Joey Swoll has once again stepped into the middle of another gym etiquette debate — this time defending a lifter after a woman publicly complained about the noises he was making during his workout.
The viral exchange began when a woman posted a clip from inside the gym, filming herself mid-session while taking aim at what she described as “gym bros” around her.
As she worked through a set of cable pull-throughs, she said: “You are the guy in the gym grunting and groaning over your weights and slamming them on the ground like you’re an annoying ass hog.”
The clip appeared to be setting up a confrontation, with on-screen text reading: “Stitch incoming…”
That response came quickly from Swoll, who has built a huge following by weighing in on gym culture and calling out behaviour he believes crosses the line.
Sitting in his car as he addressed the video, Swoll wasted no time questioning the criticism.
“So you start this video by saying, ‘Watch me get more and more annoyed with the gym bros.’ What exactly are you so annoyed with?” Swoll questioned.
From there, he broke down the situation point by point, making it clear he felt the man being targeted had done nothing out of the ordinary.
He said: “The fact that that man is grunting while he’s training? You’re literally in a bodybuilding gym. I see photos of competitors all over the walls there. That’s normal in a bodybuilding gym — really, in any gym.”
For Swoll, the environment matters.
Bodybuilding gyms are built around intensity. Heavy lifts, hard sets, and physical strain are part of the culture — and with that often comes noise. To him, treating that as some kind of offence completely misses the point of the space.
He went further, explaining why the grunting itself shouldn’t even be viewed as a problem.
“Not to mention, it helps you train harder. All you have to do is put some headphones in, and you won’t have to listen to it,” he said.
But the woman’s complaint wasn’t just about the noise.
She also accused the man of slamming weights — another hot-button issue in gym spaces where poor etiquette often gets called out.
Swoll addressed that too, replaying the sound from the clip to make his case.
“And then you say that that man slams the weights? Let’s listen to what slamming the weights sounds like.”
After the sound played, his verdict was blunt.
“Yeah, that’s not slamming the weights. That’s just the sound that those old steel weights make when they hit the ground,” he said.
That distinction, in Swoll’s eyes, was important.
There’s a difference between deliberately throwing weights around and simply using equipment that naturally makes noise — especially older metal stacks and machines that clang on impact.
For him, this wasn’t a case of bad gym etiquette at all.
“That man does nothing wrong,” Swoll confirmed.
What seemed to frustrate Swoll most, though, was the bigger contradiction behind posting the video in the first place.
He pointed out that the woman had spoken publicly before about being judged herself — making her criticism of another gym-goer even harder to understand.
“And the fact that you post online about how people make fun of you, yet you don’t know better than to do that to somebody else like this,” he said.
That’s where Swoll shifted the conversation beyond gym etiquette and into something wider: gym culture itself.
His argument was that the very type of person being mocked in the video is often the same type of person willing to help others, especially beginners or people who feel out of place.
“And the sad part is, if somebody did make fun of you or try to make you feel unwelcome in the gym, that gym bro would be the first person to have your back and stand up for you.”
It’s a message Swoll has repeated countless times — that despite stereotypes, many of the strongest people in the gym are often the most welcoming.
He ended the video with a direct message: “You need to do better. Mind your own business.”
The clip has sparked the usual split reaction online, with some backing the woman’s frustration over noise in shared spaces, while others agreed with Swoll’s take that context matters — especially in a bodybuilding-focused gym where intensity is part of the package.
And as always, Swoll’s central point remained the same: before calling someone out publicly, make sure they’ve actually done something worth calling out.
Featured image credit: Joey Swoll / Instagram
