullied for no reason by management. Why would anyone here automatically assume he was in the right? Is it because the manager was a woman, or.. something else? I'd be more inclined to believe he flew off the handle personally, as people are wont to do in these kinds of situations. But the story doesn't give enough data to know who's telling the truth. If he was refusing to cooperate and/or leave, the *private* club manager has every right to call the police.

Yeah, or the term "muscle heads" that Charlatan previously used that no one seems to object to.

:thumbsup:

Some of you people on here let things other people do bother you way to much.

This grunting must stop. Quiet down the weight lifters and then go after the tennis players.:)

Is something bothering you? Get it off your chest ...

:lol:

And people who type too loudly, also. Goddamn clickety-clack, tippity-tap of the keyboard, it's driving me nuts!

:lol:

Agreed! Bloody fleet-fingered typists and all that typing...

Point taken.

Oh - and let's not leave out phamtc's "pansies" (below)

gyms aren't quiet. Thats life. This is a stupid rule

There are many stupid rules in different places of business. For example, I worked in one restaraunt where we were told we had to wash our hands THREE times after going to the bathroom. Once in the bathroom, once in the kitchen where the manager could see, and once on the line where the customers could see. Rediculous waste of time that REALLY damaged my hands, but I decided working there was better than being unemployed so I FOLLOWED THE RULES

What's with the lunk alarm? That's really wierd. Its natural for beginners to feel intimidated by bigger guys, but they really need to get past it, and maybe learn something from these experienced lifters. Instead, I have a feeling they've created a gym to either shield their customers, or churn through casual gym-goers for profit. Sadly enough, pansies have created their own gym, but hey, let them have it.

Somebody locally got disqualified from a gym for sweating too much. Try that one on for size.

To me though, "no grunting" means "no deliberate load noises". After all, some guys go crazy and make a continuous ruckus - and that's just annoying.

I've always figured that these rules are there as a way of excluding people that are generally troublesome. ie if a regular polite customer made a noise, on one or two occasions, this would not be a big deal.

He was lifting FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS for gods sakes... i think most people would at least grunt, i'd be yelping in pain. :lol:

I didn't notice that. Yeah, that's massive (unless it was a calf raise I suppose)

I'd be more likely to go to a gym if I knew they had and enforced a policy like this. I've always been easily intimidated by the uber-serious body builder types and hated getting hit on every time I went in to work out. The loud nonsense noises, yelling, and banging weights were very annoying.

I'm so glad to have the exercise equipment here at home so I can avoid any problems like this.

This is like saying "no sweating" during sex. I see this as one of those examples of how silly mainstream society has become. "Uppity" is what it is, this policy. They have no business calling themselves a gym.

Cripes, lately I have grunted when I picked up a heavy chart at the office. Maybe I need to find a gym that targets out of shape middle age guys who grunt tying their shoes.

Unfortunately I fit into the same category as greytone as long as they don't ban grunting in public around stairs at least I will be ok

I'm fine as long as I'm not grunting to lift up my beer ;) When that starts happening, I'll know I'm really out of shape.

Planet Fitness must be slowly revolving around a small dwarf star in the Stupid Galaxy. That guy should find a gym for people who want to actually exercise, not be dainty little fairys that spread magic pixy dust on tulups in a perfectly silent medow.

The article left me wondering if Planet Fitness was in the right business. Gyms are for exercise, complete with sweating and grunting. I agree that no one wants to be around that tool on the treadmill shouting, "Wooo" every few moments, but a 'no grunting' policy is taking it way too far.

The other issue this brings up for me is the 'business conspiracy'. Planet Fitness might be on exactly the right track here for manipulating the market for maximum profit. If you own one of these gyms, you don't really want to sell your memberships to serious weight-lifters who are going to come in everyday and use the gym for 1-2 hours at a time. If you were to sell 50 memberships to serious lifters, the gym would be pretty heavily used and always appear relatively busy. Better then to sell 200 memberships to occasional, recreational lifters. These folks might come in 1-2 times per week, for 20-30 minutes. Your business is immediately 4x more profitable, and not looking too busy or full allows you to keep selling memberships to any new client who walks through the door.

I'd be interested to know if the Planet Fitness severed the membership contract of the offending lifter, Mr. Argibay. Or whether they tried to retain some or all of his payment(s). Gyms I've dealt with have been notoriously underhanded about contracts and trying to keep members paying. For instance, my wife and pre-paid for a 6 month membership at Gold's Gym, then went to a month to month with no contract after that time. We moved out of the city, and I went to cancel the membership since we weren't living near enough to use the gym. 3 weeks running around and a dozen phone calls later, I was faxed a copy of a 12 month contract where a sales-rep at Gold's had forged my signature. I had to escalate up and up the management track. I eventually got a VP at headquarters to cancel my fake contract (still no admission of wrongdoing) only as a 'favor' to me and because my month-to-month fee was "really low and most members would be happy to pay that rate". Fucktards. Not that I'm bitter about or anything. :)

I'll stand by this no matter what: Unless you have some sort of disability, grunting (especially excessively) is unnecessary. It's embarrassing and distracting.

Heavy breathing is the most you need, and that can be done quietly.

I'm not sure about this particular case. He said he was breathing heavily, but grunting is a pretty obvious thing comparatively.

Thread necromancy! OoooOOOOOoOOOOOoooo.

Fuck Coldplay. And screw uptight people in the gym. It's a place to go and strengthen your body. It isn't supposed to be a book club meet.

Who is listening to anybody in a gym, anyway? I never see a soul without a music player of some sort. It's lonely, really. Nobody makes eye contact, nobody talks, people avoid using benches next to each other. Just some mild exertion noises from the guys and the girls are trying to look pretty for no logical reason. You can ask somebody for a spot and sometimes they just give you that doe-eyed, "God, it's another human and they want my help! Aiiiieee!"

One slice of the gym is serious exercise by serious people. Other slice consists of people half-assing it in fancy workout clothes.

Crompsie, during my experiences in the gym, I was using high-intensity training (HIT) techniques. My workouts often consisted of going to complete muscular failure via slow and somewhat sustained movements. I've never grunted in the gym in my life.

If someone is excessively grunting while lifting (i.e. the whole gym can hear it), they are probably doing it wrong. They might be some muscle-bound lifter, but even muscle-bound lifters have bad habits. I've seen many absolute titans who know how to switch on their stealth mode. I think most should be able to do this.

And, for the record, I can't wear an iPod while working out. I'm too busy for cheap entertainment.

When grunting is loud, it's distracting. If I'm doing HIT, I'm timing my lifts. I don't need some grunty bear throwing me off my timing because he can't control his breathing, or he thinks grunting gives him super Paleolithic powers from his grunty ancestors.

I don't see why anyone has a problem with people grunting at a gym.
If you're yelling because it hurts you each time you do a rep, then you deserve to get called on it. Or if you yell while at the threadmill.
But grunting is often beneficial to your work out, and it doesn't need to be loud, it just helps give that last push to finish a rep of whatever you're doing.
Now, to enforce a rule just because people who are relatively unfit feel uncomfortable and self-conscious in front of people who make it their hobby to build their body, and thus perform more straining exercises to continue and build strength, is ridiculous.
At some point, you reach a plateau where just lifting what you can lift easily is useless, if you want to move forward you need more weight. The grunting type exercise is necessary, but it's easy to tell when one does it for show.

What'd you say about my mama? Heh, I'm a product of the military and thus I love grunting. I have pro-grunt bias.

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Are we talking about grunting or screaming here? The "errgh" noise that comes from some guys when they're benching is perfectly understandable. The "AAAAAAAHHHHRRRR!" noise that some guys vocalize isn't a grunt, it's a show-off scream. Difference, right? I guess the hard part is defining the terms. When I think grunt, I think a low noise of exertion that can't be heard in another room.

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Martial arts has taught me the value of "war cries" in physical exertion. They're beneficial to fighters in many ways (as listed above in the post with the science bit). Using calls like "Tza!" for things like blocks and "AI-tza!" after punctuated strikes really can increase the power of a motion for those who know what they're doing. My instructor is a 7th degree black belt in AFK and he's demonstrated it numerous times (including on me). You don't have to use it and many don't, but there is a physiological (and psychological) advantage to doing such. And it makes kicking a Crompsin across the room that much more satisfying.

So, yeah, breathing is the key to success in any physical activity. Gotta remember to breathe.

Wow, this was stupid!!! No gruting, I chuckled then threw out my thoughts of joining planet fitness!!

The reason doesn't matter. The management politely asked him to leave and he refused...thus breaking the law. If he owned the gym he could make the rules.

Completely true and indisputable, but a total conversation buzzkill.

Seems like a good, logical, well thought out plan. Do you find something wrong with making more money by catering to "recreational lifters?" And, is it the gym owner making money or the recreational lifters that you object to?

Grunting from exertion (unless REALLY loud) doesn't bother me, but clanking and weight dropping really gets under my skin. Damn hot dogs.

Lindy
I guess you can add "hot dog" to non-PC terms like pencil-neck, musclehead, pansies, etc.

This made me laugh aloud.

Regarding the grunting issue.. I can see how grunting can result from pushing oneself to get those last few reps, or really pushing physically. In this case it seems it was handled poorly. I suspect there would have been a less dramatic outcome if the gym employee had approached the grunter and politely explained the club's policy and how he was breaking it.

Grunting in the gym is fine with me, but it's made watching tennis unbearable. Monica Seles, go on, take a bow.

This thread also reminds me of the "My New Haircut" video on YouTube, specifically 1:15 and onward (explicit language):