Sick of Your Gym: GBF

They do this over at elite and man there are some funny stories…

So I know there must be some funny stories here too.

We could call it the sick of your gym thread: The good, the bad, and the funny…I’ll start…

Today I saw these two guys performing incline presses and the guy spotting was yelling to his partner “slower, slower, you have to press it slower!” I wanted to walk over and tell him all about speed strength and all the 500, 600, 700 benchers who didn’t bench slow…

Which brings me to something else does anyone ever feel the need to correct someone in the gym who exhibits bad form or clearly doesn’t really know what they are doing? I see it all the time but I don’t want to seem like a know-it-all or a gym snob so I just keep my mouth shut.

I won’t say shit unless they come up to me and ask. RLTW

rangertab75

Has anyone else seen people deadlifting with a smith machine? I didn’t think it was possible until I saw it two weeks ago. I thought they must be doing something else but I watched them go through 2 sets and sure enough they were deadlifting, well going through the motions anyway. Is there anyexplanation for this?

Which brings me to something else does anyone ever feel the need to correct someone in the gym who exhibits bad form or clearly doesn’t really know what they are doing? I see it all the time but I don’t want to seem like a know-it-all or a gym snob so I just keep my mouth shut. <~~~~ALL THE TIME,BUT I FEEL THE SAME AS YOU DO

Another one that I hate is people who talk on the damn cell phone more then they actually workout!! I dont not bring my phone in the gym with me,I can understand if this person has children,but it seems that the worst offenders are Teens…

I like my gym. They have a lot of stuff I could never afford to own. It costs me just over $20 a month for unlimited use 24/7/365.

Sure, I have to put up with the occaisional goofball or asshole and most of the time the girls at the front desk play shitty music but it’s got what I need and it’s at a decent price.

Well, I hate it when I can’t use the equipment for the wrong reasons. I mean, if someone is using it, then fine, I can wait.

However, when Muffy is sitting on her ass in the seated calf press thing with two guys hitting on her for ages it gets to be a bit much.

Get the fuck out of the machine after your set princess!

On the other hand, one of the women in our gym, a trainer actually, is a competitive bodybuilder. She’s sweet! Maybe some day I’ll grow a pair and actually say something to her.

I’m really there to work out though – only time I talk to someone is to ask if they are done or if they ask me if I’m done.

Luckily, I have never even been to a commercial gym. I workout in my basement, a power rack, a bench, barbell and weights, are all I need.

Oh man, I hate those little pricks who talk on the cell phone while they’re working out. RLTW

rangertab75

I am stuck at the local YMCA, my mom got us a family membership years ago and I am not really going to ask for a seperate membership somewhere else. I just put up with the shit and do my things. Hopefully I’ll be doing joint enrollment at GT next year so I’ll be able to use their weight rooms which aren’t half bad but until then…

Yes, I haven’t seen deadlifts on the smith machine, no, I still haven’t figured out how it works. I have also seen some other creative work. In fact, I could count the basic exercises on one hand that I haven’t seen someone try in the smith… yes, I have seen someone do curls, which is worse than the horrific “curls in the power rack” syndrome that plagues many people. People really enjoy the mirrors to much, I think they believe they can lift more if they are closer to them, which is why I have also seen people lift the smith bar all the way up, and walk in to the machine with dumb-bells to do whatever it is that their little heart desires.

I think the worst oral experiences I have had in a gym though concern people who really just don’t know anything at all and I wonder how they function in the real world. Just the other day, I was doing good mornings, minding my own damn business when this astute gentleman comes over and informs me “That’s not how your supposed to do squats.” and he was very right. He continued “In fact, what your doing is just going to mess your back up. When you squat, you are supposed to go down with your legs… not your back.” and again, outside of the back injury comment, I couldn’t fault him; squats are about your legs more so than your back. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had read an article on squat form in glossy publication, but the critical problem we faced is that he didn’t realize I wasn’t doing squats. I smiled, thanked him for the advice, and went back to my good mornings. What else was I to do? I surely wasn’t going to explain good mornings to him, god knows he would ultimately end up accosting someone doing squats and inform them good mornings are done in a much different fashion.

One other small things that I have yet to understand is the “muscle” show at our gym. I live in a nice neighborhood and so I realize that inevitably the gym scene is going to be a social scene and meat market for some, but I am always baffled at the guys who have obviously juiced overzealously with the excess dough that is as much a source of problems in my neighborhood as a dearth of funds is five miles from here, across the railroad tracks. I have seen men with arms that are a beautiful and lean 17 or 18 inches spend well over an hour in the gym and do no more exercise than walk back and forth between the weight area and their gym bag with their cell phones. Unless they have too much time to kill and they spent the previous hour working their ass off, then I am at a loss here also. Oh, and then consider the fact that I have NEVER seen them at the gym before, nor do I ever see these people again. I know its them and not me, because I go to the gym during all sorts of time windows, we don’t train at differnt times, I train and I don’t see them.

At this point I am presented with a further propistion. Obviously , they ahve do to some lifting, I mean you can’t get 18 inches off nothing but juice so clearly they do something. Are they members at other gyms then and have decided to come to our gym just to model for the day? I don’t know. Like I said in the begining, I am there to get what I can out of it. I don’t really talk to anyone there beyond swapping equipment and helping the staff pick up weights that people leave all over. That is something else I don’t understand. I am more than understanding if someone is going to do circuits in the weight area, I’ll try to give them as much room as they need and unless I desperately need a weight they are using, I will try to rearrange my workout to facilitate their efforts but when they leave four pairs of dumb-bells scattered in the weight area… you can be damn sure that next time I see them in the gym trying to do a circuit I help them clean up between my sets, systematically putting away the weights they are going to use next. They don’t say anything either which is the funniest part.

So moral of the story is this. People go to the gym for different reasons. Some people go there to meet other people, some people go because they think they are worth being met, and some people go because they are tired of being sedentary fat asses and want to be better people. Then, there is the rarest specimen of gym goers, those who go there for the love of the game, those who know what they came for, those who know how to do it, and then get it done. I am happy with my reasons for going and as long as other people’s reasons don’t interfere with mine, who am I to criticize them for getting out of the gym what they want from it?

But did I tell you about the guy who does overhead presses in the power rack…?

I now have a home gym in my basement and will never go to a commercial gym again…ever.

As for anything that pisses me off…the usual, curls in squat rack, leg presses, people who think the gym is a social club. And finally, the frat guys who stand around discussing supplements and acting like they are billy badass when they mention they are on creatine.

Again…never will I join a commercial gym.

sexy J funny, funny…especially the goodmornings!

Well I like my gym alot, BUT I really hate it when guys bring in those giant gym bags, the ones that I could comfortably sleep in. and they throw it down at the incline bench machine, as if they are claiming said bench for the next hour and a half. I am at the gym for 45 minutes, I need to use the bench, and I can’t figure out who owns the bag, so I gotta move it out of the way and hope that nobody decides its worth making a scene over.

Plus the music is no good. who actually thinks Britney Spears and the rest of the top 40 are actually worth listening to? apparently everybody who chooses music in gyms.

Well I like my gym alot, BUT I really hate it when guys bring in those giant gym bags, the ones that I could comfortably sleep in. and they throw it down at the incline bench machine, as if they are claiming said bench for the next hour and a half. I am at the gym for 45 minutes, I need to use the bench, and I can’t figure out who owns the bag, so I gotta move it out of the way and hope that nobody decides its worth making a scene over.

Plus the music is no good. who actually thinks Britney Spears and the rest of the top 40 are actually worth listening to? apparently everybody who chooses music in gyms.

I work out at a commercial gym in NYC. Cell phones…forget about it. More people talk on them then don’t when they are working out at my gym.

Think the music is annoying. How about the announcements and paging done in three languages. The english announcements sound like they are whispers. The others they must crank up to 11 before they make them.

Unusual excercises. You would not believe some of the variations I have seen with the cable machines and smith machines. They seem designed to work the fingers or something. Power Rack: I am the only one who uses it for squats…the only one!

All that being said the place has a dedicated group of 6 or 8 guys that are there all the time, usually powerlifting, and keeping to themselves and dealing with each other. That’s why I like it since I am in that group.

I hate my gym so much I am working on starting a hardcore gym in Knoxville…

I am pretty sick of my gym (local YMCA) but since I am now in there for only an hour at a time (to keep up my focus and intensity) the riff raff and teenagers without a clue don’t bother me as much… I keep to myself usually and don’t bother correcting anyone anymore since they don’t seem to care or adhere to any knowledge I may have imparted. When they realize that lifting is a life long pursuit and takes determination and pain, they bail out.
I can’t fathom how these kids nowadays (I’m 29, haha) with all the information at their fingertips (the Internet) and with a site like this do nothing with the knowledge and still fuck up something as basic as proper barbell curls, chinups, etc.

Why do these kids not know the basic anabolic properties of heavy compound movements yet are enamoured of stupid accessory work like bicep curls, tricep kickbacks,and when they do do them, poorly executed bench presses & leapfrog pullups ??? IGNORANCE kills PROGRESS

It’s disheartening, really.
I’ve referred at least 5 guys at the gym to this site yet I see none of them take the knowledge and do something with it… Oh well… I’ll just worry about my own progress…

I really hate… aw shit, I forgot: I’m too busy lifting to check out what everyone else is doing.

Has anyone ever fantasized about dropping loaded barbells on people that set up chairs in the weightroom for the sole purpose to cuddle and watch American Idol? I have.

‘…people that set up chairs in the weightroom for the sole purpose to cuddle and watch American Idol’

tell me where that gym is? i never want to go there, EVER !!!

jaystyles

Here’s a good one. I work out at 5:00 am with a group of 3 others. Monday morning we were doing legs. One of my buddies is squatting 365 and was grunting a little on his last 3-4 reps. Not 5 minutes later, the girl at the front desk comes over and tells us to keep it down because we are disturbing a couple of the others in the gym. At 5 am, there are maybe 6 others in the gym besides us and these 6 others are serious lifters too.

I guess I hate people who don’t have a clue as to what goes on in a gym but work in one.