I’ve never had to deal with any of this crap at my gym. It’s a Bally’s, but it opened as a Gold’s and was bought a few years later. As such, they have a couple power racks and a couple smith machines… everyone uses the smith machines and the racks are always open when I go (5-6am). The morning is the best time to workout, not for some physiological reason, but because the shitheads only show up after work. They were all partying the night before and couldn’t drag their lazy asses to the gym at 5:00am to save their lives.
If you are using a piece of equipment, they can wait their turn for as LONG AS IT TAKES. They have no idea how many sets you are planning on doing, fuck 'em. You were there first, so as long as you are actually USING the equipment, and not just sitting on it to flirt with some bimbo, then they just need to pick a different exercise, or better yet, warm up.
Mike the Lib- I agree with the other guy.. warming up is a myth? Come on, man. That study could have had SO many uncontrolled variables that it doesn't really amount to much. Even if you are a die hard evolutionist, (which I, and alot of others, are not) you should be willing to concede that our 'pre-historic, cave dwelling, transitional form ancestors' would have been busting their primitive asses all day long, not sitting in a cubicle until it was time to go to the gym. So, of COURSE they wouldn't have needed to "warm up". Unfortunately, most of us get our lunch from a cooler or a drive-through, we don't chase it down and poke it with sticks until it's dead, so we need to warm up before we doing any serious working out. Not that this is even an evolution related topic, beause even a hundred or more years ago, most of our ancestors were labroing a lot harder that we were all day long, so they wouldn't have needed to warm up as much as we need to.
"Me Grog, cro-magnon man. Grog invulnerable to pulled muscles, but sure tear the shit out of left bicep when tackling baby brontosaurus Grog eat for breakfast because Grog just woke up and hadn't been moving around enough to be properly warmed up and limber. UNGH!"
Once and for all: 10 minutes is NOT too much time to be spending on a piece of equipment! (Jesus, who are these people)?! If you are training HEAVY, going deep into what Ian King would call the “neurological” end of the training spectrum, with low reps, you will be resting 2-4 MINUTES between sets. When I’m training like this and doing, say, flat bench presses, I’ll have the bench for about 15 minutes. I do three work sets (with about 3 minutes in between), which follow 3 warmup sets (in between the warmup sets I stretch my pecs and delts thoroughly). Not ONCE in my crowded gym has ANYONE ever complained about this. Probably because they’ve seen me do it many times before and know that I’m not fucking around, but rather that I know what I’m doing, I’m being smart about it, and I’m progressing faster than most of them. And most importantly, because most of them can’t bench 350 for sets of 4 or 5 reps. Now, I’m sure many of you can do MORE than that. But my point is that I’ll be damned if someone thinks that my use of the bench is at all improper or time-wasting. I’d like to compare their success with that particular piece of equipment over the years to mine. Thank you.
What’s funny is that as I initially read this, I visualized the guy in a string tank and clown pants with a gallon jug of water!! You did the right thing, I’d probably have asked the cool guy to spot me on the bench though. Don’t sweat it. BTW: Mike the Lib…you’re way out in left field dude.
T-man would piss on the rack to claim it as his own. Then Mr. Stupid would walk away and do something else stupid, otherwise, T-man may piss on him too! LOL!
there will always be idiots so let them be. just as long as they don’t mess with your workouts. you did the kind and curtious thing by moving to the free bench. you could talk to your other friend about proper form. thats a suggestion. laters pk
Actually, I don’t think Mike the Lib. is so far off base after all, depending on what you consider to be a warm-up. My idea of a warm up is a few warm-up sets, progressing the weight up from very light to work weight slowly (over say 4 sets or so). Mike is probably visualizing what is meant as a warm up as 10 minutes on a bike or treadmill, which I don’t do (and presumably he doesn’t either). Any way, that’s just my take on it. As for the original post, my guess is that if somebody actually confronted this excrement-in-motion, he’d probably back down. However, you avoided the confrontation and every one kept their skin intact. You could have asked him to spot you, and if he refused, just lay down on the bench for your next set and ignore the idiot. If he gets physical about it, he’s the one that gets banned for life (not such a bad ending after all).
When he said “TEN MINUTES”!!! I would have said “yeah assloaf the same amount of time your mother spent mopping my jizz off her face last night”. Okay I wouldn’t have done that cause I’m a nice guy too. I wouldn’t have moved that’s forsure. I would have asked if he wanted to work in. But if he’s such a dickwad like you say then I wouldn’t have bothered.
Hetyey225, your whole workout is 10 minutes!!!(Just had to sneak that one in on you.) If the clown did not have alternative equipment and you did, you did the right thing in moving. However, if you didn’t have alternative equipment, he should have waited or pulled his pug somewhere else. It happened to me once and the jerk made such a big stink about it, I did a few extra sets.
actualy I basicaly agree with mike the lib, though I am not saying I do not perform warm ups, I just realise that most of the “benefits” are in my head. the one exception with myself is my left shoulder which I injured long ago and does have a blood flow prob (I also found out I have an extra rib on that side that interfears with circulation, I have NO pulse if my arm is above shoulder level). but the human body does not realy need warm up to perform. with me its usualy more of a mental preperation and except for my shoulders I usualy only do 1-2 warm up sets and almost always in the 2-4rep range. I do think there may be times when more of a warm up is needed, training in the 1-3 rep range, training with alot of food in your gut (which you should not do anyway but I’m sure most of us have a couple of times) but these are realy just my opinion I don’t have any science behind it, but studdies have shown that streching for example before hand leads to a decrease in performance. peace
If the clown did not have alternative equipment and you did, you did the right thing in moving. However, if you didn’t have alternative equipment, he should have waited or pulled his pug somewhere else. It happened to me once and the jerk made such a big stink about it, I did a few extra sets.