[quote]kellyc wrote:
If I ever own a gym, Dumbells get racked - where they belong, plates racked - where they belong and not a single person who stinks will be allowed in.
I may just open a gym just so I know there’s one gym where those three conditions exist. [/quote]
Something else not allowed in my utopia gym. No spitting. If anyone hocks a luggie or spits their chaw in the sink, they’re gone. Or gum.
[quote]Diablo9845 wrote:
He climbed to the top of the rack and starting to do push-ups 8-9 feet off of the ground in one of the corners of the rack! He got down to rest and some bigger dude got in, loaded up 3 plates on each side and was doing breathing squats (20 reps). This dude climbs up again and starts doing ab planks and neck bridging on the fairly thin metal tubing at the top of the rack.[/quote]
Was he doing his Spider-Man thing while the guy was squatting, or just in between sets? 'Cause one is stupid, and the other is potentially lethal.
[quote]jbodzin wrote:
dre wrote:
jbodzin wrote:
So far she is doing better than 95% of the people in the gym: Good routine, Good Form, Good intensity and Good Gym ettiqute!
Ah yes, the 4 G’s. They should be printed and hanging on the front door of every gym in America.
GOOD ROUTINE
GOOD FORM
GOOD INTENSITY
GOOD GYM ETIQUETTE
Just like the 3 R’s, something, something and something… damn, I never could remember those!
Reduce, re-use, recycle? lol[/quote]
LOL, you must live in California.
[quote]J.W. wrote:
Latex gloves??? WTF?
I wouldn’t know how to react to that.
Sometimes I get dirty looks when I chalk up my hands and accidentally spread a little dust around.
Latex gloves?? I’m still in shock.[/quote]
[sarcasm]
Well, I would give you a dirty look too if you were using chalk in a gym! Who do you think you are? And what’s the point of using chalk? Are you trying to lift heavy weight or something? Cripes. If you want a real workout you need to crawl to the top of a power rack and start doing pushups. And if you are wearing rubber gloves, you don’t need chalk!
[/sarcasm]
What really pisses me off is that the lazy gym personnel at my gym keeps the chalk bucket up front under the desk because they can’t handle sweeping up a little chalk powder at the end of the day! Next thing you know they’ll be bitching because we’re dripping sweat on the floor!
[quote]thomas.galvin wrote:
Was he doing his Spider-Man thing while the guy was squatting, or just in between sets? 'Cause one is stupid, and the other is potentially lethal.[/quote]
Ya, he was climbing while the guy was squatting.
If he slipped or threw the guy off, you’re right, it would have been lethal. If the weight didn’t paralyze the big guy, I’m sure he would have paralyzed latex glvoes man.
[quote]tveddy wrote:
The only power rack rule.
He who is most powerful rules the power rack.[/quote]
HA!
[quote]tveddy wrote:
The only power rack rule.
He who is most powerful rules the power rack.[/quote]
HA!
If I ever own a gym, Dumbells get racked - where they belong, plates racked - where they belong and not a single person who stinks will be allowed in.
a woman walked by me the other day, and i almost ralphed… her clothes smelled like she hadnt washed them in a month… and she just walked into the gym… boy, wont her husband be excited when he returns from Iraq…(most of the women in there have deployed husbands)
and as for the latex gloves… maybe they were powdered-latex gloves… haha…
Since this has turned into more than just a power rack rant, here are a few more things that annoy the hell out of me:
-There is this one fat lady at my gym who does nothing but walk on the treadmill and sit in the sauna. She always has this huge half-gallon sized big gulp cup, and she will go over to the water cooler and fill it up while a line of thirsty meatheads who have actually been working has to stand there and wait for her. Then the cold water is all gone (into her cup), so everyone else has to drink lukewarm water!!
-There is a group of about 10 older people who are in the gym at least 3 times a week, but all they do is a little cardio and then they sit in the sauna for about half an hour. Some of them don’t even do the cardio- they just sit in the sauna. I just want to grab them and shout, “IF YOU WOULD STOP WASTING YOUR TIME IN THAT F-ING SAUNA AND SPEND IT ACTUALLY LIFTING WEIGHTS MAYBE YOU’D ACTUALLY LOSE SOME WEIGHT!!!”
I actually heard one guy ask one of the women if she was done for the day and she said, “No, I’m going back in for about 15 more minutes.” The guy was like, “Dang! You’re really dedicated. I can’t sit in there no more!” Are you friggin kidding me? One fat-body complimenting another fat-body on how long she sits in the sauna? WTF? For the love of Christ!!!
[quote]J.W. wrote:
Since this has turned into more than just a power rack rant, here are a few more things that annoy the hell out of me:
-There is this one fat lady at my gym who does nothing but walk on the treadmill and sit in the sauna. She always has this huge half-gallon sized big gulp cup, and she will go over to the water cooler and fill it up while a line of thirsty meatheads who have actually been working has to stand there and wait for her. Then the cold water is all gone (into her cup), so everyone else has to drink lukewarm water!!
-There is a group of about 10 older people who are in the gym at least 3 times a week, but all they do is a little cardio and then they sit in the sauna for about half an hour. Some of them don’t even do the cardio- they just sit in the sauna. I just want to grab them and shout, “IF YOU WOULD STOP WASTING YOUR TIME IN THAT F-ING SAUNA AND SPEND IT ACTUALLY LIFTING WEIGHTS MAYBE YOU’D ACTUALLY LOSE SOME WEIGHT!!!”
I actually heard one guy ask one of the women if she was done for the day and she said, “No, I’m going back in for about 15 more minutes.” The guy was like, “Dang! You’re really dedicated. I can’t sit in there no more!” Are you friggin kidding me? One fat-body complimenting another fat-body on how long she sits in the sauna? WTF? For the love of Christ!!![/quote]
Well duh JW, havent you heard if you sit in a sauna you can sweat the fat out and dehydration is great for protein synthesis. 
fat people smell
[quote]J.W. wrote:
Since this has turned into more than just a power rack rant, here are a few more things that annoy the hell out of me:
-There is this one fat lady at my gym who does nothing but walk on the treadmill and sit in the sauna. She always has this huge half-gallon sized big gulp cup, and she will go over to the water cooler and fill it up while a line of thirsty meatheads who have actually been working has to stand there and wait for her. Then the cold water is all gone (into her cup), so everyone else has to drink lukewarm water!!
-There is a group of about 10 older people who are in the gym at least 3 times a week, but all they do is a little cardio and then they sit in the sauna for about half an hour. Some of them don’t even do the cardio- they just sit in the sauna. I just want to grab them and shout, “IF YOU WOULD STOP WASTING YOUR TIME IN THAT F-ING SAUNA AND SPEND IT ACTUALLY LIFTING WEIGHTS MAYBE YOU’D ACTUALLY LOSE SOME WEIGHT!!!”
I actually heard one guy ask one of the women if she was done for the day and she said, “No, I’m going back in for about 15 more minutes.” The guy was like, “Dang! You’re really dedicated. I can’t sit in there no more!” Are you friggin kidding me? One fat-body complimenting another fat-body on how long she sits in the sauna? WTF? For the love of Christ!!![/quote]
My only question is that you have co-ed saunas?
Walk into my gym yesterday, all three squat racks are taken.
One is being used by a girl doing squats. Good.
The other by some skinny guy doing shrugs. Umm, build a base first buddy.
The third buy a guy doing dumbell curls.
So I just walked up to the curler, rolled his DB’s out of the way and started racking my weight for squats.
Him: I’m working out here
Me: Why do you need a squat rack for dumbell curls?
Him: Whatever, I’ll move over there.
Me: Yes you do that.
He moved his dumbells over and left the gym. Didn’t do another set… left his DB’s on the floor.
Yeah I was mean, but I don’t care.
[quote]dre wrote:
My only question is that you have co-ed saunas? [/quote]
It’s just one sauna and you have to wear clothes. Trust me- it’s more of a curse than a blessing. The sauna is in the corner of the leg room, so when I’m doing squats I have the pleasure of seeing sweaty fat people sitting around on the benches outside the sauna. Oh yeah, and it smells.
[quote]Z-Man wrote:
…So I just walked up to the curler, rolled his DB’s out of the way and started racking my weight for squats.
Him: I’m working out here
Me: Why do you need a squat rack for dumbell curls?
Him: Whatever, I’ll move over there.
Me: Yes you do that.
He moved his dumbells over and left the gym. Didn’t do another set… left his DB’s on the floor…[/quote]
Dude, if this is true- you ROCK!
[quote]J.W. wrote:
dre wrote:
My only question is that you have co-ed saunas?
It’s just one sauna and you have to wear clothes. Trust me- it’s more of a curse than a blessing. The sauna is in the corner of the leg room, so when I’m doing squats I have the pleasure of seeing sweaty fat people sitting around on the benches outside the sauna. Oh yeah, and it smells.[/quote]
Haha. I remember one time recently I was at one of those holistic Health day spas. I’d just had a sports massage and they said I could use their ‘Wet Room’, which contained a hot tub, a sauna, a shower, and a steam room. I didn’t know the rules, it being my first time there, and I thought I was in a men’s only room. For a while after I showered I was walking around in there butt naked, with my cash and prizes hanging out. I later on found out it was a coed room, because I was sitting in the sauna when a woman walked in and sat down, wrapped in a towel!
I instantly felt aroused and felt a familiar stiffening sensation under my towel. Just being in near proximity to a woman, all hot and steamy and knowing we were both naked under our towels was a turn-on. I became very self-conscious and didn’t know what to do. I was just thinking, “What do I do? Strike up a conversation, sit there in uncomfortable silence, or whip out my willy and hope she has a similar idea in mind?”. So I sat there in silence for a few minutes, staring at the wall, at my feet, anywhere but her, and willing my erection to go down.
I don’t use saunas very much at all, and while it would be my fantasy to have a sexual encounter in one, I didn’t want to do anything that would be construed as harrassment. I eventually couldn’t take it anymore, so I got up and left as quietly as possible. That left me thinking, since the sign in the spa said it was a ‘communal facility’ and we basically have nothing on under our towels, did that mean that men and women, complete strangers, could sit in the jacuzzi together? Well it’d be cool, but I thought it unlikely. So I was just like, WTF is the etiquette in a coed facility where men and women share the same hot and steamy room relatively unclothed; are these health places purely therapeutic or are there some sexual undertones present and sometimes expressed discreetly? I don’t know…
Next to the barbell itself, the power rack is the most valuable and versatile piece of strength training equipment. Walk into any thrift store and you will see multitudes of discarded infomercial exercise pieces, but you will never see a used power rack for sale in one of these places.
In order for you to achieve your strength and development potential, you are going to have to become proficient at fighting the weight through sticking points and at grinding out additional repetitions that may appear to be impossible to complete. This requires complete focus, along with mental and physical toughness.
If you are worried about getting stuck with a heavy bench press, buried by a heavy squat or that your spotter might be distracted or intervene either too soon or too late, then you will never be able to achieve the focus you need. The power rack solves these problems by allowing you to train with total confidence and safety. Competitive powerlifters can train with the power rack, but they need to a certain amount of work with traditional squat racks in order to duplicate contest conditions. I often hear lifters complain about guys who use the power rack to perform barbell curls. If a guy pays his fees and follows the gym’s rules that he should be free to use whatever piece of equipment for whatever purpose. However, I keep a pair of vice-grips in my training bag and I make sure that the J hooks stay good and tight at a level designed for squatting. It only takes a couple of times for a would be curler to discover that hooks are much too tight for them to loosen and they quickly find another place to do curls. Most standard power racks come with J hooks and a pair of pins, but you will want to add some extra accessories. It is rare to see a power rack in a commercial gym that has an extra set of pins so you will need to get a pair of heavy duty metal pins that will fit the power rack you are using. I would also suggest visiting a hardware store or a plumbing supply warehouse and buy a couple of lengths of rubber insulation, the type that goes around water pipes. This insulation is used to wrap around the power rack pins to minimize the jarring effect of barbell when it is lowered onto the pins.
One of the best uses of the power rack is to perform partial repetitions, which overloads the muscle groups being worked. I also believe it strengthens the tendons and ligaments to a great degree. Connective tissue strength is a very important and often overlooked component of strength development. Partials can be a very valuable tool but they can also cause some problems. You have to remember that the partials movements are an adjunct exercise and NOT a lift. I see far too many guys doing quarter squats and bench press lockouts in the power rack with far too much weight and with a sloppy style of bouncing the bar off the pins. Such ego driven habits are not only un-productive but can also lead to injury. When doing partial movements, it is imperative that the partial movement is a duplicate of that portion of the full range movement. For example, if you are doing bench press lockouts, then the lockout must be exactly as if were performed at the end of a normal bench press. It is all too easy to put yourself into a biomechanically advantaged position to do the partial movement. This is why you should always do partial movements only after completing the full range movement as this helps you to duplicate the original groove when doing the partial movements. I would also advise warming up with a couple of light sets of the partial movements to further establish the correct groove and get the body ready for the heavy set. Keep the reps in the 3-6 range for 1-2 sets for the best results.
Growing stronger in the basic movements involves an on-going analysis and feedback of weak areas and sticking points and then performing adjunct movements to strengthen the weak areas. A fantastic way of using the power rack to improve sticking points is to use the extra set of pins in what could be described as an isometric movement. Using the bench press as example, let’s say that your sticking point is about four inches above your chest. You place the second set of pins about four inches above your chest. You can place the J hooks at a level just above your face and with the assistance of a spotter, place the bar on your chest to begin the exercise or if you do not have a spotter, have the 1st set of pins just above throat level and then you can slide the bar towards your chest and place it in the appropriate starting point. Push the bar up to the 2nd set of pins, touching the bar to the pins for a momentary pause, then return to bar to the chest and repeat. On the last repetition, you are going to push the bar against the pins for as hard as you can for anywhere from 8-12 seconds. It helps to have someone watching a clock or wristwatch and calling out the times to you interspersed with sporadic insults about your strength and manhood along the way. This is an extremely demanding and humbling exercise and one which requires total concentration and intensity. You also have to maintain near perfect form with your head, buttocks, feet etc. You can use any rep range you like but I have always like doing triples and sixes with the last rep being the one that is held for time. Once you reach the point where you can do a given poundage for 12 seconds, then its time to increase the weight.
An additional technique is to use a pair of wooden rods (sawed off broomstick handles) rather than the metal rods and then on the last rep, try to break the wood. When you are pressing against a steel rod, you know there is no chance its going anywhere, but with wood there is at least a chance of breaking it, so I am motivated to push even harder and I have cracked and broken the rods a couple of times. You can use pin partials in most any kind of compound exercise.
Below are some descriptions of power rack exercises that I have used with good results.
WALKOUTS: walkouts involve loading the bar to about to about 75-100lbs above your best single squat and then getting into the squat position, un-racking the bar, stepping back and setting up just as if you were going to squat, hold that position for about 4-5 seconds, then walk the bar back into the rack just as if you had completed the squat. The idea behind this is that your body (and your mind) gets used to supporting an increased amount of weight, so that when you go back to your regular exercise weight, it seems much lighter by comparison. It is also likely that the connective tissue is strengthened during supporting movements. You can do the same thing for the bench press. Take the weight and hold at arms length for 4-5 seconds. One set of these per exercise is ideal
STARR POWER SHRUGS: This is an excellent movement advocated by the legendary Bill Starr to build the trapezius and surrounding muscles of the upper back. I also believe it will help increase most of the major compound pulling exercises. Set the pins in the power rack so that the bar is at mid thigh level. You are going to need lifting straps and either chalk or resin. Grip the bar tightly and explode the bar upwards while at the same time driving the hips forward. You want to achieve as much height as possible?think of trying to touch your shoulders to your ears. Hold the weight at the top position for a brief second, then lower back to the pins and repeat. Make sure that each repetition is performed from a motionless bottom position?you do not want to bounce the bar off the pins. Do a warm-up set of five, then maximum weight for 5 reps, reduce the weight by about 20lbs and perform an additional set of five.
POWER PUSH PRESS: This one is brutal and should only be attempted by those with at least close to a bodyweight overhead press. Put the pins in the power rack so that the bar is 4-6? below your starting point for a standing overhead press. Grip the bar as if you were doing a standard overhead press. Your knees should be slightly bent. Make sure that your entire body is tight and then drive the weight upwards with your arms and at the same time you use your legs to get the weight moving. Push the weight to just above your head, hold motionless for a second, then lower the weight under complete control back to your chest and then set it back on the pins. Take a deep breath or two and repeat. Start light at first, but you eventually want to reach a point where you are using your best overhead press weight for a set of six reps.
BOTTOM POSITION FRONT SQUATS: This is a front squat performed from the bottom or starting position of the squat. Perform these after you do either full squat or front squats. Put the pins at the lowest possible position that you can comfortably get under the bar to commence this movement. To make this even more difficult-place a second set of pins about 3 inches shy of the top of lockout position so that when you are performing your squats you are never able to lockout the weight which keeps constant tension on the legs.
BOTTOM POSITION TRICEP EXTENSION: Using the straight bar, perform the exercise like a normal tricep extension, but instead of coming down with the bar and going right back up to extend the triceps, bring the bar down and let it rest on the power rack bar for one full second and then take the bar up to full tricep extension. You need to maintain tension on the triceps while the bar is resting on the pins. During the entire exercise, try to pull your hands apart as if you were bending or breaking the bar in two. When you reach the point where a positive repetition is no longer possible, then simply slide the bar onto the chest and perform a narrow grip bench press, then lower the weight back to the pins.
Keith
[quote]JohnnyBlaze wrote:
J.W. wrote:
dre wrote:
My only question is that you have co-ed saunas?
It’s just one sauna and you have to wear clothes. Trust me- it’s more of a curse than a blessing. The sauna is in the corner of the leg room, so when I’m doing squats I have the pleasure of seeing sweaty fat people sitting around on the benches outside the sauna. Oh yeah, and it smells.
Haha. I remember one time recently I was at one of those holistic Health day spas. I’d just had a sports massage and they said I could use their ‘Wet Room’, which contained a hot tub, a sauna, a shower, and a steam room. I didn’t know the rules, it being my first time there, and I thought I was in a men’s only room. For a while after I showered I was walking around in there butt naked, with my cash and prizes hanging out. I later on found out it was a coed room, because I was sitting in the sauna when a woman walked in and sat down, wrapped in a towel!
I instantly felt aroused and felt a familiar stiffening sensation under my towel. Just being in near proximity to a woman, all hot and steamy and knowing we were both naked under our towels was a turn-on. I became very self-conscious and didn’t know what to do. I was just thinking, “What do I do? Strike up a conversation, sit there in uncomfortable silence, or whip out my willy and hope she has a similar idea in mind?”. So I sat there in silence for a few minutes, staring at the wall, at my feet, anywhere but her, and willing my erection to go down.
I don’t use saunas very much at all, and while it would be my fantasy to have a sexual encounter in one, I didn’t want to do anything that would be construed as harrassment. I eventually couldn’t take it anymore, so I got up and left as quietly as possible. That left me thinking, since the sign in the spa said it was a ‘communal facility’ and we basically have nothing on under our towels, did that mean that men and women, complete strangers, could sit in the jacuzzi together? Well it’d be cool, but I thought it unlikely. So I was just like, WTF is the etiquette in a coed facility where men and women share the same hot and steamy room relatively unclothed; are these health places purely therapeutic or are there some sexual undertones present and sometimes expressed discreetly? I don’t know…[/quote]
Did you just call your cock-and-balls your “cash and prizes”?
Ten points. I’ll be stealing that.
[quote]Keith Wassung wrote:
A whole bunch of wisdom.
[/quote]
Good stuff right there. I like the idea of cranking down the J-hooks 