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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1991 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 31, 2025

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A question for the gym-goers here: Do you make all sorts of grunting noises when lifting?

That's the question and basically that's the only question, but to explain why I am asking it, the following:

I go to a local gym three times a week. There is newly-opened Anytime Fitness about 3 minutes from my house that replaced what used to be a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. I've been in it and they did a good job of revamping it, but the price of membership is not cheap and anyway gyms are almost impossible to quit here (that is a boring story I will not tell.) So I continue to go to the old-man, almost-free gym which is a bike ride or a 15 minute walk through the park away.

You tend to see the usual people at my gym. Meaning, the same healthy Japanese people almost every time. It depends on when you go, true, but not always. Mostly you see old men, some really old men, some men who look older than me* but probably aren't, a few old/older women, and occasionally teenage or 20 something guys who for some reason do not go to a cooler venue. One fattish late teens girl who does a lot of staring at her phone for some reason goes there and is always given a torrent of advice on her lifting form by one old guy. She seems to appreciate every word from his mouth but I have my doubts. People are usually friendly to one another--a nod, a chat, some of them seem to like talking. I do not. Once a 20-something guy came in, having brought with him with a girl of similar age, except she was wearing some sort of black latex body suit but without the modesty shorts--she was also gorgeous, brown hair up in this ponytail, and it was as if the clothing she were wearing had been designed expressly for her, designed solely to showcase her youthful perfection in all its...perfection, yeah I can't even find words, it was a moment--and I nearly walked over to the guy and asked "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Very bad form bringing a shockingly gorgeous girl to an old man gym. For a moment I felt like a grizzled Muslim dropped unprepared on Miami beach.

To the point: There is one guy in particular at this gym, he lifts pretty heavy, he is the kind of dude who has two things going on--one set of reps he is doing at the bench press, but he also tries to monopolize the leg curl machine, etc. He does not talk or greet, nor does he bow when entering or leaving (strictly not necessary as this isn't a martial art, but most of us do it anyway). This guy, when lifting (and I don't think he has great form) always makes noises like something out of Forrest Gump when the guy is banging Forrest's mom upstairs. I cannot reproduce the sounds on keyboard. Like a man lifting a sofa but then his back goes out and he groans in distress. Except he does not groan once. He keeps rhythmically groaning and huffing. Yesterday he had the 50kg dumbbells in each hand and was doing a dumbbell bench press with each (he did not get all the way up, at least when I saw him) and it was only at this moment that I expected a grunt--but nothing. No. He saved the grunts for later when he was using the full bar to bench and kept raising it like 5-inches, and lowering it, and raising it again, like miniature reps. Maybe this is a thing. But each rep came with its own damned grunt. And I do not mean "damned" in the normal way. I mean that each grunt was of the pit, was curséd, like the speech of Mordor.

I get moving really heavy weight sometimes there is an involuntary grunt of effort. Like when pushing a truck out of the mud with your buddies. But god this guy's constant utterances annoy. What is the proper etiquette, if any, for gym grunts?

*I know that should be "older than I" but I can't bring myself to write it.

FWIW I too have been going to a nearly-free old man gym in Japan for several years now, and nobody grunts or makes noise (except me, a little, when I'm trying to do my max).

Our regulars are probably 50% withered seniors born in the Taisho era lifting 3kg or stretching. The other half are dudebros (and a scattering of chicks) from the nearby regional university. It's usually pretty quiet in there (well, except for the loud boombox radio in the corner blasting our city's local station at near max volume... I'm always up on the weather and I get to improve my eigo with daily 2 min lessons) but that's probably because the older folks tend not to talk much while exercising. When the college guys are in there it can get a bit noisier, but even then I don't really hear any grunting that's louder than the ambient conversation. I think your Forrest Gump guy might have a screw loose.

P.S. I once attended a Joyfit for a year (sounds like we may have had similar experiences) and at that gym there was one elderly gentlman who would put on a weight belt and make very loud, hoarse shout-grunts that sounded as though he were either suffering through a bout of severe constipation or a round of particularly taxing intercourse, while manipulating a 10kg barbell in variety of ways. And at the Gold's in Harajuku I've seen some Asian bodybuilder dudes clearly on gear get really carried away pushing through sets and egging each other on. But never at my local neighborhood gym.

Do you make all sorts of grunting noises when lifting?

I sometimes do on the last couple of reps on the cycle. It helps. Not every rep though, for me it'd mean the weight is too much. And I am probably annoying other people. Which I try not to do without good reason.

It's a personal choice.

I lift weights practically silently, except maybe when attempting a max effort when I will occassionally WOOOO in triumph after hitting it. I make no noises when lifting, and I put away the bar as gently and quietly as possible, as though it were made of porcelain.

Mrs. FiveHour, by contrast, lifts half as much weight as though she's trying to make as much noise as possible. When she took up lifting, I finally bought decent squat stands, because the rickety old ones I had been using for ten years weren't equal to her abuse.

On the other hand, when I was in grad school, I got lectured by the woman running the girl's lifting club in the school gym about dropping the bar. She said the noise intimidated the girls. I pointed out that the bumper plates were meant to be dropped from overhead, and that I only dropped the bar when doing so was the safest way to get out of the position, or occasionally on warm ups to a max to get in the groove, and that noise was part of the gym experience and that I didn't criticize them for any noises they were making.

older than me

Double-dipping but my instinct is to say that this is correct. In the same way you would use 'He is older than her' rather than 'He is older than she'. But I see there is much disagreement.

I like this reddit post:

So, in the future, you're really better off consulting Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage for questions like this. You can see a preview here.

What it has to say on the issue of than, starting on the left column of page 892, is that "[a] dispute over whether than is a preposition or a conjunction has been going on now for more than two centuries. It is one portion of the price we pay for the 18th-century assumption that the parts of speech of Latin and Greek are readily applicable to English, an assumption that continues to gain uncritical acceptance to this day."

After describing the side championed by Lowth 1762 (holding essentially that after than comes the nominative case, except than whom), the side you're basically getting here, it quite sensibly allows for the use of than as preposition or conjunction, licensing both "taller than I" and "taller than me", citing Shakespeare ("A man no mightier than thyself or me", Julius Caesar, 1600), and several distinguished 19th and 20th century authors for prepositional uses of the phrase.

https://old.reddit.com/r/grammar/comments/oig7q/my_brother_is_two_years_older_than_i_or_than_me/

Older than I (am) is the correct form, prescriptively, but usage varies, per your point.

It's not necessarily older than I (am) though.

Consider--"he looks older than dirt." This isn't saying, he looks older than dirt looks, it's saying he simply looks older than dirt itself, dirt as a concept. Older than dirt is also wouldn't be correct--it would imply that the statement depends on dirt's current age, e.g. that he looks younger than dirt generally will in a few hundred years, which is asinine.

If anime has taught me anything, it's that any physical effort must be accompanied by

haAAH! URYAAH!! dOORYAAAA!!! or at the very least yoi-shou!

You should hear me taking out the bins on a Monday morning...

(All joking aside, I almost never make noise when lifting and it's irritating when other people moan on every rep)

At the gyms I've been to the rule around grunts has been, "sounding like you're getting railed in the butt is bad taste, but we're not going to call you out on that". That is, a few involuntary sounds on your last couple of reps are understandable, but if you moan or grunt on each rep people won't hide their amusement.

One reason I asked here (in this forum) is that in Japan you never know what the hell the group reaction is unless you are finely tuned to the group, and in this case the group is varied enough and one-scene enough (just this gym) that I cannot calibrate their microexpressions, etc. In other words everyone ignores his oOOOomphs and Ragghhhhhs except me, and I don't know anyone well enough to know if they are equally fazed. As I say this is a dude who doesn't really interact with the normal pleasantries.

The two biggest moaners in my current gym are both women. One can't (or won't) fit her breasts into her jumpsuit, walking around with a massive cleavage. The other looks and dresses like a man from an aerobics video parody.

A missed opportunity for a Zardoz reference, or is it not that bad?

Nope, not that bad. She looks like Weird Al doing Flashdance cosplay.

I usually exhale after having passed the sticking point in leg exercises. When I am not paying attention to it (such as if I am otherwise preoccupied by lifting something heavy), this may result in a grunt. I don't really mind if other people grunt as long as they don't count out loud.

There are multiple studies indicating that swearing can lead to increased pain tolerance.

Similarly, it's possible that grunting can give some people that extra edge to be able to lift heavier weights. Could also just be placebo or attention seeking performance.

That being said, grunting obnoxiously loud in a public gym is pretty rude and I imagine if you're a powerlifter that needs to grunt to get that extra edge you likely could go to a gym more catered towards powerlifters where such behavior maybe more tolerated.

I grunt when my body is about to give out, or when I am seriously pushing myself well beyond a previous PR. Otherwise, I do my best to keep it to myself, nobody signed up to hear any of that.

I will tell you that - in the gyms that have had the misfortune of hosting me - I have heard very little grunting. This guy is probably being performative, seeking attention for what he believes are actions at the peak of the human physique. Maybe he wants that unattainably beautiful woman to glance his way? You're just caught up in his auditory net.

What to do about it? I'd go for noise canceling headphones, or that failing, a word with staff. I bring the former along just in case they're playing god awful music today.

The music is always godawful, but I have a thing against blocking out ambient noise in a public space. I know that is not normal.

It's interesting if this dude wants attention, because he seems so un-selfaware that he also seems unaware of everyone else. I suspect some sort of autistic tendency but whatever. I'll probably just fucking deal with it. (Also not to awooga again but the siren-y girl only showed up once, thank the Olympians.)

Memetic learning in all things.

A lot of guys grunt because they saw some "famous" lifter grunt on youtube. I think the rhythmic nature of it is a dead giveaway. Your bench-n-leg-curl aficionado probably saw at some point, perhaps even in real life, a lifter he considered "elite" doing something similar and decided to adopt it.

So this would naturally lead to the question "is there a reason for grunting that has validity." Yes but no. Yet in that intermediate to advanced lifters learn how to use held breath and abdominal contraction to stabilize their core which can be very beneficial for compound lifts. If you've ever seen lifting belts, they aren't there to "reinforce" the back on their own, they are there to aid with roprioception (the body's own sense of where it is) during the lift. Lifters combine breath techniques and their lifting belts to create a very stabilized core momentarily. To prevent blackouts and other bad things, they might "force exhale" in intervals. You'll recognize this as a kind of "hiss" through the teeth. Over time, or with decreasing emphasis on technique, these hisses can get grunt-ified.

There's also just guys (both novice and experienced) who grunt as a psychological tool for themselves. It can work or it can't. It is highly correlated with ego lifting.

Once a 20-something guy came in, having brought with him with a girl of similar age, except she was wearing some sort of black latex body suit but without the modesty shorts--she was also gorgeous, brown hair up in this ponytail, and it was as if the clothing she were wearing had been designed expressly for her, designed solely to showcase her youthful perfection in all its...perfection

Your awoogaposting always reminds me of the 1994 classic Exotica.

Let me ask you something, gentlemen: What is it that gives a schoolgirl her special innocence? Her sweet fragrance... Fresh flowers, light as a spring rain... Oh, my god, my god... Or is it her firm, young flesh, inviting your every caress, enticing you to explore her deepest and most private secrets? Well, gentlemen, I'm gonna let you decide that one for yourselves.

I get moving really heavy weight sometimes there is an involuntary grunt of effort. Like when pushing a truck out of the mud with your buddies. But god this guy's constant utterances annoy. What is the proper etiquette, if any, for gym grunts?

It's entirely possible the etiquette in Nippon is different, but here in America I don't think this behavior is outside the norm. I personally find that making too much noise is not conducive to maintaining tension so I don't tend to do it, except perhaps at the end of a set where maintaining tension isn't that important. But I wouldn't think twice about someone else making noise.

Awoogaposting, that's a new one for me. Also I didn't realize I had a tendency to make such posts. So much for self-awareness.

here in America I don't think this behavior is outside the norm

Good to know. Probably the guy's general selfish obliviousness (as if the gym is his living room) is the little drop of Retsyn that makes his grunting irritating.

The stylistic token that first registered you as a specific person to me was your descriptions of perceived female beauty in mundane situations. I've always thought it was quite pleasant; you have the soul of a poet.

I didn't realize I had a tendency to make such posts

They're tasteful enough (more so than Exotica, at least) and I think it's weirder to pretend like beautiful women don't exist.

Also I didn't realize I had a tendency to make such posts. So much for self-awareness.

I greatly enjoy reading those posts out to my wife in my best Exotica Eric impression.

Good to know. Probably the guy's general selfish obliviousness (as if the gym is his living room) is the little drop of Retsyn that makes his grunting irritating.

Monopolizing equipment is definitely annoying but IME most people are willing to let people work in, especially on selectorized equipment like a leg curl.

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