Your calibration is wildly off. Asking people for a spot is totally normal at any gym with free weights.

Spotting is a different thing, as you're communicating that you're entrusting your safety with that person.

Imagine someone instead asked you to wipe down the equipment for them or help putting the weights back. Different signal altogether.

That sends a different signal, because you're asking someone to do something you could do yourself but simply choose not to, which is essentially what you described above as "taking advantage of others". However this is quite different from what I described in my comment.

If you see every request for help as someone taking advantage of others, I'd encourage you to reconsider why you view everyone that way. It might also be preventing you from seeking help yourself, out of fear of being seen as a leech.

> If you see every request for help as someone taking advantage of others

Let me rephrase, because there seems to be some kind of misunderstanding here:

To me this advice applied broadly would take the appearance of such a signal, even if weak. The framing of "do it because people like to help" is something which wouldn't even occur to me as motivation to ask for help.

Those examples aren't something a person needs help on, I think that's the difference. I can't spot my own lift. I can't teach myself what a certain machine does if I don't even know what it's called. I can't understand a new lift I haven't seen before without asking the person doing it what it is and a little about it.

Ask people for help where help is actually needed, not to act as your servant cleaning up behind you.

The OP of this thread didn't specify the nature of the favours, just gave general advice which I think is not helpful.

I don't think so. Last week someone asked me if they could use one of my climbing equipment for a moment and I said sure. They asked me in a friendly manner and I had a positive feeling of them afterwards.

Jeez. It happens all the time in the normal world.