I would like to congratulate everyone who decided to enhance his or her life by making a New Years resolution to go to the gym. However, when all of you "newcomers" step into a gym for the first time, please remember a few things.

First, please don't come if you're not really committed. As someone who has been going to the gym for years, it is extremely angering when a novice gets on a workout machine we want to use and just fools around on it. Treadmills are for walking and running at a steady rate, not for messing around on (like going slow and trying to push the tread or setting it at an impossibly fast speed to see if you can keep up). This is how treadmills get broken, and once one is broken, that's one less machine for everyone to use in the gym.

Secondly, if there is a sign-up system for equipment and/or a time limit on it, please adhere to these rules. Gyms are often crowded, and nothing is more annoying than waiting long periods of time for a machine.

Lastly, if you're sweating like a pig and leaving a mess all over the machine you just finished using, please be courteous to the next person who will use the machine and wipe it down with your towel. Kudos to you for working up a sweat, but nobody wants to use a machine drenched by someone else's perspiration.

If you remember these things when you go to the gym, you will make the workout experience easier for everyone involved, including yourself.