I wondered the same thing a few weeks age when I saw 4 middle aged women in the gym I go to. Never seen them before or since, but they went to each machine, in their (probably newly bought ) trendy 'workout clothes' and took turns posing for pics and doing the V sign with a fake smile then left. There was no exercise involved.

I've seen the guys who do nothing too. I think they're there to try to make friends/connections.They sit there - all 45 kg's of them - in their new sport shoes and lifting belt and try desperately to look like they belong there and talk to people who aren't interested.

It reminds me of some of the wankers I saw on Chang Bai Shan. These guys were all dressed up in full mountain gear with hiking poles like they were getting ready to take on the Himalayas. Only thing is you're forced to take a bus up Chang Bai Shan so whoever runs the place can charge everyone an arm and a leg for the attraction and the "hike" is a 1 km walk up some stairs. But they can pose for a photo with their hiking gear surrounded by snow and their hiking poles to try and convince everyone on we chat that they're real men. Sad really. It's all the image that counts. 

At my old, super cheap gym (365 rmb/year), a lot of members just came to use the showers.   The new gym's much higher price got rid of those members.

I don't see tooooo much face-centered selfie taking.  No more than you might see out and about other places.

As far as "fake" gym goers....yeah, there's a few of those.  These guys are pretty clueless.  A lot of them like to find a seat with a good viewing angle to kan kan laowai.  Others are a bit more aggressive, especially with friends in tow, trying to duplicate the laowai's set (btw, no...your puny 50kg frame can't bench 100+kg....please go away).

But to be honest, these guys don't bother me as much as the "hardcore" members.  The fake's will become bored soon enough, and leave me alone.  The hardcore everyday guys are the ones that grate my nerves.  Generally they all meet the following criteria:

1. No shirt.  Because you need to let everyone see what you've got.  Also because you need to leave puddles of sweat on every machine/seat you use.

2. Super loud grunts/screams with every rep.  To let everyone know just how hardcore you are.

3. Full force dropping and sometimes slamming of the weights onto the floor when finished.  Every. Single. Time.  Again, so hardcore.

4. Rest between sets means standing directly in front of the mirror for various flexes and poses.  Optimally between the laowai and the mirror, so he's forced to bask in your awesomeness.

5. Finished with those free weights?  Need a different weight?  Fuck it, just get all the weights off the rack and litter the gym floor with them, as randomly as possible.  What a waste of money buying that rack, and waste of time and effort to put the weights back where they came from.

I only pay mind to the retards that come. Like last night when 2 males decided to use the bench press and bar for their 15 minute leg stretching.  I didnt need to use the bench at the time, but to me its just silly to do shit like that.

Then as I said before in another post, you have from time to time males whose wives are in the dance or aerobics class who have to "watch" their 2-5 year old for an hour until shes finished. These retards let their kids use the machines as if its a playground. Running around, messing with shit, in the way of customers, playing jungle gym on the cable machine, etc.   quite annoying actually.

Oh the chinese are just the worst when it comes to gym use/ettiquite.

Take up tons of space & time, leave weights everywhere and the most frustrating part is they aren't even exercising effectively.

I don't even mean that in the douchey "these beta chumps aren't supersetting properly for maximum gains!" sense, but in the "sit around for an hour on the pec fly machine doing 5 sets, none correctly, then leaving" kinda way. 

But as i've said before, if you depend on the locals behavior to not get angry. You're going to be pretty fucking angry all the time. It's not their fault for being useless it's OUR fault for talking to or depending on them...because we know what they are.

That's why about 2 years ago just bought a free weight set and a bench for my home. Saves time, saves aggravation, saves my energy for the parts of my life that matter.

There are some guys that know what they are doing in the gym.

And then there are guys like the trainer who hangs around in my gym trying to give people advice. It sounds harmless until you hear him workout.

No offense to anyone else out there but when a guy is only benching 30 kg on a Smith machine no less, but screaming like he is going to die after each rep... don't come around trying to give me advice. 

Then he looks at my weight on the normal flat bench and exclaims "It's too heavy!", as if trying to justify his wails and moans. A lot of Chinese people that go to the gym do fake workouts.

I find the personal trainers only help good looking girls,I feel sorry for the newbie when he or she starts the gym and does not have a clue on what to do.the trainers dont help anyone out unless they get paid for it.

there was a girl at the gym that i go to her trainer put her on a diet,I asked her is your diet working she said no.these trainers dont tell anyone about having to count calories if you want to lose weight.