What’s a great workout without some sweat, blood and tears? Gym instructors find that there are many laughs as well. Kalpesh Vinerkar from Leena Mogre’s Specialised Fitness Gym, Avinash Howale from Watson Fitness and Talwalkars’ Bippin Salvi spill the beans on butt-lazy, gross and just-plain-weird clients.

The bizarre things that clients do
“A client once brought two photos of girls and asked me to pick the one that he should marry.”

“A really superstitious client only uses the first set of dumb-bells on the stand or the first treadmill in the row because his lucky number is 1. If the first treadmill is occupied, he will wait for his turn, though there are other treadmills available.”

“There are the colour nuts. One client only uses the maroon side of a workout mat because it’s her lucky colour even though the other side of the mat, which is beige in colour, is much cleaner.”

What is the lousiest excuse you’ve heard for not showing up?
“My maid hasn’t come in to work today.”

“I have a meeting.”

“I have to attend my kid’s school function.”

Worst breach of gym etiquette
“I asked a client, who was working on the chest press machine, to exhale and when she did, her breath stank really badly.”

“Some clients fart while doing crunches.”

“Some clients don’t wash their sweat shirts two days in a row and don’t wash their gym gloves months on end.”

What’s the lamest excuse that you've heard for cheating on a diet?
 “It’s a weekend and I wanted to enjoy myself.”

“Yesterday’s workout was too rigorous, so I was too tired to stick to the diet in the morning.”

“I have no time to eat several small meals.”

Worst mishap during a work-out
“A client once suffered a slipped disc in the gym. We rushed her to a nearby clinic and then took her home on a stretcher. When we realised that the lift of the building in which she lived was too small to accommodate the stretcher, we had to carry her up 17 floors.”

“At her first gym session, a client was too busy chatting on her phone to listen to any instructions. She began fiddling with the buttons on the treadmill and accidentally switched it on, lost her balance and fell hard.”

“A client once threw up after a really intense work-out.”

Which machines do gym freshers shrink away from?
“The Gravitron. It is a pull-up machine that is really simple to use, but looks menacing because you need to climb up on it.”

“The Gravity Training System. It looks deceptively simple, but can really test your stamina. Clients realise this within minutes of working out and try to beg off training on it.”

“Clients with low upper body strength try and skip the bench press and those with a weaker lower body cry out when they work the leg press.”