You may be feeling chuffed with your new physique, but if you're a member of CityFitness gym, you're not to go about flaunting it.
Following the national gym chain's decision to ban posing in all CityFitness centres, bodybuilders in particular have been left feeling violated.
The crack down on posing follows the company's consideration of a blanket ban on grunting in 2014 and a ban on selfies in May this year, neither of which were enforced.
The posing ban won't include bodybuilding training but for anyone posing at CityFitness gyms, they will be asked to stop or face the consequences.
CityFitness member and bodybuilder Sarah Ward told Fairfax the ban will make practising her sport at the gym impossible.
"Bodybuilding's all about symmetry, so if you can't see where your muscles are lacking while you're training and when you're on a full pump, you've got no way of improving," she said.
The ban was reportedly introduced because of the "uncomfortable" environment posing can create, particularly for new gym goers.
CityFitness operations manager Lisa Brown told Fairfax: "The posing in front of the mirrors is what we want to stay away from because if you are brand new to a gym [and] you walk in and see that, that's what can potentially make you feel uncomfortable in a gym environment."
Brown said while the gym supported those training for bodybuilding, CityFitness was working to "provide an environment where anyone can feel comfortable to come and train".
According to Ward, the ban is "disempowering". She said bodybuilding had a "real culture" and described gyms as usually being a place of positivity.
"People love knowing a bodybuilder, they love talking to a bodybuilder . . . they're not scared of me, they're not intimidated by me.
"I've got a huge following and if I was intimidating I wouldn't have that. [The ban is] actually quite disempowering."
