181206 - Soapbox Thursday - Bad Cop

Hey y’all, Michael here.

Last Thursday, Coach Lauren put out a super nice and helpful Gym Etiquette post.
The areas she covered are very important and if you haven’t checked them out, you can click here

This is going to be a similar but different kind of list. Because I’m comfortable with being the bad cop, here are a few more crucial things that just have to be said.

1. Wash yourself and your clothing frequently. You absolutely cannot, unless it’s an emergency, rewear workout gear that you’ve sweat in. You may not smell yourself, but believe me, we can. That goes for your body as well. You may not sweat like Dana or Stephen, but you’re still feeding those little microbes and they’re putting off a pretty pungent odor. Deodorant is not the same as Anti-perspirant. If you have an aversion to the chemicals in Anti-perspirant, no worries, but please do us all a favor and hit your pits with something. Dousing yourself in Axe Body Spray or perfume or cologne isn’t the answer either. We want to be able to breathe as freely as possible for those burpees.

2. Clean up after yourself. Whether it be pools of sweat, chalky handprints, chalky bars or doo doo, clean up after yourself. We don’t charge enough to have a professional cleaning crew come in after every day and clean the nasties. Lauren and I do a big chunk throughout the week and Natalie does a thorough cleaning once a week. Chalky handprints are super hard to scrub out once they’ve set in.
If you blow up the toilet in the bathroom, do us a small courtesy and use the toilet brush adjacent to the bowl. Do a courtesy wipe and flush. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone in there and gagged at the sight of carnage under, around and sometimes on the rim. Again, we aren’t paying some poor soul to clean that literal shit up. I’m doing it and it’s the worst.

3. Come on time and be ready at the top of the hour. We want this place to be a safe spot for you to spend an hour or more each day taking care of yourself and not having to worry about deadlines, crying babies, etc. When you saunter in right at the top of the hour, then take your time putting on your shoes and chatting up the last class, then you’re taking valuable time away from your community. We totally understand getting out of work late and traffic and all sorts of things, and we’re super accommodating about those. Our time is valuable and we try to fit as much community-building, instruction and workout into an hour as possible. So get in, get ready and get your hard-earned money’s worth.

4. Don’t ask Lauren stuff about the workout or how to do something when she’s got her athlete hat on. She pays for her membership through hard work at the gym and when people interrupt that, you’re messing with her investment. She’s always happy to help when she’s got her coaching hat or admin hat on. When she’s obviously working out (or waiting for her EMOM to tick off) please find the coach on duty (calling them the COD would be hilarious) and ask your questions or for help from them. You can tell when she’s working out because she doesn’t coach in just her sports bra while profusely sweating and in the middle of burpees. Same on the rarest of rare occasions that you see me working out. We’re there to better ourselves to provide the best coaching for you possible.

5. Be cool with the equipment. I cannot emphasize this enough. If you’ve ever priced out a barbell, some weights and maybe a rower, you know this stuff is pretty expensive. We have bumper plates for safety reasons, so that you can bail on a lift if necessary without injuring yourself or others. Instead of thinking in this way, folks treat them like they’re meant to be dropped from overhead, thrown on the ground, bounced sideways across the room and otherwise abused because “hey, it’s not my stuff.” I see folks drop or throw their last reps to the floor like the bar somehow weighs a million times more than it did the rep prior. People drop dumbbells after the round like they cheated on them. A bunch of our dumbbells are loose and sketchy because of these drops. We have a number of cracked bumper plates. We’re replacing a rower computer because it’s been flipped up aggressively too many times. How many times have you heard the rower handles smack against the stops? You collapse your bar and your bodyweight into the rack after a set of front squats or presses like you finished climbing Everest and it’s the last thing you’ll ever do before you die. Stop being dramatic, put the things down in a reasonable manner and treat everything like it is your stuff.

We want you to get the most out of your time here. It takes a lot of energy, motivation, hours and dedication to bring a superior product to you each and every day. Our community is hands down the most accepting, supportive and friendly around. If you take all of the etiquette requests from last week and this week to heart, everyone will have the best training and community experience possible and we’ll be able to continue to provide a safe space and the top-notch programming and instruction you’ve come to expect.

-Michael

? of the Day - Favorite Baked Good?

WARM UP - Ski Erg / Step Up Relay
10 DB Glute Bridges
10 Single Leg DB Glute Bridges
10 DB Pullovers

MOBILIZE - Banded Ankle Traction Calf Foam Rolling

COACH PREP - Box Heel Taps
Single Leg Stand Ups
Plate or Parallette Pistols

WOD - AMRAP 8:
2 Pistols
2 KB Swings
2 Sit Ups
(Add 2 to each movement after each round)

GOALS FOR THE WOD -
1) KB Swings and Sit Ups are simple and “easy” so make those pistols really challenging!

POST WOD SKILL WORK -
15 Power Hops (Keep legs bent but just as high as possible)
:30 on and :30 off DU Practice