How to go to the Gym without looking like an Idiot

State of the Blog: For various health reasons, I haven’t been able to exercise since December, and that put me off writing about fitness for this newsletter. Fortunately, I had back surgery 3 months ago and am recovering amazingly well. I just got cleared to do deadlifts again this week, so I’m also writing again.

In January someone messaged me asking me to write a post about the norms of going to a gym. I told him I’d get to it in a week. This is a little late.

The Actual Blog Post

So you’ve decided to go to the gym for the first time, but you don’t want to look like an idiot in front of the gym bros¹. To help you out, I’m going to give you a step by step guide outlining everything I wish I did from day one. To help with clarity, I’m going to break this down into a stupid amount of steps, some of this will be obvious to everyone, and hopefully everything here will be helpful to someone.

Step 1: Build your Program

Before you even sign up for a gym, you’re going to want to decide what you’re going to do there. You want to know what you’re even looking for when you tour the gym²³.

Step 2: Shop for your Gym

These aren’t the best gyms, but they’re cheap and everywhere

Now that you know what equipment you need, find a gym that has it⁴. You also want to check out the locker room situation: the showers (pressure and temperature), if you need to bring your own locks, and the vibe. Once you find a gym you that meets your needs and you’re comfortable with, and you plan on going to regularly it’s time to get a membership.

Step 3: Prep for your first workout

If you’re going to change in a locker room you need to pack: your gym clothes, a lock for the locker, a filled water bottle, something to use for notes⁵, shower flip flops, a towel⁶⁷ and headphones⁸⁹.

Step 4: Actually Go to the Gym

Just what it sounds like. It’s harder than it sounds. Most people fail at this step.

Step 5: Once you’re inside.

Congrats, you’re at the gym.¹⁰

Walk into the gym. Go to the front desk, they probably want you to prove membership somehow. If you are already in gym clothes go to step 6. Otherwise, go to the locker room. Get an empty locker (or your assigned locker if you go to a fancy enough gym), change into your workout clothes. Lock up your street clothes, wallet, and all your personal effects except those you need for your workouts. Bring your (filled) water bottle, your headphones, and your note taking device. Leave the locker room.

Step 6: Go to your stations and do your workout.

We’re going to be avoiding the treadmills and other cardio machines

Your program likely has you going around the gym, to places like the squat rack, the dumbbell rack, and if you’re feeling fancy, a cable machine. These can be intimidating on your first visit, so let’s go over them one at a time.

Stations:

Squat Rack

This might be almost enough squat racks

Squat Racks are for barbell compound movements: squats, rows, rack pulls, etc. If your gym doesn’t have a separate station for it, you can do deadlifts or incline bench press here. You should not use a squat rack for barbell curls (it’s a squat rack, not a curl cage).

Unless you need to bail out from a failed lift, don’t drop the weights. That makes a loud noise that disturbs other gymgoers.

When you are done, take all the weights off the bar and put them in their proper locations (the 45s with the 45s, the 25s with the 25s, etc). This is called reracking your weights, and if you don’t do it Ronny Coleman will come to your house and steal all your gains.

Bench press:

This is only for bench presses. Put your weights away when you’re done. If paper towels are provided at the gym, wipe down the bench with a damp paper towel to clear your sweat¹¹.

Dumbbells, standing:

Don’t do this, other people want to use those dumbbells

This is easy. Grab only the dumbbells you need for your current exercise and STEP AWAY FROM THE RACK. Leave enough space for someone to use the rack and rerack their weight¹². Three to four feet should be fine. Then, when you’re done, rerack your weights.

Dumbbells, Bench:

This is a combination of the first dumbbell entry and the bench press. Only take the weights you need, rerack them when you’re done, and wipe down the bench.

Machines:

These are much easier to use than they look, trust me

There are a lot of different types of machines, and I’m not getting into all of them. This post is late enough as it is. But for any machine, you want to take a look at the settings (things like seat position) and note them down where you’re recording your weights so you can use the machine with the same settings next time. If you’re not sure where to set them: ask a gym employee, ask another lifter, ask an AI, or just try and find something comfortable that feels right.

…also wipe it down when you’re done.

Step 7: After your workout

If you used a locker in step 5, this is when you go back to the locker room. (If you didn’t use a locker earlier, skip to step 10). Get out of your sweaty gym clothes and you may choose to shower here. If you shower, put on your flip flops, take your towel, undress to your comfort¹³¹⁴, and go to the shower.

Step 8: Showering

You know how to shower. Use the soap they provide (if it’s there), get the sweat off your skin, and don’t stare at anyone else’s naked body (that’s rude). The flip flops are important because these showers can be gross and you can get foot fungus from walking on them barefoot¹⁵. Dry off, don’t leave a mess, and go back to your locker.

Step 9: Pack up and go

Put on your street clothes, grab all your stuff and go home.

Step 10: Success!

Congratulations, you went to the gym for the first time. Now get some rest, eat something¹⁶, and get ready to do it again based on the program you made in step 1.

1. No one at the gym cares if you look like an idiot. But you don’t want to feel like an idiot, and I totally get that

2. If you’re doing a starting program I recommended, you’re going to want to see squat racks, dumbbells, and adjustable benches near the dumbbells. A cable machine to do lat pulldowns is pretty great too.

3. I generally write about lifting, but if you need the gym to get cardio for whatever reason, like not living in walkable urbanism, you have my permission to use the treadmills, ellipticals, rowing machines, and bikes. Try them out on the tour, make sure they meet your needs.

4. Simple, right?

5. You want to record your lifts to track your progress. And let’s be real, this will be your phone.

6. A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

7. It’s also good for drying you off after a shower.

8. Listening to music helps most people focus on their lifts and push harder. Audiobooks and podcasts are fine for the treadmill, but if you can listen to them while lifting you’re probably not trying hard enough on your lifts.

9. If you’re the one person who uses a notebook to track lifts instead of their phone, you also need something to connect to the headphones.

10. Seriously, good for you.

11. Yes, I know it makes more sense for people who are sensitive to this to wipe down the bench before they lift. It’s fine if you do that. The fact is that the norm at most gyms is to wipe the equipment down after you sweated all over the bench. Violate this norm at risk of being getting the stink eye from everyone else

12. Maybe a little more space than you’d expect, they may be moving a weight that’s heavy for them.

13. In men’s locker rooms underwear is normal, and full nudity is acceptable but unusual

14. I don’t spend time in women’s locker rooms

15. Don’t ask how I know

16. Protein and carbs are especially good right now.