Cut Talking in Gym to Better WO's

Date: August 14, 2008
Time: 11 PM
Place: Kitchen

If you truly have no other social outlet in your life other than the gym, then perhaps it's a place you don't mind whiling away most of your free time. But if you have other, more productive things you'd rather be doing than spend unnecessary hours in a noisy gym, it's time to zip your lip and train. It's hard when you're used to being Joe Garrulous.

Everyone expects you to sit at the juice bar, the modern equivalent of the porch of the old General Store, and hold court with hours of idle gossip and trivia. Your pals will still want to yap it up. One way to shut them off without seeming rude is to wear a pair of headphones every time you train.

Most people won't ask you to take them off to speak unless they have something important to say. In the gym, it's very rare that any of the conversations are life or death matters. Do not hang around the juice bar, or the front desk, or anywhere else you may tend to get caught up in conversations.

If you have a training partner that prefers jaw-jacking over actual training, get rid of the louse. You may come off as rude or arrogant all of a sudden, but it's a decision you'll have to make and follow through on if you wish to start making your gym time more efficient.