ExRx.net

If it aint broke, don’t fix it!

I hadn’t been to my gym since the beginning of December. I fancied a change so I’ve been using my fire station drill yard for circuits and sand bag training.
But I started to miss the little things I used to enjoy about the gym. The way it smelled, how it would cheer me up on rainy days. It wasn’t the best gym in the world, it wasn’t flashy and modern. It was small and perfectly set up for my needs.

So with a new found love for in my heart I decided to go back on Monday. Only to find that they have taken away almost all the free weights !!!!! they have been replaced with machines!!! WTF!!!
All that’s left is a small DB rack (the heaviest weigh is 22k) and a cable machine.

Why would they do this? Is it some sort of punishment??? Maybe my gym was feeling neglected and let down. perhaps I should have called.

I never said I wouldn’t see other gyms!!!
I’m still young.
I just wanted to experiment and see what’s out there.
It wasn’t that training at the station was any better, it was just…………well…….. different.

The Man at the desk told me that he didn’t think that the free weights would ever return. He tried to offer some consolation by explaining to me that the machines were ideal for a guy like me who trained alone! Safety first and all that!

It didn’t help.

So now I am lost. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I could train in the gym 5 miles down the road! But it is often packed to the rafters, banging out hard chore dance music, and full of meat-head roid boys. The absolute opposite to my old gym.

Or, I continue to use my gym. Try and make do with the machines. Work something out in the cable machine and accept that all good things come to an no matter how hard we try we cant hold back so called progress.

I like to listen to dance music when I'm in a good mood and lifting. Sometimes I am angry, and listen to hard rock or metal. Sometimes I'm in the mood for rap. And sometimes when I'm happy, I'll listen to dance music. It is melodic and lifting to the rhythm is nice.

That wouldn't bother me anywho, the music at the gym is why jesus invented the iPod.



I assume you are talking about people that have made progress, hence the put downs?

Not everyone that looks like they lift weights is on gear you know. And attitudes like this are why I can't walk around without a long sleeve shirt on without some toolbox asking me "what I'm on." This is bad enough coming from the general public, they don't need someone that actually lifts justifying their jealous hating.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but those of us that are part of the weight lifting community should stick together and let the other side do the ignorant judgmental stuff.

I agree with ya Nygmen, but as a former fat person, people love to judge. But in Grifftan's defense...there ARE some really annoying muscleheads who think they are special because of the fact they are incredibly buff. I work at a hotel close to where the arnold fitness expo takes place, and we get a lot of them when that time comes, and most are pretty cool when they are here. Polite and courteous. And you know some of them are "roiding". I guess the moral of the story is you can't judge a book by its cover...jerks come short, fat, tall, buff, skinny, white, black, etc

Hey don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against repetitive beats!!! There is nothing better to bust the Pontypool 2 step to!!  I’m into all sorts of music, but i like a bit of variety when I work out. When the gyms music is being played at a level that drowns out the sound coming from your ipod it can be pretty distracting.

And as for as making assumptions about the guys who train at this gym? These are not assumptions they are observations.
I live in a pretty small town, the kind of place where everybody knows everybody. They are quite open about their steroid use.

These guys are the idiots who are out on the weekends looking for fights and causing as much trouble as possible just for fun. They are quite deserving of their “meat-head roid boy” tag. And I have no doubt they are proud of it.

So no, I’m not jealous about other peoples progress or offended by the music they listen to. I’d just rather workout without the threat of violence hanging over me and in an environment in which I am able to focus.

I think a strongly worded email is on the cards to the manager of my gym. That’ll teach him for sure!!!

It's a strange phenomenon. I've heard people say this about gear on the internet a lot... But I've never, once in my life, seen or heard anyone be that open about illegal drug use in real life outside of marijuana.

Close firends of mine, sure. But loose acquaintances or people I don't know... Hell no, they don't admit to breaking the law just willy nilly.

Interesting.



I've lifted in a gang gym before. I mean these kids had weapons in their gym bags.

It's funny, little old ladies walking around intermingled with legit thugs, lol.

But yeah, I wasn't liking that atmosphere either.

hmm, This has become an interesting topic and I'm not sure why I'm drawn in, but here I am.

Grifftan,
Have you ever seen "Bigger Stronger Faster"? If not, you may want to have a look. I watched it adn it really opened my eyes..

The biggest key point I took from the documentary was that Roids, Gear, whatever, don't bring on the hate, rage, or general wanting to fight attidude, they just make you bigger and more intimidating. Bottom line is Those who want to fight on the weekends, will do so with or without roids.

If they are really that open about their illegal drug use, it would be easy to report them and I'm sure the local authorities would love to get another pusher off the streets of your town.

It does suck that your old gym has changed though. I doubt you could say anything that might change management's mind and bring back the free weights.

The music never bothered me at the gym. It's just background noise anyway, but I always listened to my Ipod anyway. I seem to lift better with some classic metal or Hard Southern Rock (Kid Rock). But lately, while lifting at home, I have been listening to Country, and it just doesn't get me in a fired up lifting mood.

Cliff

unfortunately drug use is a major problem in my area. not that it not a problem most places these days.

Although it is ill eagle to sell steroids in the UK it is not ill eagle to buy them and use them. I don’t know how it works in other countries.

I read an article recently that said that steroid use in the South Wales Valleys is higher than in any other part of the UK, with something like 7/10 people in dedicated heavy lifting gyms using.

Cocaine and methadrone are also having a massive impact on local communities, and it is nothing to go to a bar or club and find people openly chopping lines in the cubicles or on the counters in the toilets.

Your guess is as good as mine as to how this is allowed to continue without some sort of action from the authorities.

so I guess you could say that people openly using or discussing drug use is not out of the ordinary round here. it’s a sad state of affairs.



I haven’t seen it but I’ll look it up. you know what this means though?? if its not the steroids making them aggressive and wanting to go out picking fights all week end they must just be a bunch d**ck heads and there's no excuse for that!

I wrote my strongly worded letter of complaint to the management of my gym, but I think your right about it not having much of an effect. Perhaps a petition would do the trick or some kind of peaceful protest.

on the subject of music - there’s a guy on my station who always does his cardio to Simon and Garfunkel. Says it helps him get in the zone

So, are we lumping anabolic steroids together with cocaine and methadone? That seems odd to me. The social context of the two is so different that I doubt that it is common for them to be used much by the same groups. Two completely different things.

The comment i made about the widespread use of Cocaine and Methadrone in south wales was in responce to nygmen's suprise that people would be so open about their use of stereoids and other drug use.

If they are happy to use illeagle drugs quite openly they sure as hell have no problems with steroids, which are leagal.

At present Cocaine and Methadrone are the drugs of choice in the valleys. with methadrone being a very cheap and easily available substitute to cocaine. Only in the last 6 months or so has Methadrone been made illeagle in the UK. Before that it was sold as a legal high in specialist shops or online.

The 2 are readily available in Wales and they are being used by a wide range of social groups

i use illegal drugs and have no qualms admitting it. With the exception of crack and smack, you name it, I've taken it. I'm a big advocate of decriminalising most of them (not the really nasty ones though).

I went through a phase of lifting with an Ipod on when I trained mostly alone. Now I mostly have a training partner or 4 so not anymore. Anyway, I had various kinds of music on it - some old rap (ice cubes old stuff, particularly), classic rock, etc. However I would often listen to blues playlists mostly consisting of Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. Not really a typical choice but I love training to them.

BTW you can see Bigger Faster Stronger on youtube over about 8 parts, although it doesn't cost much and you can get in on Amazon quite cheap delivering from the UK - you'll want to own it. It actually makes you want to hit the gym straight away!

KPj

I can see blow and gear going hand in hand, if these dudes are the way he describes them...