Why Don’t People Put Their Weights Back in the Gym?
And now for the beef of the week! It’s not often I blog with a beef, but I feel that this is a very important topic for discussion from both a safety and a general consideration point.
Why don’t people put their weights back in the gym?
Today I was training in my usual gym, performing a weights session. I walked into the weights area and there were dumbbells spread all over the ground. The EZ bar had been left unattended on the ground with 20 kg on it. The squat bar was left with 80kg on it. The smith machine had 60kg left on it. The 25kg dumbbells were in the 17.5kg dumbbell position, the 35kg dumbbells were in the 20kg dumbbell position and the 7.5kg dumbbells were no where to be found (all four of them). And this isn’t even a big gym!
For years I have pondered upon the ultimate question, why people do not put their weights back in their correct position in the gym. Wouldn’t our weight lifting sessions be a blessing if we didn’t have to dodge obstacles, send out search parties for missing equipment and perform inter-set sets when unloading someone else’s weights?
From a safety point of view, it is critical. All it takes is for one person to trip over a dumbbell to hurt themselves. Further, they could trip over something and fall into someone performing an exercise, causing a severe injury. Further, it is very dangerous leaving very heavy weights around for someone else to put away. It’s not uncommon to see someone leave hundreds of kilograms on a piece of equipment for the next person to unload. This is a major safety issue when the next person is quite weak and cannot handle a 20kg plate in a safe manner.
It also should come as common sense that this is common courtesy for fellow gym patrons. Be bothered to put the weights back in their correct place, it really isn’t that hard.
Ultimately it is the gym’s responsibility to ensure that the weights are in their correct place for OH&S. Some gyms are better than others (my regular gym isn’t all that great, yet the gym where we train clients is excellent). I really think that whilst we should be diligent in returning our weights to their correct places, so too should the gyms that we train at.
If you have any thoughts on this matter, please post it up in the comments section below!
