If you used it, please put it away.

Coach knows best
I dropped in at a box in Ohio about a year ago and the first thing I noticed when I walked into the main room was a guy doing burpees by himself off to the side. I didn’t think much of it at first, figured maybe it was part of a personal training session, or a trainer getting loosened up before a morning workout, or someone from the class before just finishing up or getting extra work in.
What I did notice was 10 minutes later the same guy was doing burpees. At this point I asked the owner “what gives?”.
Apparently the guy doing burpees had left a barbell out loaded with 275# the last time he took a class. The box owner has a simple rule about cleaning up after yourself in her box: for every pound of equipment you leave out you must do that many burpees the next time you come in before you can take another class. The guy in the corner? 275#, that’s 275 burpees. And yes, he did all 275 of them that morning. Took him about 25 minutes. Leave a green stretch band up on a bar? They are about 50-70# of assistance, so thats 60 burpees according to her. 24″ box for box jumps? 10 burpees. PVC pipe or foam roller? 100 burpees just on principle of being the lightest thing in the gym.
I will admit that I even thought this was a bit extreme, but it worked. The box owner told me that the guy doing 275 burpees was the first one to be penalized in over 6 months and she has only had to penalize 3 people ever.
The point of the story is that as a training staff we know how it is when you get done with a workout and are faced with cleaning up the warzone you just created. I personally hate deadlift workouts because I hate cleaning up my bar after. But you have to do it. We understand you might be running late to get somewhere from class but make sure your stuff gets picked up. During down hours at the box all us trainers spend a lot of time cleaning the gym to keep up with the high volume of traffic every single day. Dirt is going to get tracked in, chalk is going to get tossed around, things are going to get messy, but it benefits everyone who is part of CF Southie if you take the time to clean up after yourself.
Let’s work to make this a lasting effort and not just something everyone does for a week then forgets about it. Bands shouldn’t be left on pullup bars, weights shouldn’t be left out, and boxes should be stacked back where they are supposed to. The simple rule to live by is “if you used it, put it back where it belongs”. I understand mistakes happen and sometimes you run out forgetting you strung a green band up before class to stretch your shoulders out, but make the mental effort to do your part in keeping CF Southie organized so you and the rest of the membership can get the most out of their time here.
And I won’t be grumpy and handing out burpees for having to cleanup after you…

Skill
Pull-ups/butterfly pull-ups

WOD
1000m Row
50 wallballs (20/14)
50 pull-ups
50 burpees
800m Run

L2- 40 reps
L1- 30 reps