Shared Spaces
I was on TikTok, and a woman posted saying that she was in a heated yoga class, and a man was in there huffing, puffing, and not doing the sequence the instructor was teaching. After I saw that video, I was thankful that I hadn’t experienced it before.
Of course, I spoke too soon. I was in my reformer pilates class, and a man was there. I wasn't phased when I first saw him because I believe that movement is for everyone. As we progressed through class, when we were at the beginning of a yellow spring shoulder/bicep sequence, he asked the instructor to “make it harder,” so she moved him to a blue spring. As we got to the third add-on to the movement, he asked to be back on yellow. Now, if you haven’t been to a pilates class, this might sound like a foreign language, but essentially, he thought he could big dog the reformer, and it turns out he isn’t like that.
After that happened, I thought back to the TikTok and started wondering how, as a woman, I try to be small whenever I'm in a male—dominated space. But do men think the same way in female-dominated spaces? Based on their actions, no. They spread their legs, they interrupt, they grunt, they change things without knowing the impact. I could go on and on. One of my biggest pet peeves right now on social media is when I see the ‘My guy friends said “Pilates can’t be that hard,” so I brought them to a class with me’ and then it is a bunch of grown ass men whinning and crying?? …like it is a workout — one that is about control, time under tension, intentional breathing, maintaining proper bodily alignment — what did you expect??
Let’s leave the Pilates space and bring it to a space that a majority of men are familiar with: the gym. Why is it that men now love the hip abductor/adductor machine?? When I was at CSU, they had one of the machines, and it was never ever used. The gym I go to now has THREE machines. Now, at the end of my first leg day of the week, I use this machine. I may be a bit too particular about the timing of this exercise, as it is always at the end, after my kickbacks, right at the end of my workout.
EVERY. SINGLE. TIME all three machines are being used, and 90% of the time it is all men, totally fine, but it is not totally fine when they take 20 minutes to do their sets…why do you need that much rest in between your sets?
Not related to a man, exactly, but there was one time when a woman was on the machine, and I noticed she would sit and scroll on TikTok for like three minutes between sets. After her third set, her boyfriend walked over. I was like, whew, okay, she is going to do one more set, then get up and leave. WRONG. This couple sat on the machine for 5 minutes, yapping and kissing here and there. I was waiting for as long as I could for another machine to open up, but it never did. As much as I didn't want to, I walked up and asked the most annoying question: “How many more sets do you have?” This lady rolled her eyes and said, “three”… Miss Lady, I just watched you do three sets, scroll on TikTok, and yap with your man… stop playing with me. Luckily, another person had gotten off one of the other machines shortly after, and I hopped in there.
Since 2020, I haven’t gone to a commercial gym or a Pilates class — I would either lift in my apartment gym or do at-home workouts. I had always heard about how awful public fitness spaces are, but I kinda thought that people were being dramatic. After starting Pilates at the start of 2025 and reentering the commercial gym space at the end of 2025, this phenomenon of people not being considerate of others or listening to instructors is not rare and is actually incredibly annoying.
I needed to get this off my chest, and I'm literally begging people to be better — not just in the fitness space, but in general. Bring back being courteous!
xoxx,
B