I need to rant a bit. This is something that just boggles my mind. Now, I can understand the initial reasoning is simply an issue of ‘ego’, but come on.
Yesterday, I’m training legs and, after some miserable experimentation, returned to what I know works - Low-rep, multiple set, full squatting. (wave loading in this instance to be precise).
I’m at the rack, and nearby is our beloved Smith Machine. Well, we have another person training legs last night, and even squatting, well kind of.
I am a firm believer in below parallel, rock bottom squats. I really don’t think anything can rival it for overall leg development.
The gym had maybe 5 people in it, so what do I do between sets? I watch other people. Now, what I observed isn’t anything new, but it just irritated me yesterday. This guy is squatting on the Smith Machine, wrapping his knees, wearing a powerlifting belt (lever action and all), doing half reps, AND making sure everyone knows he’s doing a set. Let me just add here, his legs resembled pins more than anything.
Then there’s me. No belt, no wraps, FULL squatting, and no noise. I was wondering to myself why people don’t clue in? There is clearly a difference in development here. Might I be on to something by actually squatting with full reps?
It’s really no wonder there are so many ‘upper’ bodybuilders.
i understand what you mean bro. i train at a gym where im pretty much the only guy that squats, ass to the grass i might add. ussually people stop and stare at me with strange looks on their faces like “wow that looks really bad for the knees.”
then i laugh my ass off when i see some geek doing 1/4 rep squats on the smith with his feet 37 inches in front of his hips. wtf is that all about anyway?
I think your dieting is starting to make you a little testy… hahha
But I know what you mean. There are so many men that spend all their time working thier “bar” muscles i.e. their chest, and bis. But then they always seem to have chicken legs. WTF?
I mean, if I got that guy down to his shorts, I’d laugh my ass off before I could go any further! (oops, did I just type that?)
I was wondering to myself why people don’t clue in?
Well remember that you’re also in the minority in actually watching, and taking note of other people. That guy squatting in the Smith Machine cares only about two things: himself and his nonexistent legs.
It is amazing how reluctant people are to learning about bodybuilding. They’d rather be idiotic and think they’re getting ripped. Than intelligent and actually getting there.
Ah yes, the trainee that PRETENDS to know what the f(*& he is doing but in reality has NO clue.
Some people just never learn. That’s ok though, these types are always good for a chuckle.
Refuse to learn…refuse to grow!
There are a handful others at my club who do ass to grass, but I’ve yet to see anyone else do box squats, and maybe only 2 others who do front squats.
Yet, there is more people doing that odd squat like thing p-dog talked about in one of the smith machines, and half the time they have a fricken belt on.
Boggles the mind, truly boggles it.
I’ve actually made it a point to go and congratulate the few others who do ass to grass, same goes for anyone willing to do various deads with decent weight.
And Cass, man that is mean! Only drawback about that would be the guy would think it’s the size of his package not his legs. Those “upper body only” freaks tend to act like legs dont exist for anything other than standing on.
I hear ya man, the gym I go to is full of the fad workout crowd and egomaniacs. One day after numerous gruelling sets of deep squats I had fatigued my back to the point that I couldn’t maintain form but my legs still had a little workout left in them. I went over to the stand up leg press machine and was knocking out some more deep squats 5010 tempo with only about 3 plates on each side. This guy comes up to the other identical machine right next to me and loads it up with 8 plates on each side, gives me this arrogant “Yah i’m a badass” kind of look and proceeds to shakily 1/8th squat (or more like weird little hip thrusts) it 3 times. Then he glares at me again and wanders off to do some more curls in the squat rack. ROLFLMAO! I had a hard time keeping a straight face because the guy was far from big and he had chicken legs. I hope he was able to like himself a little more that day for that awesome display of Hulk like power and strength.
And I do the same thing in between sets (occasionally, since I have to spot Ko, too). Usually what I see are oodles and oodles of trainess performing mindboggling “forms” of exercises and “trainers” who are either encouraging the same type of “form-free” exercises or sitting around on their asses at their wee desk up at the front of the gym.
Annoying.
One day, while Ko and I were again at the deck performing o-lifts, some rotund chick sat down on a bench between a squat rack and the Smith Machine. She was wearing lifting gloves (?) and began busily wrapping her knees. Other trainers were waving and yelling “hello” to her (from that I suspected she works there, too). I thought maybe, just maybe she was seriously going to perform some squats. BUT, instead she loads the Smith Machine with a 25lb plate (each side) and begins to squat there. Like, WTF?! She performed two sets (which took her nearly 30-minutes to perform), doesn’t remove her knee wraps and just keeps workin’ out - leg presses, extensions and curls. All machine work. WTF?!
Another day of o-lifts for us and we watched the following: a trainer having his female client perform balance exercises while standing on a pair of them round bubble things (dont’ know what the technical name is). In between her “sets”, she would turn and watch us. Intently. Her trainer followed that exercise with a few sets of the leg press. Yeah, what a “session” for her money, eh?
What to do? To ignore and keep doin’ what yer doin’. Yup, the majority of people in the gyms will never see the light. And that is frustrating as hell. All I know is, I’ve been consistently meeting (and exceeding) my goals; and that’s what’s most important, right? Meeting your goals.
I do have to admit that many of these lost trainees and trainers have provided me hours of comic relief. That’s for sure.
A couple women were in a squat rack together at the gym the other day. One of them had some of the biggest fake knockers I’ve ever seen outside of porn…let alone in person. Her pierced navel was showing, along with her enormous ass encased in spandex. Overall she was just too soft, except for her tits of course, for any of this to be attractive. Her friend didn’t have a good look going either. But all that is really beside the point.
They actually had to wait for a guy to finish curling because they were going to squat. I thought great, that’s not something you see enough of. Well, they treated the whole thing like it was brain surgery. Warmups, belts, knee wraps, spotting, possibly special cosmetics. It was hard to tell. Still, if they had really been squatting, who cares.
After all that, they were only doing these little quarter-of-the-way-down knee bend dealies. They eventually had 225 lb on the bar. The spotting for that looked like some bizarre girl-on-girl action – with even less range of motion. The one with the boobs asked a guy she seemed to know, who was deadifting nearby, how much he could squat. She said that someday she was going to squat as much as he does. That would be impressive if her spandex ass ever got anywhere near the floor. It was one of those times where you really want to say something, but you know there is no use.
I have this all the time. There is a black couple who comes in when I’m working out sometimes. The guy is pretty strong, and the girl is strong compared to every other girl in the gym (I couldn’t say “for a girl” I just couldn’t do it). Well, he has good form on most exercises (emphasis on most) while she has horrendous form on ALL exercises. I watched her squat 135, but did a combo gm/squat. Her head was way far in front of her toes at the bottom, it was ridiculous.
I also witness a guy with a pretty nice build doing smith machine squats and not even going to parallel. I’ve talked to him before and he’d listen, so I started spewin rhetoric. It actually worked. I felt so good after that. SOMEONE FINALLY LISTENED!!
The personal trainer at my gym is very good. I’ve seen a bunch of idiot pt’s, but this guy is awesome. He does all the heavy lifts, and knows how to tailor a program to a person specific needs. I really like him and have even given him info on Westside, EDT, meltdown, etc. He was very receptive and appreciative, and even incorporated it into some of his clients’ sessions and his own workouts. That felt good too.
Damn, all these horrid stories, and I give 2 good stories. I’m a bad person.
Oh, and Cass, I would probably run in fear if you pulled my shorts down and laughed (God I only wish). Of course, Goldberg would come running in and kick my ass anyways.
People not knowing what they are doing doesn’t bother me much. It keeps my power rack free. Plus I need to learn a lot still and if I saw myself six months ago before I found this site I’d make fun of myself. What bothers me are the people that have no clue but act like they do and bad mouth others.
Just on friday I was doing box squats and the guy next to me doing 1/4 squats in the smith machine was going on to some chick about how stupid the trainers are. Or the guy that always comes up to me and talks shit about my box squats and GMs then has someone spot him in the bench press with a weight that he needs help with starting with the first rep.
Even though all these situations have really annoyed us, there are a few good things that can come out of it.
First, as Patricia said, it provides us all with some comic relief. It’s nice to chuckle at someone in the gym every once in awhile.
Second, it does free up the racks for those that want to use them.
Third, it can give us all a chance to pass on something we believe in. And perhaps it would open someone’s eyes to a method of training they may have never considered before.
And the laughing thind is true. No legs is NO GOOD!
