ExRx.net

^Bingo. Even 5 year olds know to clean up after themselves. Why can't people in my gym act like adults and rack their weights?

I've actually been to a gym where everyone racks their weigths and if a newbie doesn't the nearest person chimes in with some timely advice to get them on track. It's a hospital staff gym though so a lot of people know each other and it's easier to say 'Hey such and such, you gonna unload that smith machine?'.

I think someone similar has been mentioned, but I got really annoyed with this one guy that went to the gym I used in Oxford. He would go into the 'cardio' or 'fitness studio' that is full of treadmills, ellipticals, rowers and bikes but has some older Nautilus style machines, that no one really uses and they're planning on getting rid of, along one wall and do lat pulldowns, chest press? (like a seated bench press) and a cable BiCep curl for like 2 or 3 reps with the whole stack of weight with terrible form then rest for 5 minutes posing in the mirror and checking out the chicks! Dude, just go to a strip club or something, they're not interested in you 50 year old, flabby (I'm flabby too, but in a different, younger, far less attractive way!) body! The final straw was when he watched my wife and I walk in hand in hand and go to different sections (I was doing HIIT type stuff on the elliptical, she was on the treadmill) and he goes over and hits on my wife, what a loser! The gym is not a 'Pick Up Space', I hate people that do that! So my wife politely told him to take a long walk off a short pier!

Anyway, those people annoy me!

John

Guys that go into the gym looking like they're going to a night club or something really crack me up. You actually see them styling their hair in the changing rooms before they go and work out. The type of guys that answer their mobile phone during a set of DB curls, and continue to pump the gunz whilst on the phone. "yeh, man.. am just in the gym... doin a little weights n stuff"... Then they have about a 10 minute rest between sets, since they have about 5 text messages to send - "hey mate, i'm in the gym, working out, what you up to".

I never used to think anything of it, but these guys make me take pride in going into the gym looking like a mess. I basically wear stuff that I wouldn't wear in public anymore. Stuff that's faded or got holes in it, things like that. I like to chalk up and clap my hands together in a way that will make sure the chalk cloud disperses in their direction. Normally that gets rid of them - they disappear. They'll go upstairs and train their 'stomach', you know, as in the organ. There's various machines that train your stomach, you know - it's not all about what you see in the mirror.

KPj

Guess you learned Gym etiquette when you started lifting .. or simply you're not a rude lifter. I never understood why some guys can put 400+ onto a bar .. but seem unable to take it off. Or the folks who put 800 onto a leg press machine, but expect the next user to unrack it for them (usually a 90 pound woman).

My biggest annoyance is most of the time everyone at the gym just looks angry about something. Me- sure, sometimes I can be in a bad mood- but a lot of the people there look like they're ready to fight or something. LOL, I thought that was the point of working out, to blow off some steam in this stressful world. A smile wouldn't kill them every once in awhile.

I guess so. I try to be courteous and respectful while working out.

I don't like to "HOG" any of the equipment while I am there. As an example, Last Night's workout had me squatting, Pressing, and Rowing. All of which I do in the Squat Rack/Cage for various reasons when I can. However, Instead of jumping in and just doing all three lifts, I do each lift, then unrack my weights, and walk away for a couple of minutes. For example, Do my Squats, Finish up, and go for a short walk around the gym. If after a couple of minutes, noone else jumps in the cage, I will return for my next lift. Occasionally, I will even do my warm up sets outside of the cage to give plenty of time for someone else to jump in if they need to.

But, Oh Well.. As I looked around the Gym last night, all I could see were empty benches and stations, lots of loaded Bars, and even a few Bench Press stations without their bars. Now, I'm off to the Suggestion box at the gym to "SUGGEST" they get another Squat Rack/Cage, because it's always in use.

Cliff

I've decided that won't work so I'm getting my own built to have at home! Should be ready in January! Will look like this, but probably with messier welds:

http://www.fitnesswarehouse.ca/i/Streng ... r_rack.jpg

I was just thinking of another thing that annoys me in the gym, unbalanced training partners who are together for the wrong reason! You know the guys, the one who's been lifting for a little while and uses his weaker mate to feel good about himself instead of helping him out! I used to train with a mate who was smaller and weaker than me and we concentrated on making the workouts aimed at progress from our own current strength, ut I see guys who just try to get their buddy to lift the same weight as they do then tease and laugh at the untrained guy when he fails! That not a training partner, that's a security blanket for the weak minded 'jock' tosser!

Just my 2 cents!

John

I don't expect my "SUGGESTION" to do any good, but I feel better now that I have sent the E-mail.

I have considered building my own Cage/Rack , but I don't have any where to put it inside. I could put it in my garage, but it's not air conditioned or heated, which makes it way to uncomfortable to workout 90% of the year.

I guess I need a bigger house. heheheeh

Cliff

That's not unknown in martial arts training, either. You get the guy who only spars/rolls/trains with guys he can beat on. Or only does striking-only sparring with grapplers. Or who goes for leg locks on the guy with a bad hip, or arm locks on the guy with a bad shoulder, or does neck cranks on the guy with a weak neck. Basically, he places ego and "winning" ahead of improving technique and helping his partner. This is the kind of guy who'll use his best triangle-busting technique on a newbie doing triangle chokes the first time.

A variation is the "dead fish." The guy who just basically lays there when you're working technique, and doesn't either feed it properly to new guys or resist at an appropriate level to force improvement from an experienced hand. The includes the "tap if you're close" guy - the guys who tap when you sort-of get the technique, instead of forcing you to put it on correctly. They help you groove the wrong method, and then you wonder why it doesn't work live.

You can contrast that with the guys who try to neck crank the former powerlifter, or do ground with the BJJ brown belt, or want to stand up with the muay thai fighter and the ex-Golden Gloves boxer, or work ground positioning with the currently-competing wrestlers. These are usually the ones who give appropriate resistance to your techniques, coach you as you make small mistakes, and will stop a sparring match to re-position so you can learn to counter their good moves.

It's a classic "trainer partner" versus "ego booster" dichotomy.

I do my best to be the "training partner." I do whip out "ego booster" when the 16-year old kids talk $h1t to me in class though. Then we roll live and I beat them hollow and then I go back to being "training partner."

It's not so different than the guys pushing their weaker friends to failure to watch them fail.

Peter

It was the same in Basketball whenI was growing up, I always wanted to learn to coach so I started that way! In a game if I caught an opposition player sleeping and got an easy steal or noticed I was beating a much taller guy to rebounds because they weren't boxingout I' dhang around after the game and have a chat with them and mention what they could have doen to stop me. The way I saw it was the 'you're only as good as the opposition you beat' so I thought if I make the opposition better and I still beat them then I am getting better! I did it with my team mates too fo course, I had better understanding of the angles of the game than most and would freely pass on my knowledge. Others would let ego and the quest to be the best get in the way! Most notable was a team mate who heard me talking to an opposition player after the game and told our coach he should make me do suicide runs for it! I wasn't discussing team strategy or team weak points, just how this one guy could get his hips lower to have better balance when boxing out for rebounds, so the coach punished Mr Ego and not me! I ended up assistant coaching with that coach 5 years later for the local Mens Division 1 champs!

John

A boy I grew up with has recently joined the gym. I hadn't seen him in years - since we left school. He's about 6'2, extremely skinny. Lucky if he weighs 140.

Anyway, one of the first conversations with him, he said something like, "i'm in with me nephew and his friend, they're only 16. I'm showing them how to train properly, ya know - training one or 2 muscles each day, things like that". He told me this WHILST doing his reps on a machine.

Now, this guy is a REALLY nice guy. You can't imagine him being malicious - he's not the type at all. He's a guy that'll fix your car for you and refuse any money, even though we all need it. But at what point does he look at himself and think he has a place helping people out like that? He looks EXACTLY the same as he did in school. Then when you watch him, he's in with a 2-3 younger guys who follow him about and believe everyword he says. Could he be subconsciously boosting his ego? I don't know. Then he told me he had been lifting for 2 YEARS. OMG!

I've been discreetly poisining the younger guys minds. They always ask me about what i'm doing - not because i'm big (i'm not), but i'm kinda strong, for a gym like that anyway. I'm not coming on too strong with them, though, i've made that mistake before, which is another story. Just subtle hints and tips. I don't say, "yeh, your uncle is full of crap". I say "there's more than one way to skin a cat - personally i've had good results doing it this way". And obviously, you only need eyes to see the uncle has not had good results.

Couple of weeks ago, I saw them doing pull ups - full, dead hang, chin over bar pull ups. Tears almost came to my eye. One of them managed 3 perfect form ones. The other managed 6. The one that manages 6 is also leading in the gym push up challenge. Of course i've not attempted it yet - i'm too scared, Then they told me that "next week, we're going to switch to a full body routine". I almost hugged them (is that normal?)

Will be interesting to see if they stick to it.

KPj

Good to hear KPj! One or two minds changed at a time can start a revoloution mate! lol

John

YES. It is.

We have a group of three "I wear my weight belt even in the shower" lifters at my gym. All I have ever seen is them do arm work, so I normally just ignore them. One gentleman in the group would probably be close to competition size if he lost body fat though, he is a big dude. So one of them, the smallest one (in the gym I am jealous of short people,) comes up and asks how many sets I had left. I had all 3 sets of jerks to do, and had been in the rack squatting for quite awhile now. I asked if he wanted to work in, and he said, "Nah, I'm doing squats." I heard "Nah, I'm gonna rack 315 and go to 90 degrees." So I didn't rush for him. What do ya know? He did full deep squats. I almost cried too. That makes 5 people in my gym that do full squats, out of the 12 people that squat. Not a bad ratio. (I felt bad for taking my sweet time through my sets after I saw him doing real squats.)

Me and two other guys put "bumper plates" in the suggestion box once a week each. HA HA it will never happen here. So I continue to do my controlled drop with the deadlift and no stupid pads on the ground. Some times I'll take my headphones off just to hear the iron clang and echo off the walls. I enjoy this like a sick puppy I tell you. If you don't like it, get bumper plates, or give me an excuse to go next door to the other gym with real powerlifters in there. It is only $10 more but my wife will need a valid excuse to spend the extra 10 dollars. "I need to deadlift, and bumpers to powerclean" won't fly. (This is the same woman that poked at my erectors last night, asking what those were and if I should see a doctor, because she hadn't seen men with muscles that big there before. I spit toothpaste all over the wall and laughed pretty hard. Mine aren't that big. I guess ex-boyfriends and strippers don't do deadlifts.)

I can't stand, for the life of me, cell phones in the gym. You are not that important, unless you work for the FBI or are a surgeon on call, texting and answering phone calls is forbidden. My firm is very intent on being proactive, so they hammer communication; there is constantly a phone ringing or an email being sent when I'm at work. Part of the reason I go to the gym is to leave my Crackberry in the car so I can escape for an hour. No world, you actually can't reach me in 3 different ways for an hour, deal with it. Seeing some jackass chatting about which club they are going to tonight between sets of curls makes me ill in my stomach.

The most awesome/awful(?) thing about this* is that the bar never gets anywhere near the top of his head, let alone his chin, until the weight really drops down (*apart from the rubbish form etc..)

There's one guy at my gym that gets me. He's big (fat) and granted he is pretty strong, but he'll use like 3-4 pieces of equipment at a time. Then he'll go over to the dumbbell rack and instead of getting his dumbbells and doing his exercise, he'll just stand right by the rack and do the exercise so no one else can get a dumbbell until he's finished.

Another set of guys I see at the gym are a father and son. The dad is your typical overweight 40 something and his son is probably 18-19 yrs old and is a stick. I'll watch the kid sit on the lever fly machine and use all his body weight to lift more weight than he can. I'm thinking, man why doesn't his dad tell him he needs to use less weight so he keep the right form. Then I see the dad struggling to get thru a set of curls cause he's doing the same exact thing. Like Father like son!

Of course not putting back stuff once your done get me going too, but you see that in just about every walk of life.