I was confused because it wasn’t like I was struggling—I wasn’t even rowing! And we literally are in the same class, started the same day, and have had all the same lessons. I wanted to project to him that I had no doubt about what I was doing, and therefore, there was no room for him to mansplain.
So I pretended he was asking for confirmation of what the instructor had told us. I said, ‘Yep, that’s right. That’s what they said.’ A little later, I gave him some advice back. I said, ‘Oh, another tip they gave us was that you should keep your hands loose and make sure your wrist is flat.’” —Becky Kuypers, LPC, mental skills coach at 26.2 Coaches in Chicago
4. Reply with a question.
“I often get approached by people who want to chat in the gym or offer me ‘better’ ways to do what I am doing. My polite response is often ‘Do you know what I’m training for?’ I play professional volleyball, am a strength coach, compete in figure competitions, and play golf. People can’t judge whether what I am doing is ‘wrong’ if they don’t have a clear understanding of my goals and the big picture.” —Jenny Liebl, certified personal trainer and exercise recovery specialist in Scottsdale, Arizona
5. Bring on the sarcasm if you’re feeling spicy.
“I was on a press trip to Italy, at the gym with another American writer. He told me, ‘no one uses those machines anymore’ and ‘you can’t lift the medicine ball, it’s too heavy. Women have less upper body strength.’ So I sarcastically asked him if he would carry my gym bag to the locker room for me because I was too weak to do it myself. His response was something like, ‘I’m just trying to help!” I scowled at him and walked away.” —Jen Billock-Hyden, freelance journalist and recreational weight lifter, Chicago
6. Use your expertise to correct them.
“I was recovering from shoulder surgery and at a point where I had to still put a lot of focus into my setup and mechanics. One day when I was benching, I was using a medium weight for me, and I set up into an arched position. Just as I’m unracking to do my set, I hear this guy say, ‘You shouldn’t be lifting like that—it’s much safer to flatten your back into the bench.’
My first thought was, ‘No one asked you, and you’re wrong,’ but as I had already unracked the barbell, I ignored him, stayed in my arched position, and finished my set. As he was still there watching me after my set, I sat up and said something like, ‘Thanks for your concern, but my setup was perfect for me.’ As a super geek, I think I might have even added, ‘It’s perfect for my goals of functional compound strength gains.’
He rolled his eyes at me. Since I was a regular at that gym and had never seen him before, I added, ‘But you trying to correct me—at the moment I unracked the bar—was actually distracting and could have been dangerous if I was a novice weightlifter.’ He rolled his eyes again and glared at me from time to time during the rest of my workout, but I never saw him at that gym again after that.