Gym crimes

Damned 
spotter
Danny, 
via email
‘I was attempting a bench press one-rep max and asked one of the gym’s trainers to spot me. I lowered the bar to my chest, then started to push up – but the second I started to struggle and squeeze my rep out, he hauled the bar off me. Devastated!’
 
Vanity unfair
Rod, via email
‘There’s this guy who hogs the Smith machine, and it’s not even because he particularly wants to use it – it’s because it gives him the best vantage point in the mirror while he’s sitting on the bench and banging out endless sets of biceps curls.’
 
Hacked off
Fred, via Twitter
‘I like a sauna after a workout to help me relax, but every time I go in there are two middle-aged women in there gassing about some nonsense health story they’ve read in the tabloids. It drives me mad! I even told them to buy a copy of MF if they want the facts!’
 
Slow burn
James, via Twitter
‘I was 
in the weights section of my gym surrounded by about 12 people, not one of whom was doing anything that was in any way beneficial. An example? One was in the adductor machine, another was using the elliptical trainers at a snail’s pace. What a waste of everyone’s time.’
 

Put it away!
Adam, via Facebook
‘This happens a lot and it drives me mad: when guys leave a load of weight plates on the bar or leg press after their set – and then just walk away and leave it. I reckon I spend more time in the gym taking other people’s weights off the bar than I do actually lifting the weights I want to.’
 
Not a leg to stand on
Joe, MF deputy editor
‘All right, this wasn’t actually in my gym, or any gym, but that doesn’t lessen the crime. I was getting my hair cut and happened to mention to the barber what I do for a living. He then started explaining how he used to work out a lot and have a really muscly upper body, but that he never trained his legs so he still could wear skinny jeans. I didn’t leave a tip.
 
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