As one of my niches is people who struggle with confidence in the gym, I’m regularly asked what to do when the gym is busy. And I’m going to tell you a secret: I didn’t know the answer to this one myself until I became a personal trainer, and even now, there are times when I look at the gym floor, whisper “what the actual fuck” to myself, and literally bin the plan I’d made. Those days are few and far between though – here’s what to do when the gym is busier than the pub on a Bank Holiday.
How do I train when the gym is busy?
First up, don’t panic. Yes, I know. It’s terrifying. You just want to go home. But gym floors are like the British weather in May: don’t like it; wait five minutes and it’ll almost certainly change.
You’ve got to warm up anyway (yes, you do, Squat Rack Ash – a few minutes of cardio to raise the heart rate is a must), so hop onto your cardio equipment of choice, and take stock. The thing you’ve forgotten is that you don’t know how long everyone else has been there. If it’s 8:30am on a weekday during school term time, odds are that everyone is about to dash off to work, for example. It could be that there’s a class just finishing up. It might be that every PT in the local area had a client booked for the same hour.
From your vantage point on the treadmill/crosstrainer/bike (because this observation is admittedly a bit harder from the rower), watch the traffic – do people look quite tired already? Are they putting stuff away? Is there more movement than you thought?
Sharp elbows at the ready…
A couple of minutes into your warm up and it still looks rammed? Start eyeballing that first piece of kit that you want, or a space to use if you’re going to be on the free weights without a rack or a lifting platform. Don’t tell anyone I told you, but if you’ve put the effort into your warm up and make a sprint for that machine or rack you want the moment it comes free, I’ll let you off.
Real talk though: when it’s busy, one of your most important tools is a bit of polite assertiveness. Be ready to talk to strangers (I won’t tell your Mum). There’s an etiquette to asking someone how long they’ll be doing what they’re doing: wait until they’ve put the fucking weights down. It can be quite dangerous if someone’s fully in the flow, focusing on their movement, and you break their concentration to ask them where they got their shoes, whether you can have their phone number, or how much longer they’ll be monopolising the cable column. You’ll only have to wait a few reps, it won’t ruin your day, and they’ll be nicer about their response.
Do it the right way and it’s honestly ok to ask, we’ve all been there. A simple, “excuse me, how many more sets have you got?” will do the trick. And if they say any figure higher than five, feel free to tell them I told you to glare at them.
The gym is really busy, can I change my plan?
Short answer: yes. The order in which you complete a workout is far less important than most people think it is. You’re not going to win extra points for completing everything to the letter that it’s been set for you. You’re not going to ruin progress by swapping sets around. There also is a little bit of an art to it, and I don’t mind telling you what that is. But before I do…
The best person to ask is your own coach. I’m in the habit of preparing my clients to train without me. Am I doing myself out of a job? No, because they’re still asking me to design them new sessions. Am I helping them get the job done? Absolutely. So run it past your PT: “I find that the gym is often really busy when I come and train alone, and I struggle to do things in the order you said, what can we do about that?” would be perfect.
It’s also good feedback for us. Before I qualified as a PT, I used to hate being set cable column exercises by my PT, not because I didn’t enjoy them, but because the gym doesn’t have many cable columns, they’re really popular, and they went through a period of time when they often broke. But I didn’t tell him any of that, and I just struggled on. If the roles were reversed, I’d much rather a client told me what was in their head. The reality is, I don’t always see what goes on when you come to train (no, I don’t review CCTV footage to check up on you, or get my colleagues to spy), and what I don’t know, I can’t do anything about.
How do I change the order of my workout when it’s busy?
If your PT hasn’t offered much support (red flag) or you don’t have one to ask, here are the basic rules: generally, a routine that’s been written for you, or you’ve found elsewhere, will have the most physically demanding exercises first, so that you’re doing them when you’ve got the most energy in the tank.
This does tend to make that first set almost non-negotiable, and you really should try and get that one done first. These will typically be what we call compound exercises (ones which involve more than one joint performing the movement – for example, squats [hips, knees and ankles], deadlifts [ditto], overhead press [shoulders, elbows]).
The other element it makes less sense to play around with is any finishers you’ve got in your programme. The clue, after all, is in the name. Exercises such as a sled push and pull, battle ropes, or anything else that’s ugly and designed to finish you off, should be reserved for that last-minute blast.
Items in the middle? You can do it one of two ways: ensure that the same muscle group is worked all in one hit; vary between muscle groups, to give them some time to recover whilst you train a different part of your body.
Is it really ok to switch up my workout order?
Yes. Ultimately, if you’ve bothered to go to the gym to train, I’d rather you did a session than turned around and went home again. I’d also like you not to get injured, which is why we front load those challenging compounds. But truthfully? Your body should forgive you the odd mixed up workout. Done is, after all, better than perfect.