If you've promised yourself you'd hit the gym this year, you're not alone. But with so many newbies, there are some things you should know about gym etiquette. "I don't hear a lot of guys grunting and screaming when they lift, nobody wants that. Every now and then you'll hear that," Doug Slates said.

"Try not to talk too much at the machine. Sometimes it kind of gets to be a social hour and people that are more serious about it want to want to get in, get out, do their thing. So try not to hold up a machine while you're talking to somebody," Dustin Sweitzer said. "Wiping the machines off, definitely," Kristin Breen said. "That gets pretty gross when people are sweating and dripping all over the floor.

"If you want to help to keep everyone in the gym healthy, wipe down the machines when you're done," Yoshe Friedman of Gold's Gym said. "There's a reason that we have the antibiotic scrubs and stuff like that."

Picking up after yourself applies to the gym equipment, too. "Not re-racking your weights is really bad etiquette, you always want to re-rack your weights, remember not everyone can lift as much as you can, especially with dumbbells," Friedman said.

If you need help, don't be afraid to ask. "The guys that you see, or the girls that you see that are what you want to be, what you want to look like, go up to them, ask them what they're doing, ask them how they got that way," Friedman said. Most long-time members don't mind.

"If it's between my sets, I don't mind if people ask me questions," Sweitzer said. "I'd rather see them do something right than do something wrong and get hurt."If you need help finding your way around a new gym, most offer a short lesson with trainers on how to use each piece of equipment.