Gym etiquette, unaccompanied minors?

Question

At the gym where I lift, lately there have been these two teenage boys (they look about 13/14 years old) who have been coming in to lift.  They clearly don't know anything, they bounce around from one lift to another with no plan, which I don't really care about.  The other day they were messing around cleaning fixed weight bars, and every time the one takes the bar off of the ground, he rounds his back about as far as humanly possible and jerks it upward (cringe).  They've done several other things with poor form, but nothing stands out as dangerous quite like this.

Now if these were adults, I wouldn't even give it a second though.  Adults have every resource in the world available to them in order to learn what they need to know, and if an adult does something stupid and hurts himself, well he's an adult, he should know better.  But these are stupid kids, unsupervised, who clearly know nothing.  Do you leave them alone?  Politely point out the danger in what they're doing wrong?  Point it out to someone who works at the gym?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

I'd suggest you talk to someone at the gym, explain your situation and say look I don't want to talk approach them because that might loo suspicious, but they're going to injure the,selves unless someone teaches them about form.

I'd say don't talk to them yourself, unless fr example one of them is about to drop a barbell on his face during a bench press and he's in immediate danger.

Anonymous · Answer

Yikes... You wouldn't think they would allow children in the gym, at least not unsupervised... They could serious hurt themselves or others by messing with the equipment and heavy weights. One slip and they could crush a throat or sternum with the barbell. I would maybe mention it to someone that works there.

fullpeak · Answer

Talk to the Gym manager, as I'm sure if something happened involving the kids injuring themselves or other people, the gym would get sued.

If they don't do anything about, neither should you.

Gym etiquette, unaccompanied minors?

3 Answers