What Happens When You Go To A New Gym

Training
41

I love visiting gyms. I used to love commercial gyms and loved going during the busy times hoping to meet serious lifters who came in around that time. There are a lot of powerlifters, oly lifters, and crossfitters using the training areas/rigs at 24 Hour Fitness locations where I live.

But I eventually did get sick of commercial gyms. Because you’re just another globogym member, they don’t give you the same attention. So I ended up joining a powerlifting gym in my area, who’s owners I met at the commercial gym I was at. They also got sick of commercial gyms and wanted their own place to lift with their friends. And through this powerlifting gym, Im able to drop into other powerlifting gyms and network. Its great.

42

I quit my job at the beginning of june and decided to spend my last month before summer holiday in a commercial gym. I have been training at home for a long time and it was an interesting experience.

  • i noticed i didnt miss training with the machines except triceps pushdowns.

  • i think what you mean by eye candy is girls walking around. there was a girl who trained at the same time with me everyday. I caught her checking me out from the mirror a few times and liked it. ( there is no way my wife will read a bodybuilding forum so i can write this. )

  • noone except the gym owner talked to me once. it was a very hostile environment and i felt uncomfortable most of the time.

  • now i know building a home gym where i can train wearing just a boxer short was a great idea.

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43

I travel for work some so therefore to stay on track I have memberships at 3 gyms. My main gym in my town, 24 and LA.
I love visiting other gyms when I’m on the road.

Pro’s
*Each gym has its own personality or aura. Some have great energy.
*Different equipment to stress the muscles from different angles
*Every machine is calibrated a little different even if it’s the same piece of equipment that’s at my home gym.
*There is always great looking eye candy in most of them.

Cons
*Some have limited equipment. I worked out at a LA Fitness in LA the 3rd one they opened, what a dump.
*Some areas of the country people are not as nice.
*In my area most gyms have very convenient hours, many are 24 hours. In small towns many close at 7pm closed on Sundays.

44

I realized this morning that by being the new guy, no one knows how jacked I used to be. … so even though I’m carrying less size these days, I’ve had a few folks comment on my impressive physique.

It felt pretty damn good until I got out to my car and saw that my reflection doesn’t match my old contest pics anymore -lol

S

45

Do you remember how much you weighed in this pic?

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46

Probably about 180 - 185 or so. It was before the two shows I did in Spring 2010, and while I know I weighed about 172-173 for the second, this was several weeks before the first. I was coming down slow, and was still getting used to not freaking out -lol

S

47

180-185 with striations in chest and delts. this is really impressive.

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48

Haha I walked past an area in a store which had mirrors at weird angles so I could see most of myself.

I thought I’m still looking pretty good and perhaps bigger and better than I ever have across the upper back.

Then I walked past the area which had stock and I could see below my chest - that wiped away any illusions of grandeur pretty quickly lol

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49

Lol man,… this pursuit of ours messes our heads something fierce. I look at that photo of myself that Gorilla posted and while I’m proud of it now, I know that when it was taken, I honestly felt that I had light years to go before I deserved to be winning onstage.

S

50

There’s always the Masters Division, Stu…

51

Lol - even before my shoulder issues I swore I wouldn’t be one of those older guys who barely look a shadow of their former selves. I’ll settle for being the “pretty jacked Dad” at parent teacher conferences for my son.

And of course it doesn’t hurt my coaching business to actually still look believable as a former champ :wink:

S

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52

:frowning_face:

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53

As far as i remember there hasnt been any successful comebacks placing wise in pro bodybuilding after a long lay off either. I never stepped on stage so i dont know how competitors feel but i think they cant resist the urge to prove themselves one more time.

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54

Getting the stares today as I perform my usual yet probably “weird” lifts -lol.

S

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55

Doing strict seated DB laterals with 25’s, I must still look ok because some fat dude who’s been wearing A lifting belt since he walked through the door felt the need to load up a hammer shrug machine 3 feet behind me with 4 plates a side for his first set, bounce a couple of “reps” and then eyeball me in the mirror to make sure I saw how strong he is -lol

S

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56

I have a few friends who dont change gyms because they are the resident “big guys” and they dont want to change the norm
Im a little different though, in a proximity of 30kms, there are probably 40odd gyms that vary from whatever specialty, to commercial etc
I think its good to swap and change. Its fun to adopt the mindset of “if youre the smartest person in the room, then chances are youre in the wrong room”
Theres always something to be learnt

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57

Went to not a ‘new’ gym, but a gym I used to go to and haven’t been to in quite awhile:

  1. Saw an individual ‘training’ his significant other, the entire workout consisted of standing abs, seizure-like tricep extensions, and preacher curls with gloves (for both)
  2. Same individual was caught numerous times eyeing up another (quite attractive) female gym goer, much to the chagrin of the significant other that he was ‘training’.
  3. I always train on Saturdays when I go there (as it is when we are visiting my in-laws) so I always see the same couple of older guys benching, the old, strong, talkative dudes that have put in a lot of time under the bar, ha. They work up nice and slowly to a couple doubles and singles in the mid-to-high 300s over the course of about 45 minutes, chatting up some of the younger, more serious guys. This is probably one of my favorite parts of my Saturday workouts, turns out one of them is (or used to be) a follower of T-Nation, always drinking his Plazma, puttering around, putting up weight.
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58

I used to go to a commercial gym near my house before I got my home setup usable and there was something like this that would happen during my PM workouts. Young couple around my age would come in and the BF would “train” the GF but it was just so awkward.

He clearly had no idea what he was doing, and their exercise selection and his form (hers was actually pretty good on most movements) was poor to say the least.

Worst part was this dude would make too-long eye contact with me and a few other regulars, usually while quarter repping tricep pushdowns. We were all pretty much the same size, so it must’ve been because he was with his chick, but it was just so weird.

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59

Ahh, gotta love those wearing a belt for 72 kg squats, standing curls, and even during lat pulldowns.

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60

Well, I fear I gotta update my list. Found a gym for these 2 weeks:

Pros:
-equipment is… ok, enough to do the basics and some machines;
-eye candy, plenty of it;
-10 minutes from home;

Cons:
-annoying gym owner who feels the need to give unsolicited advice while spilling bullshit that seems to come out of Men’s Health or some other magazine.
First day there, after I told him (because he asked about my program) I just want to train for strength and size while staying somewhat aesthetically fuckable by my other half, he made me lose 20 minutes explaining that you either train for strength like powerlifters do or you train for hypertrophy with a bodypart split like Arnold did, because “everyone does that, so it’s the best way”. Anything else is plain wrong.
Then diagnosed me a future of ruined knees and back because I barbell squat and I didn’t do slow negatives on my set of 20 reps - one hour into my first workout I had the privilege to do some curls while standing besides the smith machine, where he was taking care of a kid.
The kid in question did a few half assed reps with his knees completely caved in, rounded back and head tilted to the side.
Gym owner was standing behind him with, apparently, nothing to complain about it, and even told the kid “now give me another 5 reps!”.
Kid proceeded to grind out another bone shattering, ridicolously slow rep a breath away from snapping in half. Curtain falls, the Gods of hypertrophy are satisfied.

Yesterday, second day, was somewhat more bearable. The guy only materialized to ask me about the face pulls I was doing between sets of behind the neck press, obviously feeling the need to suggest something better - lying dumbbell rotations with elbows out at 90 degrees, suggested after he completely fucked up his exposition about what is worked in the face pulls and how.
Even if my first thought was something along “yeah, because what the fuck do people like Rusin and DeFranco know, right?”, I’m discretely open minded and gave the exercise a try for a few sets. As expected, it’s pure garbage, lying on the ground doesn’t allow scapulae to appropriately protract and retract, with the result that you end up internally and externally rotate in an impinged range of motion.

Let’s hope I can do the next few days without being bothered, it’s weird cause I’ve been training at my usual gym for almost 3 years now and never, ever had an issue with other people, trainers or owners. I’m fairly patient and mannered, especially since I consider these two weeks in another gym as being a “guest” into someone else’s home, but I do value A LOT being left in peace while I workout and when something or someone gets on my nerves, I tend to lose patience very quickly, becoming blunt. Hopefully this guy hasn’t mistaken my being fairly peaceful and behaved with some twisted notion that he’s allowed to waste my time without consequences.

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