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Hello everyone and welcome back to America Under the Microscope advanced episode. Hi, Lulu.

Hi, James.

So we were previously talking about gym culture in America. And we should start off here with some of the rules that we have at the gym, things you should and should not do.

When you say rules, I'm assuming you're talking about rules that are not written down.

Right, these are just common sense you know, right things to do at the gym. Now they might tell you to do these, but yeah, so one of the things that is very important, especially now in our current environment is wiping the machines down.

Wipe it down. Don't leave your sweat there.

Yeah, so a lot of gyms in America they always have like sanitizer or spray bottles and towels you can grab. So you can grab them and after you're done with the machine, you can spray the disinfectant on it and wipe it all down and clean it up for the next user.

If you don't do it, will people yell at you?

Yeah, they will, they were like, hey…

Wipe it down

Wipe it down.

I guess it’s gross. It is gross because it can spread disease. It can spread all kinds of nasty stuff.

Kind of just like B.O. (body odor)

To be fair, if you're going to a gym, you expect ...

B.O.

It’s kind of…

Yeah, but I mean someone else’s sweat.

You just don't want to be sitting in other people's sweat when you use the machine, it's nasty.

No.

The other thing is a pretty common one which people don't always follow is put the stuff away. I always find this to be when I went to a gym like people would not put their weights away, they leave the weights on the bar, or they'll just leave the weights on the floor which is come on…

It's basically very selfish, it's not considering others and it's also very dangerous.

Yeah, it's very dangerous. You'll get yelled up for that one for sure.

The other two things are really about being friendly. When somebody asks you to spot them, help them…

Spot? S-P-O-T.

Yes, s-p-o-t, this means to help and support.

Oh. Okay.

So like they're pushing heavy weights and they need someone to spot in case they're having trouble to pull the bar back onto the rack. So if someone ask you for help them, you help them, so they don't get injured, because you don't want someone to get hurt in the gym.

I see, so even they're not asking the trainers, they are actually just asking other gym goers.

Yes, because a lot of people can help spot because you don't have to lift the bar up as a spotter, usually all you have to do is pull it.

So it can get back onto the hook. So it doesn't fall onto the lifter, really simple; and then lastly as you don't judge people in the gym.

Yeah, I feel very strongly about that. But I think it really depends on the type of gyms that you go to, for example, in China and I'm assuming in America as well, you got those gyms that are really just friendly neighborhood gym where everyone's just minding their own business, but you also have the gyms are really fancy gyms that are fancily decorated where everyone's just already perfectly toned people just going there to show off.

Those aren't the normal in America, because in America, especially nowadays, and people they see you at the gym, you're more likely just to get respect. So you're here doing something to try to be healthy. And most people won't judge you if you can only lift like five kilos right now. It's important that you don't judge them because judging someone who's trying to do this can destroy their motivation.

Yeah.

And you don't want that, and the gym owners definitely don't want that because they're going to stop paying for gym membership.

Exactly that's gonna be a hostile environment.

But one thing I think one more rule for gym nowadays is no selfies. This is like I mean in China seriously.

That's something that actually happens a lot in America too, because people you know do lists, and then they got flags and selfies in the mirror; and I am talking about the men doing this, not the women.

Either you're showing off your perfect body, your huge muscles, I don't want to be in the background. Sometimes they do that for ages, I absolutely hate that.

The men will do that in the bathroom.

Um…but that's why I guess some people they prefer to work out on their own instead of actually going to the gyms. So that's the idea of home gyms.

Yeah, so this is one thing I noticed is quite different while we have gyms everywhere in China, one thing I don't see is home gyms which for obvious reasons home gyms do take up a lot of space.

You gotta think that for people who can actually have a full on …a whole room dedicated to fitness exercise, they gotta be living in a huge house or flat.

Yeah, so they gotta be pretty well-off.

Yeah.

But in America you could set up your own home gym, pretty simply buying just simple… set up a room, buy some weights. You don't even need a machine because you want go running and you can go outside, we have nature, you know.

Do people sometimes do that in their basement?

Yeah. Sure. Set up in the basement, people set up in the garage. If you're lucky enough to live someplace with the excellent weather most of the year, they'll set it up outside.

Good. And then we talked about gym membership, you're saying that sometimes people do that to save money on gym membership…

Right.

Is it usually very expensive?

Gym membership can be, because a lot of gyms actually ask people to sign like year contracts…

That you can't get out.

That you can't get out. So you're like signing up for years that you get automatically billed, and if you try to cancel it, you have to pay cancellation fees and they make it really difficult to do this.

And so what ends up happening is like on New Years when people make their resolutions, like I'm going to lose weight to get a lot of gym memberships, and then people just don't go.

They mostly go for a week.

And they give up. But they're still stuck into their contract.

I've talked to people who own gyms before they're saying basically it's almost like 80% of the members that never go will pay for the other 20% that go every day.

Yeah, it's kind of how it works.

Now there are some gyms that now follow the business model of monthly only. So that works as you pay for the month if you don't keep going, then you don't keep paying, which is fair. I think that's pretty fair.

Yeah, I think that's probably will be more incentive for people to go. What about personal trainers?

Gyms have personal trainers, but these are becoming less and less popular nowadays because you have all the fitness apps, you have the videos online, all the websites about…

Yes, the fit influencers.

All these on line. People just download the APP, and then they enter their goals in the APP, and then they follow the exercises on the APP, they follow the diet on the APP.

They can get all of those from professional trainers for Free.

For Free now which a lot of people don't hire professional trainers, we still have them. Usually they're hired by… you gotta have money because they're not cheap.

They're also expensive in China.

They’re people have very specific goals if you're going to use a trainer.

True, for example probably after childbirth…

Right.

Or for people in a showbiz need personal trainers. What about the general fitness industry? So it's not just going to gyms. Do gyms also sell those health supplement, fitness supplement?

Yes, because it's probably where they make most of their money to be honest. Gyms they always sell like protein powders and stuff like that. But usually a lot of gyms have juice bars in them.

When you say juice bar, it’s actual juice, right?

Yeah they like juice, they have the real fruit, they put in the blender with the protein powder or whatever to give the people shakes.

Now the thing though is a lot of these shakes are not healthy at all.

Juice especially like for example orange juice, it's got a lot of sugar in it.

Yeah, but they can charge money and they make money this way. So what they recommend is that if you're going to do exercise, follow your meal plan, don't have those juices because they're just filled with sugar.

Exactly, if you want fruit, just have a fruit.

Yeah, eat fruit.

You want an orange, eat an orange, don't drink the orange juice.

If they sell orange I don't think they will make that much of a profit.

No, they cannot make profit of it.

All right. On that note, I think we're gonna wrap up here. If you are a regular gym goer or if you used to be a gym goer like we used to be, leave us a comment in the comment section, share with us your gym going stories, good or bad. Looking forward to seeing your comments, we'll see you next time.

Bye everyone.

Bye.