Overheard in the gym - Share!

[Silo]

Was he doing wrist curls?

[Hulk In Nerds Clothing]

No, the setup looked like biceps curls, but he hardly moved anything at all...I mean he put like double the weight on the bar I would use for my biCurls, so my best guess is he though more weight=more biceps and just uses something he can not even move...

[Cat in the rack]

I saw one guy in the gym yesterday doing some weird exercise I don't quite get. He loaded the bar onto his back, squatted down to not even parallel, then came back up onto his toes for some kind of calf raise, then jumped a couple of inches off the ground. Call me crazy, but I don't often do plypometric exercises with weight on my back.

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

I saw one guy in the gym yesterday doing some weird exercise I don't quite get. He loaded the bar onto his back, squatted down to not even parallel, then came back up onto his toes for some kind of calf raise, then jumped a couple of inches off the ground. Call me crazy, but I don't often do plypometric exercises with weight on my back.

 

Jumping squats are a thing, used by athletes mostly to work on power and explosiveness. They're done around the 60% 1RM range and have a good bit mroe carryover to sports like football and basketball.

[Cat in the rack]

I've heard of jump squats, though I've never done them. Whatever this guy was doing, it weren't jump squats.

[Cat in the rack]

Please oh please let that catch on.

[Hulk In Nerds Clothing]

Same dude was there again yesterday. Did tbar rows and cable rows with double the weight I use and a RoM that is so laughable short I hesitate to call it a range...seems to be his thing.

[wildross]

I see some serious face rash possibilities

[Eleanorsbee]

thats stupid ...... how are you meant to watch the TV when doing those workouts ????

[insanity]

I see some serious face rash possibilities

Incentive not to bite it...

[SevenofSeven]

What happened tonight, working away mixing up the squats when the English backpacker Bro's come in and swarm all over the free weight section, eyeballing me and the plates on the bar. Then start moving around me seriously close when I'm doing overhead squats and head press. WTF fellas give the lady some room, you have a whole empty area you can fucking curl in, I don't need you breathing down my neck and losing focus.

Then the Aussie Bro's come in and are too scared to ask to work in with the Poms so try and work around them. It was like watching a ballet.

Good thing is before the show began caught up with a friend of my eldest boy, was really polite and we chatted for ages between sets. He reckons it's great I was up there using the weights, complemented me on my Front squats. Happy now.

[Cat in the rack]

9 times out of 10 I love going to the gym with someone else as opposed to alone, I like being able to talk to someone between sets, I like being able to spot someone during their sets, and, in a totally non-arrogant way, I like lifting heavier or for more reps than someone else. I'm the only person in my group that follows a training plan or gives more than a seconds thought about nutrition, so I'm the best out of my friends when it comes to lifting, I'm not great, but nobody I know well is very good. One guy I know started lifting a few months ago and immediately jumped into a 6 body part split, most people I know just walk from machine to machine without much direction or tracking of weights. So whenever I go to the gym with someone they just ask what I'm doing and do it with a weight they can handle.

Anyway, one guy I know is overly competitive, tries to lift weights he shouldn't, goes to failure all the time trying to outdo me, it would probably be an issue if he went to the gym more regularly, rather than just once every couple of weeks. To put it bluntly, as nice a guy as he is day to day, I do not like going to the gym with him, like at all. For one he has no gym etiquette, regardless of how busy it is he takes up as much space as he can, and he always tries to convince me to just leave barbells and plates out when we're done with them.

The worst part is that when we go to the gym together I have two options: keep to intensities that don't push me so that he doesn't fuck up trying to do better (which I'm not gonna do), or do what I have planned and have him do poor form, low ROM to failure sets trying to keep up. Take for example pull-up, he's one of those people who lies about how many he can do, he says 10, the real answer is zero, I think I've mentioned before, last time we did pull-ups we were ramping up to a max set, he was swinging violently from rep 1 and not getting nearly high or low enough. When it comes to bench press he says his 1RM is 75kg, last time I was doing a set of 5+ for 62.5kg, he hit failure at 3, and also wore himself out completely beforehand because he kept doing AMRAP for the warm up sets. Not to mention his form is way off, elbows flared out, poor ROM, no arch in the back, shoulders moving back and forth. Whenever I point out the issue he corrects his form slightly... for half a set, then reverts back to whatever he was doing.

And then there's the talking, during every one of my sets he tends to start conversations, which is fine during warm ups or even some high rep sets, but once I'm doing AMRAP for a final set its distracting. Plus he's a terrible spotter, standing in position but then looking on his phone mid-set, or literally leaving to go fill up his water bottle mid set. Plus plus he's heard a lot of broscience, he mostly won't do cardio because he thinks he'll "lose his gains" (his words not mine), he goes to failure because he thinks that's the only way to progress, and he loves all the typical alpha exercises (bench, curls, "pull-ups") but will conveniently be busy every single squat or OHP day. He's also a massive liar when it comes to his prior bests, for instance what his bench max "used to be like a year ago" has somehow gone up from 'around 60' to 'around 75' over the last few months as my actual bench press max has gone up from around 60 to around 75; and he says he used to do 300 push ups and 300 pull ups every day since he was 15, which there is no way is true.

/rant

Man, that went on a lot longer than I expected, I'm going to the gym later and he's also coming, that's probably why.

Tldr version: guy I know lies about his strength in the gym, is distracting in the gym, and keeps coming with me to the gym, the end.

[Dradis]

You can't help everyone. Do whatever you've got planned and let him do whatever the heck he does. Don't respond to chat during sets and just workout as if there isn't a spotter. Basically, during your lifts pretend he isn't there.

 

Eventually one of a number of things will happen:
*He'll wisen up to how things go down while you're working out

*He'll get injured and learn

*He'll get injured and rinse repeat

*He'll realise you've totally outpaced him and start listening

*Something else

 

None of which should detract from your workouts.

 

 

Someone came up to me the other day at the gym while i was doing chin up negatives and said something along the lines of "can't you even do a chin-up?". I didn't even bother to respond. He doesn't know i can do chin-ups and that i'm recovering from a shoulder injury, i don't care that he doesn't know that and i don't care how much weight or how many reps he can do on anything.

I chose to take it as a bit of a compliment in that i must look like i can do a chin-up

[Cat in the rack]

Yeah I kind of hope he'll realise that he's doing something wrong when I progress and he doesn't, but I reckon he'll just end up staying the same, he's a nice guy but I don't think for a second he's got enough willpower to improve. We were talking about nutrition once and he pretty much said he can't be bothered to eat more healthily. Good news is he bailed on going to the gym today, probably because it's back day.

Ah the unsolicited criticism of strangers who don't know what you're doing, as old as time itself.

[Trewest]

I'm going to be that person that others bitch about in the gym today:

for one of the Guild mini quests here on nerdfitness, we have to do army crawls. So I am going to shamelessly get my ass on a tredmill and army crawl along that sucker for a while.

 

Sounds crazy, I know, but I need the movements for Tough Mudder training anyways, and it'll help toughen the arms up for when I am doing this for real through rocks and mud.

 

Also, the military guys I work with won't even bat an eyelash over this in all honesty.

[Oramac]

I'm going to be that person that others bitch about in the gym today:

for one of the Guild mini quests here on nerdfitness, we have to do army crawls. So I am going to shamelessly get my ass on a tredmill and army crawl along that sucker for a while.

 

Sounds crazy, I know, but I need the movements for Tough Mudder training anyways, and it'll help toughen the arms up for when I am doing this for real through rocks and mud.

 

Also, the military guys I work with won't even bat an eyelash over this in all honesty.

 

Hell. Yes.  I have a Mudder coming up in October myself.  Might need to add these.  I already do decline pushups with dumbbells. But the army crawl is a great idea.  

[Oramac]

I'm going to be that person that others bitch about in the gym today:

for one of the Guild mini quests here on nerdfitness, we have to do army crawls. So I am going to shamelessly get my ass on a tredmill and army crawl along that sucker for a while.

 

Sounds crazy, I know, but I need the movements for Tough Mudder training anyways, and it'll help toughen the arms up for when I am doing this for real through rocks and mud.

 

Also, the military guys I work with won't even bat an eyelash over this in all honesty.

 

Hell. Yes.  I have a Mudder coming up in October myself.  Might need to add these.  I already do decline pushups with dumbbells. But the army crawl is a great idea.  

 

EDIT: All the coolest mud runners double post too.  Cuz they're all double the awesome.  Or something like that. 

[Why not?]

I'm going to be that person that others bitch about in the gym today:

for one of the Guild mini quests here on nerdfitness, we have to do army crawls. So I am going to shamelessly get my ass on a tredmill and army crawl along that sucker for a while.

 

Sounds crazy, I know, but I need the movements for Tough Mudder training anyways, and it'll help toughen the arms up for when I am doing this for real through rocks and mud.

 

Also, the military guys I work with won't even bat an eyelash over this in all honesty.

Low crawl or high crawl?

 

I'm not going to lie, I would raise an eyebrow if I saw someone doing that on post haha. I've been stationed at a few different military installations...have yet to see someone crawling on a treadmill. That being said, don't let it stop you!

[insanity]

Low crawl or high crawl?

 

I'm not going to lie, I would raise an eyebrow if I saw someone doing that on post haha. I've been stationed at a few different military installations...have yet to see someone crawling on a treadmill. That being said, don't let it stop you!

Probably don't see anyone do it, because we did enough in the field. :-)

[Br0din]

Low crawl or high crawl?

 

I'm not going to lie, I would raise an eyebrow if I saw someone doing that on post haha. I've been stationed at a few different military installations...have yet to see someone crawling on a treadmill. That being said, don't let it stop you!

 

Its more like a bear crawl.  I've never seen anyone low crawling or high crawling in a military gym either.  I would raise an eyebrow to that too.

[Trewest]

I'll post the video I get of it, and you can tell me if it's bear/high/low. My goal is to get as low down as possible. My assassin guild buddies are all asking for video proof so... yeah, selfieville here I come.

[insanity]

I'll post the video I get of it, and you can tell me if it's bear/high/low. My goal is to get as low down as possible. My assassin guild buddies are all asking for video proof so... yeah, selfieville here I come.

Low crawl.... 

 

Think of it, as he says in the video, you have 1 foot of cover, and you gotta stay behind that.

 

This is a good sample of the high crawl (On elbows, weapon across arms), but his low crawl needs work. You don't want to raise your butt up like he's doing. It's one leg, move, reset, one leg, move, reset and try to keep your hips down. Having both legs moving, makes it harder to keep your hips down.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn1sD6ryCF4

[Why not?]

Its more like a bear crawl.  I've never seen anyone low crawling or high crawling in a military gym either.  I would raise an eyebrow to that too.

Army crawl = bear crawl?

 

Low crawl.... 

Except for the fact that I've never seen anyone low crawl face first...

[insanity]

Army crawl = bear crawl?

 

Except for the fact that I've never seen anyone low crawl face first...

We were taught that in bootcamp, but went sideways after, so it might just be some drill instructors messing with recruits.

[Br0din]

You've never been shot at that you had to get that low!