8 Big Boy Plates!

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

Mine is 14 a month for me and my wife.

[Guest Snake McClain]

@Bruce - me too. It sucks because all the benches and stuff are right in the middle of the room so whenever I do them I feel like I'm so cramped and confined. And my gym is free...so...hard to complain :/

Sounds exactly like mine. sort of but more ridiculous. How you ask? Oh see think of the free weights section as a big square. North wall is all dumbells. West wall is a squat cage, a smith ($#!%) machine, another sort of squat rack but not the full cage, a leg press machine, a calf raise thing. South wall incline bench, two flat bench and a decline bench. east wall is a cable machine with pull up and all that stuff in it. Right in the center however is the bicep curl...standalone seat thing. and flat benches that can be moved around, a t-bar row machine thing...its so cramped. So if i want to dead lift i have to go to the not real safety cage squat rack thing. take the bar off and just set it on the floor and look pissed off at people so they don't give me crazy looks for doing what like 5 people in the whole gym do. It's like they literally have never seen a dead lift ever.

[Morrigainz]

I have the opportunity to do a one-year membership at my local gym for $149 - staffed hours only. Breaks down to $12 a month or so, whereas if I just pay the daily fee it's $6 a time. I would probably only use it once a week...maybe twice...but that 149 doesn't include any classes. And they actually have a for real power rack, and although they don't have a special DL area (I don't think), they have more space than the gym at school.

[andygates]

I put a couple of bumpers, then do the rest in iron. Because it's only cool to run out of bar once - after that it's annoying

(but it's nice to have a big rubber surface so everything is solidly thunky and doesn't chew the platform or bounce around)

Good roar!

No chalk?

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

just saw this... you da man...!!!

maybe for your next attempt you should use some green spray tan like this dude...

Need abs first.

I put a couple of bumpers, then do the rest in iron. Because it's only cool to run out of bar once - after that it's annoying ...

No chalk?

My thought exactly on running out of bar. What is the point of chalk anyway?

[andygates]

Grip. Stops the bar squirming over your sweaty, greasy paws. Well, if you're me. You seem to have it under control there.

[67alecto]

Sounds exactly like mine. sort of but more ridiculous. How you ask? Oh see think of the free weights section as a big square. North wall is all dumbells. West wall is a squat cage, a smith ($#!%) machine, another sort of squat rack but not the full cage, a leg press machine, a calf raise thing. South wall incline bench, two flat bench and a decline bench. east wall is a cable machine with pull up and all that stuff in it. Right in the center however is the bicep curl...standalone seat thing. and flat benches that can be moved around, a t-bar row machine thing...its so cramped. So if i want to dead lift i have to go to the not real safety cage squat rack thing. take the bar off and just set it on the floor and look pissed off at people so they don't give me crazy looks for doing what like 5 people in the whole gym do. It's like they literally have never seen a dead lift ever.

I think I can beat that.

My gym is basically two rectangles with two parallel corridors going between them. The front rectangle is the entrance, and all of the cardio and machines are there. The back area is the free weights, a giant cable machine, the dumbbells, a seated calf raise station, a seated bench press machine, the leg press, the smith machine, and the squat rack.

They don't have bumper plates, and the surface is that drab industrial carpet.

The squat rack is one corner, and the seated calf raise machine is slight off center of it, and about 3' away. So when I deadlift, I flip the racks around so I can put the bar on the outside of the machine and safely load 2 45lbs on each side (to get it low enough, it's only one one of the rack pegs, so I don't want to risk more).

From there, I lift and walk the bar out about 1'. So I've got the bar on the floor 1' away from the legs of the squat rack and 1' away from the seated calf machine. Loading additional 45lb plates is a real pain the ass - I've done it, but it's a workout in itself to get the bar up enough to get the plate on and then slide it down to the others without crushing my hand. And then I need to repeat on the other side. So basically, once I get 225 on there, I start using 35s.

That's what I have to work with.

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

Grip. Stops the bar squirming over your sweaty, greasy paws. Well, if you're me. You seem to have it under control there.

I grip it across the bottom of my fingers, not the top of my palm, that way it starts out and the lowest point and doesn't really move around at all. Is there advantage to gripping in more of in a fist?

[bigm141414]

I grip it across the bottom of my fingers, not the top of my palm, that way it starts out and the lowest point and doesn't really move around at all. Is there advantage to gripping in more of in a fist?

No you are gripping it correctly. It's just thatsweat makes the bar harder to hold on to. Think of trying to do a pull up on a greasy bar. No matter how you grip it you're gonna slide off at some point

andy - I had this problem too until I stopped running my hands through my hair

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

I don't really sweat from my hands much unless I'm running around a ton. It's all head and torso sweat.

[This is Seth]

I put Patrick Ewing to shame with the amount that I sweat. It's profane and slightly disturbing.

Use all the towels!