How To Invade The Free Weights Room, Part I

[rydra_wong]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you're not a cis guy -- and sometimes even if you are -- the free weights room can be intimidating and alienating as hell. It's a separate zone, apart from the rest of the gym, a Secret Clubhouse with its own arcane rules.

It's the domain of very large men doing things with huge iron weights and a lot of grunting, and if you go in there they will all STARE at you and you will do something WRONG and then you will die.

Okay, it just feels that way.

I promised over in exercise_every_day that I'd write up a sort of Guide to Free Weight Rooms for the Clueless and Terrified, and thereby prove just how little you need to know in order to be okay in there *g*.

So, somewhat belatedly, here's Part I.

( Cut for length and swearing )