Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

You'd be surprised how many gyms won't allow chalk these days - chains are especially particular about it (Bally's, 24 Hour Fitness, Cardinal Fitness, etc.) but independent gyms usually are more lenient on it. I had to smuggle mine in for years and hide it in my gym bag to use in secret whenever nobody was looking, and when they eventually found out I was using it (I never made a mess, only used as little as was necessary), by their reaction you'd swear I'd just set off a small explosive device in the middle of the training area. I even made sure to explain how, by using chalk I was less likely to drop weight and make a racket, not to mention that I was safer with my grip and was less likely to tear a callus, but no matter, they simply said "use it here again, you lose your membership", after which I changed gyms to one that didn't care about my chalk use

So they had oly bars but you couldn't chalk up? wtf! Ive heard of a chain in america actually having some type of system which sets an alarm off if you load to much weight....?

OK, so what do they have against chaulk? Making a mess?

People plodding on the cross trainers complaining about breathing in it I bet

Ah, the "Lunk Alarm" of Planet Fitness! Yes, it's a wonderful chain her. In their quest to be a "Judgement-Free Zone" as they claim to be, they instead judge anyone who they deem to be 'intimidating' to new trainees (which can be by what type of lifting you're doing [don't even THINK about deadlifting or doing overhead pressing!], by any grunts or noise you may make while lifting, or by not setting down weight as if you were putting down an infant for naptime) as "lunks", to where they may sound an ACTUAL alarm, and then either kick you out, or, warn you to stop whatever you've been doing. The only appeal it has is for two groups in particular:

1. They've been said to be REALLY low-cost compared to most gyms, something like $9.95/month, which in the USA is pretty well unheard of for a franchise gym. So, those who have a tight budget or are just concerned with lowest price over quality, that's one group, and...

2. Those who are genuinely afraid of the gym and think that EVERYONE is scrutinizing them by their appearance, exercises they're doing, weight they're using, etc. Seriously, you'd have to be one paranoid person to feel that you need the sort of protection from the reality of what a gym is like, but I guess that there are some out there who would prefer to train around timid people who most likely are different every month (either because they quit training after such a crappy experience, or, they wisen up and move to another facility).



That's pretty much it. Messy "someone else will clean it up!" kooks pretty well ruined it for most of us who would have otherwise contained our chalk in an effective manner. Saw it a few times when one gym I went to was still lenient, a guy seriously had a cloud of it surrounding him during deadlifts and it looked like a kilo of coke had exploded underneath him. No cleanup afteward, he must have been too "hardcore" to worry about such a thing. Right after that, guess what happened to the policy at that location regarding being coo about chalk use....

And only $11!

I tried lifting straps and it made it much harder to do deadlifts. Best thing seems to be chaulk because I sweat so much!