To the Dudes:

Don’t be such a chode all the time.

Don’t wipe your mouth with your shirt just to flash your abs. It’s obvious what you’re doing.

Don’t get a drink at the water fountain and then turn around to leave directly behind you—there are likely people waiting that don’t like you all up in their faces.

Don’t huele tan feo.

Don’t walk around naked in the dressing room; it’s not necessary.

Don’t gross everyone out with your freakish, inexplicable arm tumors. Wear long sleeves or something and cover that shit up.

Don’t modify your tank-top. It looks super ridiculous, even if you have a great body.

Don’t make loud noises to let everyone know how much you’re lifting.

Don’t make your pecs dance in the mirror when you think no one’s watching. There is always somebody watching.

Don’t pretend like the ass massage you’re providing is purely professional just because you’re a “personal” trainer.

Don’t say Arnold instead of numbers when counting reps.

Don’t count reps.

Don’t make lame excuses when you try to lift too much and fail. The other random chode you asked to give you a spot doesn’t care.

Don’t ask, since we always say no, if we want to go climbing every time you see us; seriously, we don’t even know your name.

Don’t lift things with your neck.

Don’t wear shirts that say “home-schooled gynecologist” or “it ain’t gonna suck itself.”

Don’t accidentally click “remember me” when you log onto your MySpace every 15 minutes on the public computers. You wouldn’t want some other chode logging into your account and totally cockblocking you from all those bitches you’ve been chatting up, would you?

Don’t forget that none of us can hear the song you’re rapping to under your headphones.

Don’t overwork your chest and neglect your back. Hunchbacks aren’t appealing, not even when they are totally buff.

Don’t be that goofy, bespectacled guy who tries to make friends with everybody. It’s a college gym and, let’s face it, you’re kind of old.

Don’t put teaching kickboxing classes at the top of your things to do in life.

Don’t talk about how much you bench. Don’t do it when you’re not at the gym either.

Don’t put a thousand pounds on the leg press and then only go down like half an inch. Come on...

Don’t pretend to box in the mirror, or anywhere else, unless maybe it’s a boxing gym and you’re actually a boxer.

Don’t hurt yourself.

Don’t do too many exercises that make you look like a ballerina. One or two per workout may be permitted if you have a good reason for doing them.

Don’t do those sit-ups on the decline bench with a medicine ball if you’re totally gonna cheat anyway.

Don’t weigh yourself multiple times per workout.

Don’t shave your arms and legs. This might be okay if you’re a swimmer.

Don’t talk about how sore you are from yesterday or what supplements you are taking. Nobody cares about what you consumed for lunch or what you plan to consume after pumping iron and before it’s time to party.

Don’t suddenly take off your shirt because it’s so hot.

Don’t sound like a know-it-all by using the word “recruit” to describe what happens when certain muscle groups are worked as a result of form, especially when nobody even asked to begin with.

Don’t break the mirror when putting back your weights. We know that shit burns cause you just pumped it to the max, but you’ve got to have control on the way down as well.

Don’t not lock your locker and then be surprised when you find some other chode has played a joke by putting his own lock on it, requiring an attendant to use the bolt cutters.

Don’t look at me like that.

To the Chicks:

Don’t be surprised that chodes check you out all the time. This is the nature of the chode.

Don’t be surprised if most guys at the gym check you out, unless you go to a gym full of gay guys or are decidedly unattractive.

Don’t wear so much makeup. It’s the gym. Sheeesh.

Don’t stop doing pelvic thrusts on the mat and other sexercises. It’s super hot.

Don’t assume you’re being stared at when you make accidental eye contact with a guy. It happens.

Don’t pretend like the ass massage you’re getting is purely professional just because he’s a “personal” trainer.

Don’t bogart the machines.

Don’t get huge. It’s scary.

Don’t dress like a dude. In particular, if you’re a white girl from Orange County, don’t go over the top with the basketball gear—sagging shorts and do-rags and shit. You ain’t no legend of street ball, is you? A’ight then.

Don’t lift so little weight that you could do it forever. That’s senseless.

Don’t spend one hour on the bike, followed by two hours on that elliptical contraption. Enough is enough.

Don’t look so bitchy all the time. We thought you liked working out.

Don’t drink Starbucks or those stupid energy drinks. You wanna have a heart attack?

Don’t not eat.

Don’t get your body fat checked more than once or twice a year, tops.

Don’t forget that muscle weighs something when you get on the scale. If you pump a lot of iron, you may even get heavier. That’s okay. Weight alone is a pretty poor measure of health.

Don’t even weigh yourself if you’re gonna be like that.

Don’t hesitate to mention, wide-eyed, how much bigger our biceps look since the last time you saw us.

Don’t wear such ridiculous, uncomfortable outfits (this also goes for the dudes).

Don’t listen to our advice to the dudes about not walking around naked all the time in the dressing room.

Don’t think we don’t know those are totally fake.

Don’t wear matching skirts with your tiny twin sister and expect us not to notice. Even if you’re only 15.

Don’t converse calories.

Don’t worry about the sweat-salt making an outline of your thong as you climb that Stairmaster; it’s really working for you. Seriously, you couldn’t find a better way to look sexy at the gym.

Don’t follow your man around the gym. If you’re not there to work out, don’t you have anything better to do?

Don’t agree to a climbing date with monkey boy. Ask him to go to hip-hop pilates with you instead.

Don’t fall for your hip-hop pilates instructor.

Don’t fall off the treadmill. Aguas!

Don’t be afraid to go where the dudes typically work out. It’s pretty lame how there’s only one small spot in the entire gym where the chick weights are. Go pick up some of those other ones, stand between two chodes, and get serious.

Don’t be so skinny that your pelvis looks like you’ve ingested a coat hanger. It can’t be healthy and it’s definitely not attractive.

Don’t show so much skin. Be more creative when trying to look hot.

Don’t be so tan that you look orange at first glance.

Don’t, under any circumstance, encourage a chode.