I Love Training. I Just Don’t Enjoy Going to the Gym Anymore.

That headline probably sounds contradictory. It isn’t.

I turned 52 on July 9th 2026, and after nearly four decades of training, I can honestly say I still love every aspect of it. I love the discipline. I love the challenge. I love the routine. I love seeing what years of consistency has produced. I love the nutrition that’s the bedrock behind any successfully healthy body and mind. Training has given me confidence, resilience, friendships and a mindset that has helped me in every part of life.  It’s opened so many doors for me commercially because people have recognised that if I take care and consideration for myself; then it’s a no brainer I’ll do it for their business or event.

So this isn’t an old fart article about falling out of love with the gym.  It’s about falling out of love with what many gyms have become and what new gyms open up as from day one.

Before anyone assumes I’m going to preach a “back in my day” piece, let me be clear. Fitness has never been more accessible. More people exercising is something we should all celebrate. Seeing beginners walk through the doors and decide to improve their health is brilliant, and I genuinely hope that never changes. It’s one of the reasons I got into Personal Training in 2016.  And in 2017 I was nationally recognised by The National Fitness Awards.  It’s within this time as a PT that I started to shoot video on an iPhone.  Look where I am now.

But somewhere along the way, something else changed too. The culture. For at least half of my training years, nobody needed reminding about gym etiquette because it simply existed. You trained with intention. You worked hard. You rested just long enough to recover before your next set. If someone was waiting for a machine, you invited them to work in. When you’d finished with your weights, you put them back. If you’d loaded plates onto a machine or bar, you stripped them off before walking away. You left your bit of the gym exactly as you’d hope to find it – tidy. Not because there was a rule. Because there was respect.

That respect extended beyond the equipment. It was respect for other people’s time. Respect for the next person waiting. Respect for the gym itself. Today, I often walk into gyms that feel completely different. Machines are occupied by people spending more time scrolling through their phones than lifting the weights. Benches become photography studios. Every set seems to need another selfie, another video or another perfect angle. Dumbbells are left beside benches instead of returned to the rack. Weight plates stay loaded because “someone else can clear them away”. People wander around in socks as though they’re at home rather than sharing a training space with dozens of others.  And let’s not forget personal hygiene either.  Some people really need to do better when entering a space with other people.

Individually, none of these things are particularly significant. Collectively, they completely change the atmosphere. The gym no longer feels like a place where everyone has come with the same purpose. It feels like a place where training has become secondary. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always found myself enjoying old-school gyms far more than the modern cookie-cutter chains? They may not have the newest machines. They may not have mood lighting, content-creation areas or the latest trends. But they often have something much more valuable. Character.

Walk into one of those gyms and you’ll usually find people who are there for one reason. To train. They understand that everyone is sharing the same space. They don’t need reminding to rerack their weights. They don’t spend ten minutes occupying a machine while looking at a phone. They simply get on with the job. That’s the environment I enjoyed and miss. That’s the environment that made me fall in love with training nearly four decades ago when I was taken to Marley Gym on Whickham View, Newcastle, by my long-term friend Peter who has owned it for a while now with his wife Bev.

So despite loving training today just as much as I ever have, I can honestly say I no longer enjoy walking into many modern gyms. Not because my passion has faded. Not because I’m resistant to change. But because the values that made gyms feel special — respect, courtesy, consideration and purpose — seem to be fading. Of course, there are still fantastic gyms filled with fantastic people. There always will be, and I’m grateful for every one of them.

This isn’t about age, either. I’ve met younger lifters with impeccable manners and older lifters who should know better. Etiquette isn’t generational; it’s personal.

Maybe I’m simply fortunate enough to remember a different era. Or maybe we’ve quietly accepted standards that didn’t need to change in the first place. But who’s to blame?  Is it the members or the staff?

I’d genuinely love to hear what others think.

Have gyms changed? Or have we simply changed what we expect from them?

Because for me, the greatest gym isn’t the one with the newest equipment or the biggest membership. It’s the one where people still arrive with one simple intention.

To train.

Lee 💪🏼

*No AI or LLM were used to write this.  This is my work from my 60 words a minute touch-typing digits.  Photo taken 8/7/26.