ExRx.net

This post was inspired by my other post about the behind the back upright rows, and the Smith high pulls I also mentioned last week.

What are the weirdest exercises you've seen people doing at the gym?

There's a guy that comes in sometimes and all he ever does is go over to the mat most people stretch on and makes these weird postures with his hands and feet. You sort of have to be there but its pretty bizzare

Lat-Hip-Humpers. Stand infront of lat pull down, preferably use the close neutral grip attachment. Place ONE foot up on the seat. Pull the handle down towards your hips whilst, at the same time, hump towards the handle you're pulling down. A backwards lean is desirable when doing this exercises as it adds to the sexiness of it. If Womanizer by Britney Spears is blasting, it adds to the overall efficiency of the movement.

Jogging Curls - get a DB in each hand like you're going to do curls. Do with your hands what you do with them when you jog at a decent pace. Including the swinging motion that your chest makes. Only, don't move your legs. Again, doing this to Britney completely sexy-fies the movement.

The Crouching Tiger (this one is really hard to describe) - Just get into a really bad DL position but, start with the bar on your thighs towards your hips. Then, try with all your might to press the bar horizontally. What you get is a press-front raise-DL-combo-with fries. The creator of this exercise likes to growl like a tiger when doing it, and occasionally shouts "C'MONNNNNNNNN...... CAAA' MONNNN... C'mon...grrrrrr". (i'm not even joking).

There's various i've seen with the help of a stability ball that I just can't find words for. I really need to get a camera in and record my lifts, then I could discreetly get some of these amazing new exercises on film.

KPj

my personal favourite is the full body curl, there's a guy at my gym who gets so much body english when he's doing barbell curls he has to wrap a foam thing around the bar to protect his family jewels.

And he wears a weightlifting belt to do it, i spoke to him once and he's actually a really likeable wee dude but i can't help but laugh when he's curling

My son and I were speculating as to how much you could add to your curl with unlimited body english. We keep meaning to test it sometime, but we don't want anyone to see us curling with body english, so we put it off. I'm guessing that you can double the weight.

Why is body english called body "english"? What do the English do that using body motion is named after them?

How big are his arms?

I know some of the DC guys will hip up the weight to get the controlled negative



I saw a standing cable oblique crunch tonight. That was pretty good...

feet-one-the-bench super-high-bridging bench press

Smith quarter squats with feet pointing out 180-degrees (3:00 and 9:00).
Smith squats with feet actually touching.

All sorts of odd and uncomfortable stances on Leg Press and Sled Hack Squat.

Leg Presses on a Sled Calf Raise Machine.

Partial Leg Presses/Sled Hack Squats with the hooks still engaged.

I hate to tell you, but I think that's a real exercise. My friend at work used to do these as part of sprint training. Hold DBs hammer curl style, and then "run" without using your legs. He said it was to help them build up their upper body and torso muscles for sprints without having to sprint, and to train that arm swing. We just talked about these today.

So I wonder if that guy doing them at your gym has a track and field background...

RS wrote

my personal favourite is the full body curl, there's a guy at my gym who gets so much body english when he's doing barbell curls he has to wrap a foam thing around the bar to protect his family jewels.
End

I hate to tell you this, but this sounds real as well. Dan John calls it a power curl. Just a reverse clean, but much easier to teach. Lower the bar to mid shin height, and with your hips, get the weight moving up to the shoulders. Develops the same stuff the power clean does. Not really a biceps move. Al Oerter, the 4 time Olympic Discus champ swore by them.
Tim

you make a good point Tim, I've actually heard of the power curls, but if you'd seen this guy you'd realise it's just a terrible curl, there's no dip down into a hang and then olympic triple extension thing going on, it's just a curl with a load of upper body "waggle".

A girl on a back hyperextension machine, lying face up doing 270 degree crunches, so that at the bottom her hands were on the floor and her head was almost directly under her waist, and grabbing her feet at the top. Only the extreme ROM made it weird... not necessarily bad though if you're that flexible I guess.

I don't want to even think about the DOMS this would give you.

I can see the point if you're a sprinter although only thing I think it would really do is train the 'arm pump'. I think the effects to the upper body/torso strength would be limited if at all. It sounds like the same kind of theory behind ankle weights, too, or boxers shadow boxing with DB's in their hands.

It's funny that it's actually a legitimate thing to do, though. No chance this guy's a sprinter, if he was, losing about 20-30lbs of fat would be the first thing he could do to make him faster... It's actually the same guy that does the 'lat hip humpers'. He has a whole catelogue of strange exercises.

The crouching tiger guy is different though, and in a class of his own. He actually works incredibly hard. He just uses some strange exercises.

KPj

When you think about it you could probably justify anything.

For example, power curls could be justified. But, could theybe justified on the skinny beginners who do them the most? And do they even know what a 'power curl' is? Or who Dan John is? They clearly tell them selves that they ARE doing curls and they ARE doing them properly.

You also have the combo bench/upright row. That could be perfectly fine too. Forced reps or overloading the eccentric. Loads of jacked up heyooge guys do these (so it must be fine?).

Speaking of which I've been seeing some forced rep upright rows and curls recently.

The thing is when a skinny beginner does these things they look/are being stupid but if you get someone a lot more advanced doing them then you could see some reasoning behind it and they probably have various reasons.

It's the attitude of "If Jay Cutler does it, then it MUST be good...." How many rep schemes and programs do we think someone like Cutler has done in their training career? He's probably done everything, therefore, you could use the same logic and conclude everything MUST be good...

I remember when I was about 140lbs and had the most ripped abs I've had in my life. I also just happened to do sit ups every time I trained therefore, in my head the abs were a result of the sit ups. And I would tell people that, too.... "trust me just do sit ups - add weight when they get easy"...

How many advanced bodybuilders (and powerlifters) do you see on youtube or other videos lifting with less-than-perfect-and-sometimes-terrible form? Therefore, bad form must be a desirable way to train in order to get REAL results...

Kind of went on a rant there... Couldn't help myself...

KPj