Go Ahead – Grunt All You Want

Ah grunting. Ya gotta love it when you’re getting down to those last few reps of an intense set and your hearts pounding so hard it feels like it’ll pop out of your shirt and your muscles are burning like hell from the hard work and you let out a loud OOMPH that would shatter glass. But at Planet Fitness, a chain of gyms with 120 locations, they say grunting (and other sounds) are a no-no. Yepper, grunting is a policy breaker – punishable by expulsion.

Ok, grunting or groaning isn’t the most pleasant of sounds but ones you expect to hear in a gym when people are training hard. I mean the busy signal of a telephone or the sounds of a dentists drill aren’t what you’d consider enjoyable sounds but hell, they come with the territory. Now granted, making obnoxious sounds and being overally vocal in the gym can be intimidating to some people – especially newcomers as well as disturuptive to others but in the case of Albert Agribay, who had 500 pounds on his back at the time, I think the man had a need to grunt a bit and in my opinion, every right to. Regardless however of the amount of weight, if someone is working really hard, they’re going to make some type of sound generally so go ahead, grunt if you have to but make sure you aren’t in a Planet Fitness facility or the cops will be there to haul you away.

To read the story in full…http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/18/nyregion/18grunt.html