Now I know that doing curls in the squat rack is bad, especially when there is only 2 power racks. I saw something much more horrid today though: a guy was doing crunches in there. Now that is just rediculous! Just had to vent.
Did you tell him it wasn’t an ab machine? Maybe he didn’t know, hahahah! Just say “Hey! I need to use the squat rack for it’s intended purpose, if you don’t mind!”
I always have to kick some dumbass off the lifting deck. They are either doing ab work, or lunges. The trainers,are the worst. The gym we work out at has tons of floor space, and they have to do it on my lifting deck.
(to continue with what Ko is saying…) And now, the lifting deck is often found littered with those li’l 2, 5 and 8lb dumbbells that the damn trainers are too lazy to put back. AND to add insult to injury: People are also taking the 5, 10, and 25 kgs weight plates from the lifting deck to use and not putting them back - like they were 10 and 25 POUND weight plates. Idiots.
I do lockout crunches in the rack…got the exercise from one of those Dinosaur training type things, an old school exercise. Lockout a heavy weight and then get your shoulder blades off the ground.
I saw a ridiculous thing in the gym the other day. This older guy was benching 185 with somewhat normal form. He then went up to 300 lbs, but in order to “bench” it, he put his feet up on the bench and pushed his ass as high off the bench as he could so his body was at about a 45 degree angle. He was able to decrease his ROM by about 5 inches.
Luckily I wasn’t squating or deadin’, so I didn’t need the rack. I saw another rediculous thing- This young guy was trying to bench 150 but couldn’t even get half the ROM. I thought he was done but then he added another 50 lbs. and continued, now at about a third of the ROM with his left arm about six inches lower than his right. Good thing the clips were strong (for him, I would have enjoyed a good laugh if the weights went tumbling to the floor!) I feel like writing “Go to T-MAG.COM idiot” on pieces of paper and handing it to everyone in my gym.
Okay, I think Ko and I have just seen something NEVER before witnessed in a gym (it’s okay to correct me): A guy was performing barbell curls in a squat rack - but wait, there’s more. A guy behind him at the Smith Machine was also performing barbell curls - using the Smith Machine. I kid you not.
Lol…i profess I used to use the power rack for ab work…I do spread eagle situps from time to time and also Janda situps…draping my legs over the bar on one side. Since myself and workout partners were the only ones to ever use the power rack no one ever seemed to mind.
Funny to read this post. I read it yesterday morning, and last night I walk into the gym and bamm, somebody doing crunces in the power rack. Lucky for him it wasn’t leg day or I would have pretended he didn’t exist and used him to elevate my heels for some heavy squats. Also, unrelated just wanted to anounce a belter spotting. Woman dressed from the 80’s…spandex, head band, wrist bands and all. Wearing a weightbelt to assisted chins on a machine.
I’m sure everyone has seen this before, but it still makes me laugh… When guys get on the pulldown machine, grab the bar, lean all the way back so that their body is almost parallel with the ground, and then proceed to do rows. Just kills me!
at my gym we have some “jerk du soleil’s” (guys who have been lifting for years wearing their old golds gym shirts and those pink zooba pants) who do it all. full body lat pulldowns, arched back benchpress, cell phones on, joke about the day, weight belts for every exercise, quarter squats. its just so funny to me because they fit like 90% of the testathasauraus!
Actually, there is an exercise like that, but your body stays low, almost parallel to the ground as you pull down. It works great, sort of like a reverse barbell row. Really hits the back like no other movement if you get a good squeeze at the bottom. I think I found it in an Alessi or King article at T-mag.
But I know the geeks you’re talking about- they use too much weight and have to body-English it down.
Here one that has taken on popularity in the gym one of the gyms were I train. People standing upright and doing end of the bar rows.
That and only of few of us are still doing full range press behind the necks. Most stop at the top of their head and return to lockout. I would have assumed that they were doing tricep work but their grips are way to wide.
Who knows what I will see today. 
I think the thing that drives me nuts most in the gym is when a guy has to smack the dumbells together after each rep when doing flat bench. (idiot)
Any noise coming from the weights themselves while not lifting comes from laziness. It’s so much more difficult to be quiet loading plates and putting away dumbells than to lazily let momentum do the work for you.
i actually enjoy doin bb curls in the squat rack in my garage. AS a side not i cannot ever do spread eagle situps as my hip flexors lock up in a kinda charlie horse fashion. what gives?
man…i just had to reply to this thread…i workout in a gym that doesn’t even have a barbell (not a garage or anything, but a “fancy” gym) so the smith machine gets used for EVERYTHING!
Also, the newest fad among all the personal trainers at this gym is to teach their clients swiss ball squats. You know...where you put a swiss ball between your back and the wall, and as you lower down, the ball rolls up...well...i overheard a trainee telling her trainer that she "didn't feel it in her legs" so the trainer looked all confused and told her to do 15 reps instead of 12 because she "should be feeling the burn." I felt dirty...
the funniest thing i ever saw in a gym though, was a guy on a leg curl/leg ext. machine (you know the old ones where it's got the double leg pads for both excersises...) well he sat on it for a minute and couldn't figure out what to do! so he started doing curls with the leg ext pads!! I kid you not! then he started to tell me how he could really "feel the burn in his arms" and telling me that he used to go to the gym all the time! needless to say, i never saw him again...
why are there people like this out there...?
It must be the gym I go to, which is aimed a lot at tennis players and people doing classes (not a T style gym!) but today I saw something I had to add. I was doing some cardio as a warmup and kid was riding a recumbent bike while playing games and playing with the ringers on his cell phone. I almost tore it out of his hand and threw it against the wall.
On the point of smacking the weights together and dropping them loudly in the rack, I have a theory. The reason why people drop weights and smack them together is because they are way too heavy for them to handle, example: an older man loves to do overhead tricep extensions with a huge dumbell while seated. He swings the huge thing up, presses out a couple of 1/4 reps, then drops the f’in thing from the top of the movement! The damn thing clangs so loudly that the entire gym jumps and looks around like a bomb just went off. When the trainers told him not to drop the weights he explained that he had a bad lower back and couldn’t lean over to put it on the ground. Meanwhile I am thinking “yeah your back is bad, but you can half- tricep press 100 lbs.” If he did a full range of motion or some 1-1/2’s he would probably use about 30 lbs. If people would “make the weight heavier” they wouldn’t have to drop weights and scare the surge out of everyone! (actually just me, everyone else thinks I am drinking milk or something.)
If I saw some little homo doing crunches in the fucking squat rack, I would do low box squats right there, using his fucking head as the box!