Gym Threatens to Remove Heavy Wts

Off Topic
101

[quote]chinadoll wrote:
I’m so glad that there are people like you who have the same mindset! I like your reference to soccer, football and baseball and not keeping score.

(Stepping on my soapbox again…)

Competition is the American Way and is one large factor that has made our great country as prosperous as it is today! And for kids in sports, it can give them incentive and a sense of great accomplishment and achievement and something to strive for. And for the “losers”, it can be a valuable learning experience-- learning sportsmanship, teamsmanship, learning to be emotionally/mentally strong human beings and also a sense of great achievement and something to strive for.

How could parents/schools/organizations want to take away those valuable experiences and lessons from kids who play sports? Seems to defeat the purpose of sports in childhood altogether. It’s actually HEALTHY and GOOD to teach kids life coping skills, as this is how they become successful, functional, relilient and happy adults.

And also, taking away keeping score for fear of offending anyone is teaching them that it’s ok to be totally weak minded and that they are so weak they couldn’t handle something so minor as to lose a baseball game. What happens to these kids when they grow up and have actual, real problems? No wonder society is being whimpified so quickly.

Does anybody remember the days when as kids we played outside all day long with our friends, sometimes a bit roughly, and things happened, like falling out of a tree, getting stung by an insect, getting into minor fist fights with other kids, being called/calling someone else names, etc.?

We got up and brushed ourselves off and moved on, pulled out the insect stinger and went back to playing, kicked the other kids’ butt or got our butts kicked and hid a bruise or two from mom/dad, and were easily able to brush off (and two minutes later even completely forgot about) being called an unpleasant name. And we had FUN playing, running, climbing, jumping, hiking, biking while all this happened around us! Funny how the daily normalcies of childhood are now considered huge, emotionally traumatic events to many.

These kinds of cumulative experiences over time teach people to negotiate their environment and teach children over time and in a progressive manner to cope and deal with problems and issues in their lives. Those were the days.

The mindset of “sheltering” people from a grunt or a groan in a gym where that’s expected (for gawdssake!), is the same mindset that’s creating and promoting people in society who become “Emotionally Challenged” with the small, tiny normalcies of life.

In my (soapbox) opinion, I’m all for NOT enabling people who are emotionally challenged to be emotionally challenged (I feel it’s wrong to promote that helpless/hapless/hopeless mentality within society and not good for the emotionally challenged person either), and the Gym owner/managers should have told the customer who complained that although sorry for the unpleasant experience of having to hear someone grunt or groan while lifting a heavy weight load, that is a normal, expected occurrence that sometimes accompanies the lifting of heavy weights and is actually healthy for the person doing the grunting. That would have been a better, more constructive way to handle something so normal, while at the same time adding a little bit of life teaching.

ALDurr wrote:
Chinadoll,

This post right here could make a man fall in love with you. :slight_smile: You are so right it’s not even funny! We are raising a nation of whimps and whinners. (BTW, you forgot to mention soccer, baseball and football games where they don’t keep score for fear of hurting a kid’s feelings. Give me a break!)

From what the guy said, he wasn’t yelling and grunting that loud. I understand that gyms need to make money, but come on! Removing the heavy weights won’t stop this at all. Most of the real obnoxious asswipes that I have ever run across in my 20-plus years of lifting were the ones who couldn’t lift heavy anyway, but wanted to feel like they could. Many times they are also the ones who wear wife-beater t-shirts and tats trying to cultivate the “I am a badass” image.

However, my advice to them would be find another gym. This won’t be the last time they will find a reason to bother them. They are now a target and the stupidity will continue.

[/quote]

Dammit Chinadoll, you’re going to make me divorce my wife and come marry you if you keep this up! :slight_smile: (Just kidding dear, put that down! OWWWWWW!)

Anyway, you are 100% correct in how Americans are raising a nation of weak, namby-pamby whimps. Hell, I was a smart, fat kid with glasses, and in my neighborhood, that made you a target. I learned how to play sports well, fight well and talk smack real well simply because I didn’t like taking shit from people. It made me a stronger person overall. These are life lessons that are being lost on today’s youth. I try my best expose my kids to these lessons as much as I can. Because they are my world, I am trying my best to toughen them up mentally to be able to put up with life’s nonsense (No, I am not abusing them either, just pointing out reality from fantasy every chance I get). I don’t accept mediocrity from them, and they make sure that I stay on my toes as well. As I talk to more parents, many of them feel the same way about the state of America’s youth, so hopefully I am not alone.

102

[quote]Amsterdam Animal wrote:
And thats why these kids are too soft in my opinion. By the time they grow up and something happens in their life, they have no clue how to handle it.
[/quote]

Amen! Preach Brother!

103

If you can’t lift without shouting the weight must be too heavy. Squats and deadlifts are not vocal chord exercises.

Why not join the local choir instead?

104

Yorik~

It’s funny you and I have different views about DODGEBALL. And I hate to get into debates here and avoid them like the plague, but this is an interesting topic for me…thank you for entertaining my mind and putting up with my venting.

(soapbox warning again)
First of all playing Dodgeball and other sports AND even (gasp) keeping score, tagging a baseball player out, tackling another football player, etc., IS a NORMAL SITUATION. The same Crisis Factor being applied to your child’s (or your) team losing a baseball game as an Emotionally Tramatic event (death in the family, sept 11 events, being raped, being shot/stabbed, etc…) is the problem with so many people in society today. A bruise or contusion, even abrasions, the occasional laceration or even a broken bone secondary to having fun is a part of NORMAL life, and if it’s that difficult for a person to cope with a BRUISE or a Finger laceration, what’s going to happen to him/her if there is an ACTUAL, REAL problem?

What I object to is that parents do have the view that you speak of below, and their kids learn how not to cope with life because of the outlook these parents teach their kids.

For example, the “cope or die” analogy. Many parents do liken things like the representative Dodgeball example to survival in the wild. First of all, no one is going to die playing Dodgeball as it is normally played, and playing Dodgeball is NOT the same as surviving in the deeps of Africa with no weapons and wild, dangerous predatory animals everywhere. This melodramatic type of analogy is a good example of many parents’ outlooks and what is teaching kids to be emotionally challenged. “If I play Dodgeball and get a contusion, that is the end of the world and I might Die”. Truly, there are many people who think this way, and I chose not to enable it.

Now, walking through a bad part of town and some stranger approaching you with a gun in hand ordering you to give them your money and jewelry or die, yes that is a life threatening, crisis situation. But Dogeball? No. And to teach kids that the same crisis factor applies in Dodgeball vs. being held at Gunpoint, that is the whole problem with our society today and how we’ve gotten to the whimpy, wussy state that we are. And how sad that some people teach their kids to be so fearful/hyperalert/traumatized when playing a game, when they could be having fun instead.

And it’s a silly notion to liken being struck by a Dodgeball to placing your child in front of a Moving Truck. There is no comparison, and that is so the problem with society today, people applying the same crisis factor to a ballgame as to getting hit by a truck. I believe that your child being in sports, dealing with the innocent yet fun competition with other kids, keeping score, minor cuts and bruises, etc…this is the foundation for kids learning to cope with future problems, learning to effectively deal with interprsonal relationships, etc…

I think children have to be TAUGHT to take something like Dodgeball and the cajoling that can accompanied as Emotionally Traumatic. On the flip side, millions of Americans who grew up playing Dodgeball (or SCORED baseball, basketball, football, etc…) have taken it as simply a fun ball game, likely because they were raised to have normal coping skills and so minor things like a contusion or being teased are simply that-- minor things. To me, that is a far healthier mindset and makes for happier, more productive, successful, satisfied, content, emotionally adjusted adults.

I know in school when I played sports (with score-keeping), we were on a team that consistently did mediocre to poor. We were told lots of times, “you guys SUCK!”. Yes, we did suck at times. And a couple of us even were stung by animals while participating, but that didn’t stop us.

Playing that sport was the most fun that I’ve had in my life and I made a lot of great friends and have the greatest memories ever. I would never want to see this kind of experience taken away from any child or adult.

I hate the fact that normal childhood (and adult) things (sports with SCORING, for example) are trying to be taken away based upon the one or two kids (or adults) who were raised and taught to be emotionally challenged (probably by parents who are Emotionally Challenged themselves), taking it as an emotional challenge/trauma and the rest have to miss out for it. I’d like to tell them, let’s not turn something so normal and healthy into something life-threatening or emotionally challenging-- that is so the wrong message.

Sports and sporting competition have long been a wonderful, fun, enjoyable parts of childhood, adulthood and life.

[quote]yorik wrote:

I couldn’t agree more, but that’s no reason to create abnormal situations that in turn make some people feel helpless. (In other words, I’m back on the Dodgeball bit.)

“Cope or die”, “kill the antelope or starve”, etc. were great incentives for personal development back when resources were scarce. I fail to see how “dodge that ball or suffer a massive contusion to the head” offers any personal development opportunities nowadays. What’s the learning opportunity?

Hell, even aboriginal tribes will actually teach and train their young BEFORE sending the young out to be men and survive in the wilderness or die. “Deal with the world or die” IMO is a great idea, but they’ve been taught some skills beforehand.

Taking some of these kids and putting them in front of a 50mph dodge ball is about the same as standing them in front of an on-coming truck and telling them to stop it. They don’t have the abilities. They’re the young who have been sent out into the wilderness with no training whatsoever.

And so they learn to be mocked, to suffer contusions, and that people will always screw them over. They become emotional cripples because no one trained them before sending them out.
[/quote]

105

Sometimes it just feels good to roar at the lockout of a heavydeadlift and then giude that sucker to the floor and make the gym rattle.

106

My gym ( I lift in a college gym) had me half afraid to do anything. I do do anything, but I’m paranoid. I got in trouble for slamming down weights (365 lb deadlift). truth was, i could have and should have been quieter and more controlled lowering the weights, for my own reasons.

For their reasons? They’re not valid: the perpetual Nickelback on the radio is louder than my weights, and furthermore causes me to miss lifts and even to lose erections.

I did step-ups on a bench today, which I’d been half afraid to do after the deadlift incident but have been really digging lately, in front of two gym employees, and no complaint. I think I’ve earned some pull around there finally, which is funny, bc I’m leaving to go to a Gold’s Gym this summer.

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[quote]TrainerinDC wrote:

Dodgeball was a goofy sport. We should get a lot of guys together for a game of adult dodgeball.[/quote]

I’m in.

DD

108

[quote]Kevin_Kane wrote:
Oarsman, I never thought of us “hardcore, consistent lifters” being bad for a gym’s business, but I see your point.

[/quote]

Anybody who has to tell the world how hardcore he is is probably not hardcore. I know this guy, he comes around our gym and basically pretends to be hard core but talks the entire time and screws up people’s concentration.

[quote]Kevin_Kane wrote:

The more stories I hear about commercial gyms, the more I’m grateful for my alumnus membership at the gym of my alma mater.

This “gym” isn’t trying to make a profit. It just collects an “athletic fee” from students to cover its costs. It hasn’t improved much over the years, but the athletic fee and alumnus membership is a pittance. Besides, the best thing about it is that no hardcore lifters get hassled by the staff.

The gym only sometimes has a personal trainer there. Heck, the football players even sometimes train with their shirts off! It’s pretty fun and cool and hardcore.

[/quote]

Yeah, I’m on the football team. This guy think he’s cool by wearing women’s shorts and checking himself out in the mirror. He thinks that we think he is cool. We are really thinking “Who does this guy think he is?!”

So hardcore…

[quote]Kevin_Kane wrote:

There is no air conditioning so it can get pretty brutal in there, but you adapt. In fact, the hot conditions in the summer maybe keeps the less dedicated people out of the gym, which, for a hardcore lifter, is a welcome result.

There is one problem however with the lack of air flow. The gym smells. Anytime you have that many people in a hot room, doing exercise, with a lack of air circulating, you’re going to have foul smells. Add to that the fact that some guys just have no concept of anti-perspirant and walking into the gym you think, “My god, how do I manage to train in here?” but somehow you adapt. Unfortunately, most women stay away because they seem to be less tolerant of these things, and I can sympathize with that. They say it’s “gross.”

But I put up with it because in this gym I can:

  • lift as heavy as I want and nodody complains
  • do any and all olympic and powerlifts
  • use chalk

So just having the freedom to go about my workout at this gym really makes me grateful when I hear the stories here. Moreover, the gym patrons are 99% students, with the odd prof, staff or alumnus. So it’s a pretty young crowd. I imagine I’d feel pretty frustrated if I was training at a traditional gym, and a housewife set down her yoga mat just in front of where I was about to attempt a PR on my deadlift. Guys will still regularly walk up to my loaded deadlift bar and do their curls in front of it, but they’re considerate enough to move it away when I get up to do my next set. So we all get along fairly well, relatively speaking, to what a lot of you guys must contend with.

The worst thing I get is guys doing stuff like curls on the powerlifting platform when there is no place anywhere else for me to do power and oly lifts. But I try to be congenial and reasonable and everybody seems to try to accomodate each other so we can all get our workouts in. I’ll usually just politely ask someone if I can “work in” with them in the spot on the powerlifting platform where they’re doing curls or DB laterals, etc. Then once they see I’m doign something like cleans or psuh press there, they almost invariably just continue their exercise somewhere else. I think they realize they can curl anywhere, but I can’t safely do cleans anywhere. Moreover, the powerlifting platform has a big sign in front of it that reads, “Powerlifting Platform is for Powerlifting only.”

But I never get mad at anybody, even if they’re doing some silly stuff like curls in the power rack. I just ask to work in. Nobody has ever said no, and once they see you’re doing squats, they kind of take the hint that you really need the rack and they do not. I find if I’m friendly and accomodating everybody is very cooperative.

[/quote]

All this hardcore BS coming from a guy who does quarter squats in the squat rack. What a guy!

[quote]Kevin_Kane wrote:

Also, because I’m bigger than most guys there, I think you just get a bit of respect and people accomodate to you just for that reason. I don’t bully anyone off equipment at all, but guys that were previously kind of “goofing off” at a station or doing curls in the rack kind of thing seem to just walk away when they see you’re squatting heavy and so forth.[/quote]

Bigger than most guys ? Lol! Dude, you don’t look buff at all. Stop telling people how hard core you are and start working out instead of talking all the time.