I've seen it where someone is using a series of three or four machines as a sort of "circuit" and then gets annoyed if you start using one that they're going to go to next -- as if they have the right to tie up more than one at a time.

Fortunately, the place that I use is the rec center at a local university. In the early AM when I am usually there, there are about zero students so it's pretty empty. And the same all summer at any time of day.

In the town where I work those lawn chairs would be at the scrap yard and on their way to be recycled before noon.

Heh- you try that it in South Philly and you'll be missing a few appendages

Going off at a right angle now from the original OP so sorry.


MRSA- In the UK you go to Hospital to catch it. So whats the gen on it over there.

I think that guy's underwear was too tight.

In Chicago in the winter, those lawn chairs get flattened real quick.

So this character was trying to monopolize two machines at once and he makes the effort to make you feel in the wrong for using one machine at a time? So how does that make sense except for the monumentally self absorbed and self justified?

Exactly... and they are they same in the gym, on a bike, or in a car!

Using his logic - he could arrive at the gym at opening time with a armful of towels, drape a towel on every machine he plans to use, thus saving himself from being delayed by people he sees as less important.

Your post (the OP) is one of the reasons my wife and I build a home gym with stationary cycle, treadmill and resistance training. It has more than paid for itself and we both tend to workout more often than when we belonged to fitness clubs. AND... we're saving gas; I don't have to drive anywhere to get in my workout.

Many times alternating on the machines works for both people, just alternating sets.

You GO girl. The guy is a jerk, and you gave him the gym justice he deserved.

I lift weights at an army base that lets the base civilian employees use the gym. Almost all military people are polite in the weight room and frequently work in. About half the civilians are not polite. I have about had it with one civilian who left his towel on an arm curl machine for an hour last week while he worked out on 3 other machines at the same time and talked to a friend for half an hour while they leaned on 2 other machines. The gym provides cloths and disinfectant to wipe down the equipment after you use it. The purpose is both good hygiene as well as to protect the equipment from the acids in sweat. This jerk will wipe the equipment before he uses it, but never when he is finished.

Oh you can get it in hospitals here in the States, too. But gyms (especially school gyms, but mostly all of them) are breeding grounds. Putative reasons are dirty equipment (pads and mats are porous, or at least grainy and the little crevices on their surface can trap sweat and pathogens), unhygienic practices (not washing gym clothes, not bathing- yuck, but it happens), and working out with open wounds (unusual for MRSA to take off on intact skin).

My health club is really nice. All the towels you want, disinfecting wipes, upper class clientele (expensive) etc.

I usually only do the cardio machines so there's no "working in". Policy is 30 minutes on a cardio machine during high usage times when people might be waiting (almost never an issue and I usually go over that). Also policy is no reserving machines. Still a towel over a machine usually means somebody just stepped away to fill up their water bottle or something.

One time in spin class, just getting ready to start, literally every bike was in use except for one that had a towel on it. I asked around, no one knew who had put it there. I waited until class started and then I figured it was mine. A couple minutes after class started, some roid guy came in and snatched his towel and gave me a dirty look and said something unintelligible. Then AFTER class he recognized me outside in the central area and growled at me about *MY* rudeness. I realized it was no use trying to reason with him - what a jerk.