A Workout Circuit should really only take 20-30 minutes to complete per exercise set.  It’s gym etiquette to allow someone to finish their circuit, unless they are sleeping on the job or watching a movie from the machine you want/need.  Please don’t daytrade from the gym floor!  It is also gym etiquette to not leave your towel on a machine for 3 hours.

I’ve worked out on the same free weight floor for many years,

and for many MANY years people always moved my weights off my bench, and took over my bench, after I took the time to set them up.

It’s the mostly macho Hans & Franz area of the gym:

It takes time to go get weights from the rack again, find a bench again, and it’s annoying.  Weights are heavy!  Often there are 10 other benches available, but they might require incline adjustments that are apparently too technical for Hans and Franz to manage.

Earlier this year, I decided I would stop allowing others to steal my setup.  Wearing of the time lost making my very efficient circuit workout take longer.

 

 

 

 

I bought the cheapest ugliest Michele the Trainer fuchsia color towel I could find.

That first towel was a very random towel, maybe a golf or bowling towel (some sport that I’m not aligned with their towel-age).  That particular Pink Towel had an NFL logo, a pink breast cancer ribbon and some random velcro.  It was ugly, and useless, yet pink and it’s just a place holder so I could finish my circuit.

 

 

And then it happened…

One early o’dark-thirty- morning, right on the hormonal advent of PMS eve, I returned to my bench and there were 3 things where The Pink Towel used to be:

• A newspaper
• A white towel
• An unknown water bottle

Of course, my weights were gone.  Among an ocean of unused benches, of course.  (as if my bench was the only bench there!)

<<enter really bummed time wasting sigh here>>

I get back to the bench, and I looked around and did not see The  Pink Towel anywhere

<<enter dramatic silence here from MTT friendlies on the weight floor>>

and said, “Hey, where’s my pink towel?”…..

<<enter SUPER dramatic silence here from MTT friendlies on the weight floor, and they are all now stopped during their circuit, rubbernecked, and listening for the dramatic response>>

 

So newspaper guy says, “Oh is that supposed to be some kind of Shrine?”

 

<<enter way way way longer dramatic silent pause here>>

 

Wrong Answer!!! Faces were in shock of his AMAZINGLY wrong answer, and in my defense, the entire weight floor & that side of the gym all started laughing at newspaper guy and his response.

Eyes were all on me, and I said quietly, “You know what buddy, it absolutely is”…

By that time, he had already moved his colorless shrine, and returned The Pink Towel to the bench.  I still had to go get retrieve my weights again. Sigh!

So now, forced by general principle, I made Michele the Trainer pink towels made for my support team on the weight floor.  Now we have 20 people using Pink Towels on that same gym floor, at the same early hour!

It’s nice to know there is some respect (from mostly men) that comes from putting in a lot of years of visible work.

When my circuit is done, I put The Pink Towel away, and we all live happily ever after.

We all understand you might feel like this fellow here (all the gym bunnies and gym rats enjoyed this towel graphic after The Great Pink Towel Morning of 2013), but if there are 10 other benches available, please ask a trainer how to adjust your own!