All the Rage

I hate to revisit a contentious topic, but I’ll do it anyway. Remember all the hoopla about grunting? Depending on which side of the workout bench they were on, people focused on any number of issues: member rights, club rights, membership agreements, women in the workplace and appropriate behavior on the fitness floor. They discussed all aspects of grunting — whether or not an exerciser has the right to grunt, whether or not it helps a workout — and ended up splitting the equivalent of a whole head of hairs.

But, I’ll wager no one thought to take it one step further and consider what would have happened if a manager hadn’t stepped in to diffuse the situation.

Whether or not you agree with how Planet Fitness Manager Carol Palazzolo handled that particular grunting scenario, a recent situation (and subsequent lawsuit) demonstrates what might have happened if she’d stayed on the sidelines and let Albert Argibay grunt himself silly in the free weight area.

Someone might have gotten mad. In fact, he may have even felt a spot of rage. What kind of rage, you ask? Well, it hasn’t been named yet, but it will be.

The thing is, I don’t want a new “rage phrase” coined in a fitness center. “Spin rage” is bad enough (thank you, NY Daily News). I can think of more that would be equally bad. Can you imagine yoga rage, occurring when the instructor holds the Downward-Facing Dog just a few seconds too long? Or treadmill rage, occurring when a wannabe marathoner goes way over the 20-minute limit? How about Swiss ball rage, occurring when an exerciser bounces excessively high in an attempt to touch the ceiling?

Sadly, none of those are more ridiculous than the event that inspired “Spin rage,” wherein a man repeatedly shouted the dubiously self-motivating, “You go, girl!” accompanied by some enthusiastic grunting. It was just too much for Christopher Carter, who felt the need to remove Stuart Sugarman from his group cycle and slam him into a wall. You go, girl … er, guy.

So, thank you, Carol Palazzolo. I know it was a tricky situation, and you got a lot of flak for the choices you made that day in the weight room. But thank you for postponing, at least temporarily, a seemingly inevitable new rage phrase.

Side note: Guess what. You now need padded group cycling walls. Look for them at the next trade show.