I try to make it to the gym every morning, and if I had exercise equipment, sauna, steam room and a swimming pool at my house, I wouldn’t need to. But since I don’t, I have to go someplace where other people are there to do the same thing I am.
There are some people who use the gym – more than just a few – who must think that their wife, mother, significant other or maid will come along behind them and clean up, or that they are in their own house and not a common area used by hundreds daily. Following are some suggestions they might heed to make life easier – and less disgusting – for the rest of us.
There is no towel fairy that comes along and magically picks up the dirty towels. There are two hampers on the way out – one leaving the locker room and one leaving the facility – it is not that hard to utilize one of them.
Those things with doors on them and the ability to be locked are called lockers. The concept is tough to many, but when you go shower, swim, sauna or steam, put your stuff in your locker – not all over the floor or on top of the few seats. I have no problems moving stuff left about while the owner is doing other things.
As for the seats, they are pretty good-sized, easily big enough for two adults to share. That does not mean when you are changing, half is for you and half is for your bag. Put your bag on the floor to make room for others. Again this is not a tough concept.
Health clubs can be Petri dishes for infections – no matter how often they are cleaned, and our cleaning guy does a heck of a job. But when it comes to seats, be they in the sauna, steam room or locker room, common courtesy and common sense dictate a barrier of some kind between your body and the seat. Nothing is more disgusting then to walk into the steam room and see a guy on the bench with no gym shorts on and not sitting – or in some cases not lying – on a towel. And those guys are the ones who exit the shower and plop their bare behinds on the locker-room seats. That is gross.
Sometimes the sauna and steam rooms are not hot enough for some people, so they do the best they can to defeat the thermostat system to make things hotter. When I catch them, I tell them doing so will overwork the unit and then it will be broke for a while, but they do not seem to care. And then there are the guys who put eucalyptus oil on the steam inlet, not caring how it affects those who come in later. That is just plain selfish.
The only parts of me that touches any part of the health club are my hands and when I am changing out of my workout gear and my feet, just before I put on my flip flops. I never used to wear flip flops, but after four leg infections in two years I started wearing them and I haven’t had an infection since.
I go to the gym in the morning because after work it is just too darned crowded. Trying to swim in the afternoons can be a challenge, but it took me a while to figure that out.
The last straw occurred when a dad came into the pool area with his kid, I would have to guess the boy was around 7. The dad headed for the pool – without showering – while the kid headed straight for the shower area. I thought that at least the dad was teaching the kid right. That’s what I got for thinking.
The only reason the kid headed for the shower was to get an additional three-foot run at the pool where he did a flip off the side and in doing so almost landed on me. The father told him, “Good job,” and the kid got out of the pool, ran to the shower, and did it over and over and over again. Now if that kid would have got hurt, his old man would have been the first to sue, even though he was breaking numerous safety rules.
I know there are many more serious problems in the world then what I have written here, but just because there are, that doesn’t make these irrelevant.
There are some people who use the gym – more than just a few – who must think that their wife, mother, significant other or maid will come along behind them and clean up, or that they are in their own house and not a common area used by hundreds daily. Following are some suggestions they might heed to make life easier – and less disgusting – for the rest of us.
There is no towel fairy that comes along and magically picks up the dirty towels. There are two hampers on the way out – one leaving the locker room and one leaving the facility – it is not that hard to utilize one of them.
Those things with doors on them and the ability to be locked are called lockers. The concept is tough to many, but when you go shower, swim, sauna or steam, put your stuff in your locker – not all over the floor or on top of the few seats. I have no problems moving stuff left about while the owner is doing other things.
As for the seats, they are pretty good-sized, easily big enough for two adults to share. That does not mean when you are changing, half is for you and half is for your bag. Put your bag on the floor to make room for others. Again this is not a tough concept.
Health clubs can be Petri dishes for infections – no matter how often they are cleaned, and our cleaning guy does a heck of a job. But when it comes to seats, be they in the sauna, steam room or locker room, common courtesy and common sense dictate a barrier of some kind between your body and the seat. Nothing is more disgusting then to walk into the steam room and see a guy on the bench with no gym shorts on and not sitting – or in some cases not lying – on a towel. And those guys are the ones who exit the shower and plop their bare behinds on the locker-room seats. That is gross.
Sometimes the sauna and steam rooms are not hot enough for some people, so they do the best they can to defeat the thermostat system to make things hotter. When I catch them, I tell them doing so will overwork the unit and then it will be broke for a while, but they do not seem to care. And then there are the guys who put eucalyptus oil on the steam inlet, not caring how it affects those who come in later. That is just plain selfish.
The only parts of me that touches any part of the health club are my hands and when I am changing out of my workout gear and my feet, just before I put on my flip flops. I never used to wear flip flops, but after four leg infections in two years I started wearing them and I haven’t had an infection since.
I go to the gym in the morning because after work it is just too darned crowded. Trying to swim in the afternoons can be a challenge, but it took me a while to figure that out.
The last straw occurred when a dad came into the pool area with his kid, I would have to guess the boy was around 7. The dad headed for the pool – without showering – while the kid headed straight for the shower area. I thought that at least the dad was teaching the kid right. That’s what I got for thinking.
The only reason the kid headed for the shower was to get an additional three-foot run at the pool where he did a flip off the side and in doing so almost landed on me. The father told him, “Good job,” and the kid got out of the pool, ran to the shower, and did it over and over and over again. Now if that kid would have got hurt, his old man would have been the first to sue, even though he was breaking numerous safety rules.
I know there are many more serious problems in the world then what I have written here, but just because there are, that doesn’t make these irrelevant.
