In the weights area of most fitness facilities the sounds of grunting and noisy exhalations are as commonplace as the sweaty singlets, but in the US lines have been drawn dividing the grunters and the tight-lipped sound-stiflers.

The Planet Fitness chain of clubs has a ‘no-grunting’ policy, which it enforced in 2006 when one of its members, Albert Argibay, was escorted from a New York club after a fellow member complained about the noise he was emitting while weightlifting. The incident led to acrimony between the club and Argibay, resulting in the revoking of his membership.

The affair spawned much debate, and the rediscovery that the matter of grunting has also been has also been the subject of studies. Certified strength and conditioning specialist and the professor and chairman of physical therapy at Hardin-Simmons University in Texas, Dennis O’Connell, has carried out two such studies in which weight lifters were given exercises to do and told to either remain silent, or to grunt if they felt the need.

‘Very experienced lifters that normally grunted when they lifted did have about a one per cent improvement with grunting’ O’Connell reported; ‘A group of college football players - they, of course, also lifted weights fairly regularly - showed a two per cent improvement. And the untrained group - graduate students in physical therapy - had about a five per cent increase’ he added. Although the findings were statistically of very small significance, O’Connell noted that because some weight lifters did appear to experience increased bursts of power when grunting, it was not in their best interests to be silenced.

It has been theorised that grunting quiets inhibitory nerve cells in the spinal cord, which would usually impede muscles ability to contract and generate force, but this is disputed by many, including exercise physiologist Larry Birnbaum; ‘As far as anything going on physiologically [with grunting], I’m not aware of any data or studies that have revealed that’ he said; ‘The only thing I can think of is that it’s a psychological thing. But psychology is very important in sports in general — if you think you can, it raises the possibility that you can’.

Sports psychologist Belisa Vranich, agreed, saying; ‘Some people grunt to give others the impression that [the grunters] are doing a lot of work. It’s just like flexing and strutting, trying to attract attention. The other reason is a more physical one - they’re not breathing properly. In order to grunt, they have to hold their breath and exhale forcefully’.