In this month’s muscle & fitness (I think m&f anyway) a trainer is actually recommending uni-lateral dumbell presses and dumbell flyes on a swiss ball to help even out symmetrical strength imbalances. Is this not absurd? Kind’ve reminds me of the time I saw a guy try to max out on flat bench dumbell presses with one arm. Lying down and holding a 100 lb dumbell in his right arm and with nothing in his left he had the spotter help him lift the weight up…as soon as the spotter released his grip the guy toppled right off the bench, dumbell and all.
There used to be this old, very fat guy at a gym I went to who would put 225-245 on the bar, stick both his feet up in the air, and do ballistic 4-inch ROM bench-press-like movements.
I never figured out what he was trying to do, since I never saw him do a bench with more than half ROM, even with the bar, but I watched him do this 2 or 3 times a week for years. He did a lot of other weird stuff too, but that’s what I remember best.
Kell, you wouldn’t believe (or, unfortunately, perhaps you would) what some individuals can do with a Lat Pulldown station. Honestly, it scares the begeezus out of me.
1RM on uni-lateral dumbbell presses? As the former great SportsCenter anchor Craig Kilborn would say, That deserves a Wow!
Sounds like someone should give the dumbell guy a quick tutorial on physics and the idea of balancing big chunks of iron over head. Hes lucky it went out away from him instead of in and straight down. Don’t think a plain ole gym towel would have cleaned that up mess.
I use one arm overhead db presses (also called a bent press), and one arm db bench presses and am finding that they are helping increase my strength for the 2 armed versions. Both activate the core and require alot more CNS activation than any machine exercise. I think they’re good exercises for more advanced trainees looking for assistance exercises for core lifts such as overhead pressing or bench pressing.
Swiss ball squats (heh heh heh)
Pretty much anything a personal trainer at one of “those” fitness centers tells their clients to do.“Blind shepard leading his flock”. And you wander why most people at the gym never make headway and remain the same year after year.
Guru X
1 arm DB presses seem like a great exercise if you do it properly and within your limits.
-Zulu
i once saw a guy trying to pick a barbell off the ground with, like 200lbs on it, and then just put it down again. i mean what the fuck!
Crazy
he said it was “dead weighting” or something like that… i dont know…
make that “wonder”
The PT’S at my gym are really very good. Big Tony is intense as they come and knows his stuff inside and out! His girlfriend is also a trainer and has more “T” than 3/4 of the guys in my gym. Then again his roomate in college was, Lonnie Lowery. I must be one of the lucky ones when it comes to PT’S!!
Nothing wrong with uni db movements. I do overhead presses this way and they’re a fantastic movement, as all exercises are when used properly and in moderation. Now perhaps this individual was overdoing it with a 100 pound bench press, but dropping the weight and dropping the spotter would have yielded a pretty effective chest and core workout. try it sometime. Your innards will feel like someone stomped on 'em.
I watched a guy bench 405 for 6 the other day. He was strong. The only thing about the 6 reps was they were fast reps and he bounced the weight off his chest.
When I was in college, there was this guy who liked to do dips with his hands in a pronated position (like doing dips on a straight bar, without the center section). Unfortunately, the only place to do something like that was atop the Universal multi-station machine (the one meant for pullups). So this guy would grab the handles, do a pullup, then fling himself up to a dip position. Occasionally, he would only get one arm over and would have to try again. And once he got to the top, his hed nearly hit the ceiling. Crazy.
And eventually this guy graduated with an engineering degree, got a job, finally got a clue, found T-mag, and started posting in the forum under the handle “brider.”
I would say the dumbest thing I ever say, was a trainer telling his client to use the hack squat machine facing it rather than away from it. So the client would face it with his feet wide apart and back severely rounded. I could swear I heard his vertebrae just screaming.
A guy in the gym the other day was using chains with a smith machine and doing 1/4 rep squats. Mind you, the chains never deloaded on the floor at all during the entire movement. I felt bad for the kid…
We have a limited ROM guy in our gym, too. He does these on every exrecize. I asked him about it, and he said this is what his doctor recommended. His doc told him that it woud be impssible for him to gain any more size, and the limited ROM would be the best thing for keeping healthy. (No he wasn’t rehabing anything.)
Hey, tonight I’m going to try those pronated pullup/dips. That sounds like a great exercize!
There is an eccentric guy at the gym I work out at who is kind of short, compact and fairly stacked who jumps in the air at the top of his movements.
He’ll do squats then jump at the top, standing db military presses…he’ll squat down then jump at the beginning of the movement then extends while in mid air.
Seems like regular calesthenic movements only with bb’s and db’s…
I’m sure it works well for explosive power.
His routine is obviously working for him, but it doesn’t take away from the fact he looks pretty silly doing it.
A couple of people have posted re: standing unilateral dumbell presses which I consider a great exercise. The difference is the feet are planted on the ground. Unilateral presses on a swiss ball is a different story.
Here’s another silly one. There’s this crazy guy at my gym who is always doing something I’ve never seen before…sometimes he jumps with a bar on his back and does a lot of lifts where he just throws the weight to his chest or overhead in one motion using a lot of momentum. He squats all the way down with heavy weights sometimes doing a regular squat and sometimes holding the bar in front of his body in his hands…he continues to do these full squats even though one of our knowledgeable trainers told him they were dangerous. One time I even saw him holding a weight over his head while walking around in circles and sometimes he brings this wierd dumbell looking thing into the gym but it is round and has an extra large handle on it. He takes it and swings it between his legs throwing it above is head and all sorts of weird things. One crazy guy I believe his name is Kelly!
I forgot about this one: We have this guy at the gym, I believe his name is Wachu Ghot. The first time I him, he decided to do deadlifts in the middle of the freeweight area (not a good location.) As he was doing his deads, he was screaming, and everyone in the gym was watching him. One guy was yelling “Show 'em, Wachu Ghot! Show 'em, Wachu Ghot!” After the set, he received high 5’s from a number of people. Interestingly, I was also doing deadlifts. I looked at Wachu’s bar, and then at mine. Despite Wachu being more than a foot taller and at least 80 lbs. heavier than me, he was using the same weight as me!
Everytime I see Wachu, the same thing happens. He yells and people cheer for him. But he never uses signifigant weight on any exercize. Maybe I should start yelling while I do sets, so I can get the same attention!