I hit the gym bright an early this morning for my deadlift day. I was pretty fired up and focused. I was going to be attempting a new three rep personal best. About two sets in a guy I knew from high school comes up and wants to tell me about his life. He’s a super nice guy, and didn’t want to be a jerk to him. After about 10 minutes he left. I continued to work. After another set, this kid comes up to ask some questions. Again, nice kid and didn’t want to be an ahole. 10 minutes later he leaves. Now my focus is shot. I no longer have the pump I came in with. I ended up only getting one and half reps of a weight I should have nailed for three.
So how do you handle this without being a jackass? I normally have my headphones on real loud so I can’t hear any talking at all.
Ear buds, loud music, and avoid eye contact. If they tap you on the shoulder don’t take the ear buds out just say something totally off the wall like “Ya Bro, my mom is doing great!” and give him a thumbs up and start walking away. He will leave you alone after that…
you do what a powerlifter had done ( cannot remember his name) but he was known for being one angry mofo. If someone spoke to him, hed tell them to shut the fuck up and if they didnt listen hed throw a plate at them lololol. Would work.
[quote]jacob-1310 wrote:
you do what a powerlifter had done ( cannot remember his name) but he was known for being one angry mofo. If someone spoke to him, hed tell them to shut the fuck up and if they didnt listen hed throw a plate at them lololol. Would work. [/quote]
[quote]Colin Wilson wrote:
Ear buds, loud music, and avoid eye contact. If they tap you on the shoulder don’t take the ear buds out just say something totally off the wall like “Ya Bro, my mom is doing great!” and give him a thumbs up and start walking away. He will leave you alone after that…[/quote]
Wow that is soooo bad ass
Op just tell the dude to hold on while you do your set and you continue the conversation after. 99.999% of people will not take offense to that.
The only people who come up to me are people I am usually already cool with. They also have the sense to wait until I am done with a set so it isn’t that big a deal. If you are talking for ten damn minutes, you have no one to blame but yourself. No one is keeping you from saying, “excuse me while I get this set in”.
If I train when the gym is crowded, there is no way I can avoid speaking to people. They are everywhere, and they tend to focus on people who look like they actually use the weights.
Say something like your doing a program that has specific rest intervals between sets that you have to follow. If they stay around fine, but most people go away once you resume lifting.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
The only people who come up to me are people I am usually already cool with. They also have the sense to wait until I am done with a set so it isn’t that big a deal. If you are talking for ten damn minutes, you have no one to blame but yourself. No one is keeping you from saying, “excuse me while I get this set in”.
If I train when the gym is crowded, there is no way I can avoid speaking to people. They are everywhere, and they tend to focus on people who look like they actually use the weights.
[/quote]
Pretty much this i talk to people all the time in the gym it’s really as simple as saying excuse me while I get this set in. Nobody could possible consider that being an asshole.