By: Lauren A.Greene

Store too many valuables

Try not to store valuables if you can avoid it. Petty theft is more common than you think at the gym. Take just what you need to work out. If you must stash some stuff opt for a padlock with a key - they're harder to pick then the combination kind.

Take a marathon shower

With limited stalls and lots of impatient, sweaty women, the gym is not the place to wile away your worries in a luxuriously, long shower. During peak hours while others are waiting get in, get clean, and get out.

Go spray crazy

Smells can be overwhelming in close quarters-ask anybody who’s been in a city taxi on a hot summer day. You might love your triple berry cream pie body mist and tootie fruitie styling spray but not everyone appreciates the same scents, especially when there's a giant stinky cloud of them enveloping the whole locker room. Keep the spritzing and spraying to a minimum.

Be anti-eco

You don't need 15 towels to dry off at home so resist the urge at the gym. Fitness centres consume mass amounts of water, detergent, bleach, and energy laundering towels every day. Once you remove one from the bin it’s getting washed whether you use it or not, so do the earth and your gym staff a favour and limit yourself. Even better: bring your own from home.

Be a gossip girl

A locker room is far from a library but for some people it's a mini-sanctuary where they can get a few moments of peace. Respect the stillness of the space and keep your voice down. Shut off your mobile phone and refrain from loudly recounting every detail of last night's hook-up to your friend. Besides, you never know who’s listening in the stall or row of lockers behind you.

Break the rules

Your gym posts signs for a reason. Whether its safety regulations for using the sauna or instructions on where to place dirty towels, familiarise yourself with the procedures and do your best to observe them.

Take over

It's not your private dressing area. Don’t spread out your stuff all over the benches, use multiple lockers, take over the sink, or block walkways with your bags. Use your judgment and do unto others. And if a fellow locker mate asks you politely to move your junk, don’t give her attitude. She has just as much a right to the space as you.

Go barefoot

Even if your gym looks and smells super clean, microscopic germs and bacteria can still be lurking under foot. Walking around without protection can put you at risk for athlete’s foot or other gross gym afflictions. Slip on a pair of thongs and avoid an embarrassing trip to the podiatrist.

Talk in the buff

You may be perfectly at ease in your birthday suit, but not everyone has the same level of comfort. Before you start yapping it up with the half-dressed woman one locker over, check out her body language. Does she seem embarrassed, rushed, or uninterested? Take a hint and leave her alone. Instead, make your friends on the gym floor where everyone is clothed.

Be that girl!

There’s always one in every gym - she stands nude to do her makeup, dry her hair, and walk around. Don't be that girl! Of course you have to flash a little skin while you're dressing or getting out of the shower but there's no need to parade around starkers the entire time. And please no full-body lotioning with your leg up on the bench. Save your strip tease for the bedroom, not the locker room.

Have your say: what's your pet peeve while at the gym?

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