ys Justin Hall Comnie Douglas UWRIT 1101 Ethnography ‘The gym is a constantly growing facility that over the years has efficiently changed it's attirude to accept everyone, regardless of body type and gender. Due to the new attraction of a wider variety of people, this Ethnography studies the people that go to the gym, with my discourse community being those who use the squat rack. People who use the squat rack seem to break every single norm that is laid down by the unspoken social contract that you enter while at the gym, I will cover what these normnality’s as well as explain how and why the squat rack seems to be the exception. This is not to say that everyone who has ever used a squat rack falls into the category, but the vast majority of my observations as well as interviews with people suggest that my findings can be considered a norm within the fact that it is not a normality compared to the rest of the gym. L" bees ‘Methods: For the observation period I visited the gym two separate occasions as a note taker and a participant focusing on people do for their workout and several other times as just a participant focusing on the interactions of other people. Questions that arose from observations such as “What is the difference between coming in a group versus as a single participant or having a partner? Does it affect the workout? Do you talk to your friend(s)?” Led to two informal interviews with average gym participants (one to three times a week) as well as passing out a small survey to a group of thirty people. This survey showed that twenty of those thirty people were average gym goers and only ten of them were regular gym goers (three to seven days a week). These statistics have helped to form a few conclusions about the gym culture. In it's simplest form the gym is a place where one goes to work out, whether it be to lose weight, stay in shape, gain muscle, or stay healthy overall. Although, to be accepted within the culture, you must meet a certain criteria, though, the gym is full of contradictionand juxtaposition. ‘The Gym Conundrum The criteria of the gym culture is much is stereotypical in ways such as a classic gym goer may be dressed, the vocabulary they use, or even their general attitude towards a person who is not within that gym community. When originally thinking of someone who went to the em thought of people who wore skin-tight clothing with the Nike brand or Under Armour, sporting large muscles and an unfriendly attitude, and previous athletic experience and that these were the beginnings of what allowed you to be accepted into the gym culture, Those specific boxes had to be socially checked as ‘well as knowledge of the equipment, gym slang, and of course a personal water bottle. Through observation and participation this stereotype can be proven to be untrue at its core. While there may be people who were former athletes, wear these clothing brands, and have large muscles, the overall atmosphere is not what one quick to judge may think. The fact is, there are people there who have never played a sport in their life, wear off-brand shorts and wear white T-shirts to work out, The ratio of males to females is about one point five to one respectively which would not have been the case twenty years ago. The gym is a constantly changing and growing community that accepts everyone who merely goes to the gym and tries. The overall community previously judge a person who was overweight, skinny, or unknowledgeable about equipment and would let them fail. Although things have changed, and while I'm sure there are still people who have that attitude at the gym, the majority of gym goers want to see their peers succeed right along beside them. On the survey, thirty out of thirty people said they would like to see new people do well in the gym and continue to come back. Some even commented in the “any additional comments box” that if they saw people on a regular basis it ‘would encourage them to continue coming to the gym too, because they have respect for their peers. ‘The gym community supports each other, yet when you enter a gym, this is not seen as clearly as at a sporting event with people cheering,is what begins the juxtaposition mentioned earlier. 've already touched on how clothing brands in no way shape or form improve performance, yet people still wear the popular Nike and Under ‘Armour. A precedent set by society tells us we need to wear these brands in order to succeed or be accepted in the gym community, which is incorrect. People see that just by being at the gym you have taken that first crucial step, while you may not fit the stereotypical body type of a regular gym goer, the fact that you are at the gym working towards whatever goal you may have set for yourself makes you a part that community. While new comers may not understand the gym lingo, it does not mean they should feel outcasted. Out of the same thirty people who noted in the survey whether they were average gym goers or regular gym devotees, twenty-nine out of thirty said they would be willing to help a novice gym participant if they asked for it. This research shows that the gym is accepting of new people and is not a closed community to people who do not “belong”, which is an outdated image of how people view the gym, one that is working to be changed. The second example of the juxtaposition within the gym is the fact that the participant wants their partners to succeed and continue to get better, but itis socially unacceptable to talk to someone else while in the gym. The only interactions you will receive with another person at the gym are small nods, a smile if your lucky, or the question of whether or not you're done using the machine. Friends will exercise side by side, but other than the sounds of weights clinking together and the faint music playing in the background, interactions are far and few in between, unless you're using the squat rack, which has it's own set of social rules. This is interesting because when people go places and make a point to invite friends that they normally would talk to, i's considered taboo within the gym community, which is interesting seeing as people want you to succeed but they offer no words of affirmation or encouragement. Also observed as a contradiction to what we normally see in society are the females that work out in the gym, or rather the lack of companions with females in the gym. It's not uncommon to think of a girl doing something whether it may be going to eat, walking to class, going to the store, they are always with a friend of some sort. This is complete opposite in the gym, unlike guys who are content to do s alone, they are much more likely to bringa companion to the gym with them than girls. Add closing sentence restating points about stereotypes, social interactions and men v women. In the survey of thirty people, they answered one more question, “Do you feel comfortable/accepted when you walk into the gym?” All thirty people said yes, so the question that must be asked is why is the gym thought of to be a bad place that is narrow minded and full of judgment? Why do we not speak to each other yet want to see everyone succeed? Why do we seem unapproachable, yet are friendly when confronted? Who set the precedent that drives the behavior of this group and why is it not changing? The setting is ripe for change and people have the right mindset for it. If we were to just communicate with each other more the big bad gym could become the place where people wanted to go, not just out of guilt from not being healthy but because they have fun and want to see their friends, Succeeding beside one another is a great feeling, especially if you're there to push each other up, which is what the overall consensus of the people there seem to have in mind. They just need to put it into action better. O ueter 4 wor oro Ns OO ee, Discourse Community: Squat Rack Users |The largest contradiction within the gym is the squat rack, which is why my discourse community is the users of the rack, Its users seem to break all of the social rules that have been set forth by the gym cohort, conversing with friends and vocally one another, which is what makes it so intriguing, Squat rack users or SRU's, give gym participants something to model their workouts aftet. I) do not believe that a workout should be all work and no play, while hard work and sweat may be the only way to see results and changes in your body, who said that you have to walk into the gym and suddenly close offall ties with people around you? Thus, entering your own little world and struggle through a workout only to be drained physically whilst not even cracking a smile. This is a ridiculous ‘way to go throughout a workout. No place other than the gym is all work and absolutely no play, there has to be an outlet for communication with others, we as humans need these interactions, whether it be= encouragement or comic relief after a hard set, working out with friends is beneficial in more ways than cone. Working out can be boring, and being preoccupied by someone who is there to keep your mind off of things can benefit both parties by allowing the attention to be put else where. Thus, seemingly speeding up the workout and increasing performance. Increasing performance by group activities plays ‘ crucial part when looking at our SRU's, because they put this idea into practice. SRU's are the only people next to a few select few bench press users who actually talked to each other whilst working out, even the people who came in groups together. The people who would come in a group and do curls or run on the treadmill would rarely talk, but the SRU's would talk, laugh, spot, and even encourage their friends to reach higher weights that they would not normally have put on themselves. When at the gym its all about improvement or “gains”, and having a friend or group of friends push you to make those improvements can become a healthy competition which pushes everyone to work harder and in the end is what gets those changes you're shooting for. This type of working with a group to achieve a goal is skill that is used in life all the time and when surrounded by a support group, you're guaranteed to do better. Working in groups has been scientifically proven to improve performance as well as improve confidence within the situation. “The results demonstrate that receiving social support from fellow ‘group members leads to higher effort in groups at the level of existing beliefs about motivating group work, at the level of effort intentions, and at the level of manifest performance behavior.” (Joachim Huffimeier 287). We infer from this that the SRU's have already become aware of this information, which would explain not only as to why they work in larger groups at the gym but also as to why they spend so much time completing their workouts, they're being motivated. When motivated to push for that last rep or put more weight on the bar, the time can easily tick away quick if we consider that there are generally three to six people using the rack at one time. If every person were to adjusted the weight within their set, all of them working for that one last rep, and all motivating each other to keep working, each factor will stack more time to the workout and this can add up quickly. The question then becomes, “Why would only the squat rack be used in this group effort of encouragement andperformance boosting techniques?” From this question, we can draw an inference about the way interactions work, whether it be inside or outside of the gym. With anything that has been around for a Tong time, or even a new setting, people talk about the things, or in this case the workouts that they like or that they see when they go. We can infer that perhaps the reason there are groups specifically at the squat rack, is because when they first started going to the gym that's the way they first witnessed it and through observational learning, followed suit. It very well could be a precedent that has never been put to use else where in the gym, with gym goers exposing their fiends to it, who then followed the same rules and so on until no one questioned it and the phenomenon grew and become the norm, When thinking of groups of people who go to the gym and who uses which workout machine, we must think of who makes the decisions in the groups. Obviously, those who've been to the gym before and know what they're doing. Within Elena Rokou and Konstantinos Kirytopoulos's study of group decision making they state that “Every group decision making process can be roughly split in two phases. The first concems the problem modeling while the second one is about finding out which is the preferred solution among several alternatives with respect to a set of criteria.” Therefore, groups use this process to decide on what exercises to do for that days workout. If we use Rokou and Kirytopoulos's ideas on how a group based decision is made, we can see how the group must first weigh the pro's and con's of ‘what they're going to be doing that day, Planning the workout takes quite a few considerations into the process such as time limits, willingness to exercise, and the amount of people within the group, Considering these issues can then split into the decision into the second part of the decision making, conferencing with the others and coming to a suitable conclusion. If the group has been to the gym before which is more than likely the case in a group of friends who want to go, they will have already been exposed to the normality of seeing other groups at the squat rack as well as doing the workouts for themselves and generally like it. Then we can consider the group of guys who have never been to the gym but by being predisposed to peoples conversation who use the rack, do research online (squats are a very common workout) as well as inevitably seeing the group of people working out on the squataa jive 24 ? seem lite & ron clo rack, they can then make the decision to use in that manner as well. Therefore, group decisions inevitably lead to usage of the squat rack,/{I Was not only interested as to why the squat rack was so popular and as to why it seemed to be the exception with gym norms but also why seemingly non-gym rats loved it so much, was it the fear of breaking the unspoken code that groups of people always used the squat rack? was always under the impression that the bench press would have been the most popular machine at the gym with how muclIheard people talk about it Therefor interviewed two gym participants who used to play sports in highschool. Ethan: When it comes to the squat rack I would say that i's an easy exercise that incorporates ‘more than just quad muscles, something average guys like, which is working more than one muscle at a time. Average people who don't have the time or the effort to isolate each muscle group and have a specific “day” for a muscle groupings, doing squats allows them to work on quad muscles, hip muscles, back muscles and even some shoulder muscles. This is ideal for those people and even the small guys can throw up some big numbers. Justin: So do you think its an image thing? How some people say away from bench press because they're small? Ethan: Oh most definitely. When I first started I hated the glamor muscle machines, or the ones that worked on the upper body because I was really scrawny and couldn't even dream of keeping up with my friends that worked out on a regular basis. Not being able to bench press a big weight was seemingly a bigger deal than not being able to squat a certain weight. When you do squats you can surprise others and even yourself with how strong you really are, also squats are pretty simple. Like I said before, A good way to put it would be that its like a eard game. Its easy to lear but you can always get better with practice over time. Even beginners can challenge people who work out more then them depending on strength of course. Justin: T appreciate your input. My second interview seemed to follow the same suit and covered many of the same basis.David: Ab, the squat rack. People love to take their Se ae em eee areca Toeect ee its because the people who are squatting are talking or what, but its a pretty easy exercise to do which is what bugs me. I remember when I first squatting, I got the hang of it after about two attempts and ‘was golden from then on, It really shouldn’t take that long for even five people to do a set of five and. then move on to the next person and so on and so forth but people spend like thirty minutes on the damn thing. Justin: So do you think there is a reason why a group of people like to do the squat machine over other exercises if only one person at a time can go? Over say the bench press? And why is it so talkative comparatively? David: Well I think that smaller guys like me are more confident in their ability to squat than doing other things like bench press. Squats are just easy, which makes talking a lot easier to do because you don’t have to focus so much and the down time is longer because you have to change out weights for ‘each person and if you have four friends that's a lot of weight changing. And I forgot to say that bench press is really just a two person thing, one spotter and one lifter and vice versa, Justin: But there’s only one squatter and one spotter for squatting though, so how would you explain that? David: Well its a lot cooler to be able to put the weight of a house on your back rather than doing bicep ‘work outs and perhaps it's an illusion that the squat rack is so popular, I think that maybe because the big groups of people like to do them that it seems like its the most popular because there are always people mulling around them and such. Justin: Well I've never thought about it that way before, thanks for that insight. Results ‘The general conser Ace from the interviews as well as my own observations is that the‘squat rack is an easy exercise to do, that people of all strengths can participate in and do it toa higher caliber than other machines and that the squat rack works all sorts of muscles. This can also be a less embarrassing exercise to do because even smaller people lift heavier weights. We can also take Davids advice and really take a look at how seemingly popular the squat rack may be. These answers could explain as to why the SRU’s are much more vocal, push each other to do bigger and better weights and generally do not conform to the gym stereotype. We heard from both parties that the squat rack was used by people who are non-regular gym goers. Its much like teaching someone how to play a new card ‘game because they do not know all of the “rules” of the game and have a new outlook on how to play it, Therefore we can assume that the rest of the people in the gym have been working out for much longer than the SRU's and conformed to the gym precedent of being quiet and minding their mouths, yet the SRU's would not have been there as much as them and seemed to ignore this precedent because they're with their friends, who they're gonna talk to just like it's any other event. Another reason for their talking could be that they're asking more questions, when people go to the gym they normally go with someone who knows what they're doing, which can lead to more talking, At the end of the day, people in the gym community can take a lesson from the SRU's, even though they seem to be the newbies, and learn to be more social-able, encouraging and talkative, which as aforementioned has been proven to improve performance. 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