I've lived in three different places, so here's my breakdown:

1. Los Angeles, CA
Whether you go to one of the most expensive gyms, like Equinox, or a less expensive place, both women, men and girls are deeply concerned with what they feel is fashionable in their area, around their own tribe. I went to a gym in the Valley, and the women (ages 30 and up) were decked out in Lululemon, Nike and other brands, and they looked pretty great. Men here also were into their brands, which is pretty fey, I think (I get my clothing at Kohl's so I'm pretty cheap). At the less expensive gyms, you have the "strivers", those who cannot afford to drop $100 on a pair of pants so they'll get the knock off version. In any gym here, in LA, you have a lot of guys pea cocking and women throwing out their asses when they are young, their abs when they are in their 30's, and their perfect form when they are in their 40's.

2. New York, NY
Praise your alma mater! I visited friends in Manhattan for a week and the census was to wear a pair of workout pants and a cotton shirt with the name of your college emblazoned on the front. "Brown" "Colgate" and "Boston College" were just a few names out there. Women and men are more prone to working out (I didn't see many young girls 18-23), given that there are so many colleges in the city and they probably have a gym at their school or they've departed from the city for college). More women and men here have a dance based or athletic based workout. Women will do ballet style exercises in front of the mirror, or on the bar, if your gym has one, and a lot of gyms will work on their arms, and you'll later overhear them talking about the tennis match they played with their co-workers, or the half marathon they ran with their co-workers. Unlike LA, where you workout to look badass and for your health, in NY, you workout for a purpose - sports, etc. I assume a few of the women I saw worked so diligently on their legs so that they can look presentable at whatever gala they are attending.

3. Seattle, WA
Went to college in Seattle. Pretty much all white guys who looked like they had taken a break at their lunch hour to lift some weights and run on the elliptical

Quote: (03-11-2016 09:26 AM)Designate Wrote:  

Quote: (03-08-2016 09:46 AM)Atlantic Wrote:  

Colombia -

Guys focus mainly on chest and do the stupidest work out routines I have ever seen. They will run around do 'super sets' of four different crazy exercises and hit nothing correctly. I have seen guys doing curls in the squat rack, flies on an incline bench (supports getting in the way) and using two benches at peak hours to do body weight dips with their knees hitting the ground. Of course some guys know what they are doing but many are all over the place. No one puts weights back where they come from and sometimes you can find just random pieces of equipment all over the gym. Also everyone loves to work out right in front of the weight rack so its impossible to get in without walking around 4 guys doing 10lbs curls.

Girls work out only ass and legs which is great. They love to wear tight colorful spandex work out gear. They look sexy as fuck so it makes up for all the other bullshit.

I have never seen chalk, proper Olympic lifting weights or a belt for doing weighted exercises - all bits of gear I love to use. All in not the worst but lots of little things that can drive you crazy.

This word for word describes Lima gym culture as well.

Quote: (03-08-2016 09:46 AM)Atlantic Wrote:  

No one puts weights back where they come from and sometimes you can find just random pieces of equipment all over the gym. Also everyone loves to work out right in front of the weight rack so its impossible to get in without walking around 4 guys doing 10lbs curls.

Particularly this point... Live from my gym in Lima

That drives me insane just looking at it

I always get a kick out of what people wear at the gym. Lots of the guys at my gym will wear simple t-shirts and the like. The girls
are always decked out. There are a few that wear make up. I never get that.

I just have some raggy old t shirts I wear with some shorts.

The only thing decent I have are my adipower sneakers I love those shoes.

Here also most girls wear some X brand tights to gym and these pants costs like 120 euros a pair as I've seen in shop. Its just pants but I think its fashionable or whatever. Even some big 100kg not in so good shape girl has somehow managed to put these tights on with the X brand stretched all over their large thigh.

Quote: (03-11-2016 12:16 PM)CaptainChardonnay Wrote:  

Quote: (03-11-2016 09:26 AM)Designate Wrote:  

Quote: (03-08-2016 09:46 AM)Atlantic Wrote:  

Colombia -

Guys focus mainly on chest and do the stupidest work out routines I have ever seen. They will run around do 'super sets' of four different crazy exercises and hit nothing correctly. I have seen guys doing curls in the squat rack, flies on an incline bench (supports getting in the way) and using two benches at peak hours to do body weight dips with their knees hitting the ground. Of course some guys know what they are doing but many are all over the place. No one puts weights back where they come from and sometimes you can find just random pieces of equipment all over the gym. Also everyone loves to work out right in front of the weight rack so its impossible to get in without walking around 4 guys doing 10lbs curls.

Girls work out only ass and legs which is great. They love to wear tight colorful spandex work out gear. They look sexy as fuck so it makes up for all the other bullshit.

I have never seen chalk, proper Olympic lifting weights or a belt for doing weighted exercises - all bits of gear I love to use. All in not the worst but lots of little things that can drive you crazy.

This word for word describes Lima gym culture as well.

Quote: (03-08-2016 09:46 AM)Atlantic Wrote:  

No one puts weights back where they come from and sometimes you can find just random pieces of equipment all over the gym. Also everyone loves to work out right in front of the weight rack so its impossible to get in without walking around 4 guys doing 10lbs curls.

Particularly this point... Live from my gym in Lima

That drives me insane just looking at it

Reminds me of the gym in Bosnia (I will write a resume of gym culture in the Balkans when I have time, by the way) I am currently attending every other day.

It took me like 10 minutes to find another 20 kg weight in a pile like this. God knows how many hours of my life I have wasted looking for stuff like that.

Quote: (03-11-2016 02:54 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

I always get a kick out of what people wear at the gym. Lots of the guys at my gym will wear simple t-shirts and the like. The girls
are always decked out. There are a few that wear make up. I never get that.

I just have some raggy old t shirts I wear with some shorts.

My situation exactly here in Gdansk.

Social media, especially Instagram was responsible for shaping the current UK gym culture these past few years. A lot more women doing weights, especially in the leg and ass department.

The US has a culture of superb gym equipment and equipped gyms. No high school in the UK has a strength and fitness suite like they do in America. Only at university levels will you see those types of gyms and even then its embarrassing by comparison.

Quote: (03-08-2016 01:35 PM)Stimulus Wrote:  

I thinks it's funny though, to my knowledge Americans are the most overweight people in the world but it's also leading the pack regarding gym culture and even steroid use. That contrast is so weird to me as an European.

I'll give you a simple explanation. People in the United States at or near the top of the totem pole own the rest of the world in every category. People at the bottom of the totem pole in the United States are basically the bottom of the barrel worldwide. Average people in the United States in any category leave a lot to be desired.

Testing

Southern California

I'll never understand dudes in compression pants with gym shorts on top of it.

I'll also never understand dudes in yoga pants/compressions pants at the gym UNLESS you're absolutely jacked and got tree trunk legs.

Gallon jug guys are funny watching - I have a gallon jug on my work desk, I don't lug it around.

Assholes STILL can't rerack shit - the girls are sluttier and thirstier than ever vying for male attention.

You've got the SWAG YOLO kids with the freshest gear, hardly any of them are jacked.

I rock chucks, gym shorts, a tank top, a trucker hat (bill forward).

At my old gym it was small and more intimate - never rocked a hat.

This new gym is huge with a lot more people, I like laying low.

Head down, weights up, resting asshole face.

I'm polite, I'll ask people what they're done with, what they're using.

Still some asshats will grab plates on a bench you're using without asking.

I don't know how you guys get on without the gallon jugs. Back in the early days I was lugging around old milk jugs, the gallon jugs look baller compared to what I looked like those days lol

Quote: (03-14-2016 01:43 PM)mikeymike Wrote:  

I don't know how you guys get on without the gallon jugs. Back in the early days I was lugging around old milk jugs, the gallon jugs look baller compared to what I looked like those days lol

I actually saw some dude with a glass one the other day, I refuse to lug one around the gym, I keep one at my weekend job, one at my corpo job.

We actually had a discussion about it in this thread:

thread-54393...45959.html

Quote: (03-14-2016 01:48 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

Quote: (03-14-2016 01:43 PM)mikeymike Wrote:  

I don't know how you guys get on without the gallon jugs. Back in the early days I was lugging around old milk jugs, the gallon jugs look baller compared to what I looked like those days lol

I actually saw some dude with a glass one the other day, I refuse to lug one around the gym, I keep one at my weekend job, one at my corpo job.

We actually had a discussion about it in this thread:

thread-54393...45959.html

the glass ones are going to be everywhere, the plastic with water is scaring a lot of people. That combined with the realization that peri workout nutrition is surpassing post workout nutrition in importance and soon popularity is going to push the need for those large bottles so get used to the sight, its not going anywhere. Bring your glass bottles now so you could be the guy doing it before it got trendy lol

I used to drink juiced out of mason jars awhile ago. I don't drink with plastic straws for the same reasons.

Problem is, I've got plastic Tupperware I use as well.

I can see why plastic would be an issue.

Quote: (03-11-2016 12:36 AM)evilhei Wrote:  

Quote: (03-10-2016 08:44 PM)rudebwoy Wrote:  

^ I went to a nice gym in Oslo, a few years back. They had a huge dry sauna room and a wet sauna room. I was amazed to enter the dry sauna and see girls chilling inside, yes they are unisex.

Isn't Scandinavia known for it's saunas?

This you would never see in the West, not in Canada, America or the UK.

The gym was mostly girls doing light workouts or walking on a treadmills.

They were impressed with me lifting "two plates".

Actually in Norway the sauna culture is no existent. In one year I have lived here I have been to sauna once and that was very weak electric sauna in a skiresort, maximum 60 C. I don't really know why Norwegians don't like saunas, they have all those mountain hutts but non of them have saunas. To me it seems quite strange, to build a small house to the mountains but without sauna.

I'm not sure about Sweden, whats the sauna situation there but in Finland there's definitely saunas everywhere and same in Estonia. In Finland and Estonia you will not find a cottage or a gym without sauna.

Most larger fitness centers and public pools have a sauna, but you are right we don't have a sauna culture like Finland. The bigger luxurious mountain huts may have one too, but it's probably rarely used.

I'm training in a gym now in Norway with no group classes and not too much cardio equipment, but well equipped weight rooms. People here are more serious than the average Norwegian gym goer, but still I rarely see people bench or squat over 100 kg for reps with good form. There's one big strong dude I've seen do 220 kg deadlift for reps, probably does powerlifting.

The few females who train there regularly are often of the new breed of fitness girls who train like men (just more lower-body focused). They are quite muscular and usually carry around at least 5-10 kg of extra weight, they seem more concerned about building muscle and getting strong than having a thin feminine body. When I started going to gyms 10+ years ago, these girls were almost non-existant. Actually, of the handful I've seen deep squatting 100 kg at this gym, 2 were girls.

Steroid use is not uncommon in Norway, but at this gym there are very few. Due to the stigma around steroid use here, they tend to congregate in certain gyms, and other gyms don't want them.

Quote: (03-14-2016 01:43 PM)mikeymike Wrote:  

I don't know how you guys get on without the gallon jugs. Back in the early days I was lugging around old milk jugs, the gallon jugs look baller compared to what I looked like those days lol

Yep, without a gallon jug I'd be at the water fountain more than at the weights.

Quote: (03-14-2016 02:08 PM)mikeymike Wrote:  

Quote: (03-14-2016 01:48 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

Quote: (03-14-2016 01:43 PM)mikeymike Wrote:  

I don't know how you guys get on without the gallon jugs. Back in the early days I was lugging around old milk jugs, the gallon jugs look baller compared to what I looked like those days lol

I actually saw some dude with a glass one the other day, I refuse to lug one around the gym, I keep one at my weekend job, one at my corpo job.

We actually had a discussion about it in this thread:

thread-54393...45959.html

the glass ones are going to be everywhere, the plastic with water is scaring a lot of people. That combined with the realization that peri workout nutrition is surpassing post workout nutrition in importance and soon popularity is going to push the need for those large bottles so get used to the sight, its not going anywhere. Bring your glass bottles now so you could be the guy doing it before it got trendy lol

What do you do for periworkout nutrition?

Quote: (03-15-2016 02:16 PM)monster Wrote:  

Quote: (03-14-2016 02:08 PM)mikeymike Wrote:  

Quote: (03-14-2016 01:48 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

Quote: (03-14-2016 01:43 PM)mikeymike Wrote:  

I don't know how you guys get on without the gallon jugs. Back in the early days I was lugging around old milk jugs, the gallon jugs look baller compared to what I looked like those days lol

I actually saw some dude with a glass one the other day, I refuse to lug one around the gym, I keep one at my weekend job, one at my corpo job.

We actually had a discussion about it in this thread:

thread-54393...45959.html

the glass ones are going to be everywhere, the plastic with water is scaring a lot of people. That combined with the realization that peri workout nutrition is surpassing post workout nutrition in importance and soon popularity is going to push the need for those large bottles so get used to the sight, its not going anywhere. Bring your glass bottles now so you could be the guy doing it before it got trendy lol

What do you do for periworkout nutrition?

HBCDs EAAs Glutamine. I'm a big believer in nutrients during workouts to get the best out of your workouts and beyond into recovery. The anecdotal evidence as well as recent studies are also bearing this out.

I was in Vietnam recently, pretty much every guy I saw doesn't even lift. There are maybe a handful of guys I saw in a gym catering for bodybuilding who look like they do, except that they're actually weaker than my 65 year old dad when I asked how much they lift. Didn't train there (just visited out of curiosity), because I didn't have time and I might bend their shitty bars.

The same kind of Viet guys in Australia dominate the powerlifting scene here in the sub-205lb weight classes though, and they are all jacked. This is definitely a cultural thing, not genetics.

EE upscale gym:

Not intense: hardly any squats or deadlifts, no obvious steroid users, people are really weak.

Guys: wide ranges of ages, tons of balding men, hardly anyone looks good (both face and body).
Girls: tons of young girls-students. Hardly any women over 30 year old.

Not hard to be top 5 percentile physique wise.

If you go to less upscale gyms, then you get more steroid users and stronger guys, but still people don't really squat or deadlift, everyone only trains upper body.

Australian here. I can only speak to the gym culture I see at my local, but it's actually a pretty mixed bag, and everyone is generally cool towards each other. We have the jacked up liftbros who spend a lot of time fucking around but lift some pretty heavy stuff, we have the Lorna Jane wearing trophy wives who come in and do what looks like some kind of retarded power stretching while talking nonsense and call it a workout (you can tell by the looks on their trainers faces that they don't care as long as they get paid), we have the weedy or obese guys and girls that come in and try to better themselves (which is awesome), the cardio bunnies wasting their lives on the ellipticals and treadmills, and then the generalists who just... come in and lift.

My gym also has a sexist-as-fuck 'ladies training' section, so women can feel 'safe' and not have their disgusting fat rolls ogled by nasty menfolk while working out, a real problem with people not putting their shit back on the racks when they're done, and people not training with a fucking towel or being able to take a rest period without checking their smartphones.

Overall Oz gym culture rating: 7/10

Edit: All exercise types observed - upper and lower body. Sometimes a few forget legs.

Quote: (03-21-2016 06:59 AM)Snowblind Wrote:  

My gym also has a sexist-as-fuck 'ladies training' section, so women can feel 'safe' and not have their disgusting fat rolls ogled by nasty menfolk while working out.

Don't hate on the womens only area, this is one time sexism works for us. I wish the policy made it so all women had to go in the womens only. We already have to put up with guys who don't take working out seriously, the idiots who have to do more sets of one exercise than anybody should ever have to do on the piece of equipment that is the most limited in the gym in between long texts and longer walks to the water fountain. If you had to include novice females and the out of shape females who want to hide out amongst each other, our workouts would take another half hour min. It's already bad enough getting squat racks, with every skinny girl doing her mandatory 5 leg days per week while hoarding benches in between. We all love our hot in shape women but when I'm at the gym I'm there to work, I hardly notice them unless they're stopping me to yap while I'm catching a quick breather in between sets at which point shut up, I'd banish them all to womens only so they can get out of the way. The less people taking up space on the guys side the better.

girls often try and hog multiple machines at once, doing some weird circuit training using machines for exercises they were never designed for.

My take on the UK thus far:

90% of men look like shit. Skinny legs and arms, thick torso. Most people at my gym don't actually lift anything heavy, people tend to focus on curls and machines. Gym "culture" as such focuses on a dozen dudes in nipplesinglets curling a million different variations in front of a mirror. I've not seen anyone else deadlift over 200 kg at my gym. There's one hardcore squat dude though, repping with 3plate.

All in all, it's very showy, bodybuilding-focused. Most people come to show of and behave very bro-y. That being said, there's a couple of decent guys who train hard with none of the silly posturing.

Maybe it's got to do with the forced, strained sense of masculinity I see here in general. Tattoos, showing off at the gym (especially the nipple-fucking-singlets), loud bro-ing and the works.

My experience can be a bit skewed though, since in Finland I worked out it a danky ass cellar gym with ridiculously strong dudes where 200 kg is a warmup.

From places I have lived or know best:

Vancouver: Lots of fit people, though gym culture seems secondary to fitness culture. More men and women seem to go toward cross fit and such, but I also notice more people at the racks. Gyms are putting in more racks and less cardio (except for bikes, which are popular at the moment). Lots of people running on the sea wall and doing mountain grinds.

Sweden: Probably the most ingrained workout culture of anywhere I have lived. Monthly memberships are dirt cheap to the community gym. They are stacked with benches and racks, plus have saunas. After work the gym classes are packed with teenagers to the retired. Swedish mentality is to save on healthcare, live a healthy life.

Tokyo: Niche market but the gym I went too was quite posh. Not my choice, just logistics. But there were a hardcore group of mostly men who locked down the weight center and spent a lot of time there. Nice people, but definitely echo what Cascadecombo said. Very much a singular hobby. The women either focus on strictly cardio or on their lunges/squats.

Australia: Pretty much what snowblind said. However I did notice a lot more men in the gym than other places.

China: Limited experience but I noticed equal women to men. Guys at the racks had lived abroad for the most part and obviously trained while studying or living overseas. Some very in shape guys. Lots of tight stomachs on the women (see A4 page, chicks do a lot of core there).

Mexico: Lots of dudes, high gay factor which surprised me (not sure why). Good routines focusing a lot on vanity muscles though, and women all about the cardio. Man I laughed at the pic of the Lima gym, yeah the gym in Mexico I used got pretty messy. It was a hyper place.