Surprise surprise, but women don’t like it when men wander over in the gym and coach them on their workout technique: it’s one of the findings from a new survey of gym ‘icks’.
The gym is an intensely personal place where many of us can feel insecure. For many reasons, the sight of a colleague or friend working out nearby can throw people completely off their workout.
Two thousand Brits have been surveyed on the things they find most challenging about the gym, and 43 per cent rated body odour as the most off-putting thing. 39 per cent said lack of spacial awareness was their biggest ick, and unsolicited advice from strangers of the opposite sex came in third with 37 per cent of women finding male advice a turn-off.
Here are the top 10 gym icks from the UK’s workout community, as compiled by Tap Warehouse.
1 Body odour 43%
2 Lack of spacial awareness when working out 39%
4 Making loud noises when lifting weights 36%
Filming videos for social media/TikTok 34%
6 Playing music out loud on phones 32%
7 Going barefoot 31%
Unsolicited advice from strangers of the same sex 29%
10 Hogging a machine between sets 26% With gyms being a space where people
Interestingly, when broken down by gender, unsolicited advice from strangers of the opposite sex was way higher of an ick for women than for men. 44 per cent of women cited that as their biggest ick, second only to body odour at 49 per cent.
The biggest ick for men is body odour, at 34 per cent, and second with 33 per cent is lack of spatial awareness when working out.
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