Wrong Wednesday – Gym Etiquette #05

It’s time for another Wrong Wednesday! To give a quick overview of what Wrong Wednesday is for everyone who is most likely new; Wrong Wednesday is where I write my opinions on what I think is wrong with the gym, what people do wrong in the gym, and more.

Let’s talk about spotters! They can be one of the best or worst things in the gym! We all need help once in a while when it comes to our lifts. The problem is how much help do we actually need? What are the right and wrong things to do as a spotter?

First and foremost, when spotting someone you should be exerting next to no effort unless the person you’re spotting is literally dying! We’re at the gym to struggle and if you’re lifting all the weight off of me then how am I supposed to get better? I won’t because you’re doing the majority of the work.

Let’s take a look at the bench press. There are a couple ways to spot here. You can sit and watch; hover your hands underneath the bar, hover your hands over the bar, or help with lift off. Watching the lifter is your job. As long as they are making a concerted effort to push the bar back up and the bar is moving; do not help the lifter! If the bar stops, goes down, or the lifter tells you to pull it; then you should pull the bar off of them. You should not be deadlifting the bar off of them (unless they’re dying).

At the same time the worst thing you can do is spot someone when you don’t want to be a spotter. If you don’t want to spot someone just say no and they’ll find someone else. When you begrudgingly spot somone you are going to be impatient and do a bad job possibly ruining their set.

The key take away I’d like everyone to get from this post is as a spotter you should only be helping out if they are incapable of doing the lift or they are going to hurt themselves. Don’t do the set for them.

Thank you for taking the time to read today’s post! Let me know down below what some of your grievances are with people at your gym or the gym itself! If you enjoyed this post, disagree with me, or have a story for me; then leave me a comment below! If you want to keep up to date with future postings make sure to click that follow button to follow my page for future posts! If you want to keep up to date with me between posts make sure to head over to my Instagram with the link at the top of the page.

Until next time, hit the gym, do something productive, and try to be less of a jerk.

May 29, 2019 1

Wrong Wednesday – Gym Etiquette #04

Hey, hey, hey it’s time for another Wrong Wednesday! To give a quick overview of what Wrong Wednesday is for everyone who is most likely new; Wrong Wednesday is where I write my opinions on what I think is wrong with the gym, what people do wrong in the gym, and more.

Today’s post will be a little somewhat not safe for work. If you don’t like “foul” language then skip today’s post and wait for the next one. Today’s post is going to be focusing on a very real problem with the men’s locker rooms at gyms: old man balls.

There you are, just got off work and heading to the gym in your work clothes. You get out of the car and strut into the gym. Today was such a good day that you’re sauntering towards the locker room. You take the final turn into the locker room to change into your gym clothes but then you’re smacked right in the face with an old man balls.

This is a serious problem! You avert your eyes and try to find another spot in the locker room in order to change but there’s another one! He’s sitting on his towel, wide open, balls nearly touching the floor with a jungle of a bush that gives you Vietnam flashbacks!

Finally, you relent and head to the stalls to change in the stalls because you are fed up with seeing all of the old saggy balls lying around the gym. You finally have your gym clothes on and are exiting the stall only to be greeting by the saggiest ass you’ve ever seen standing at the urinal stark naked, barefooted and a towel around his neck. HIS NECK! HIS DAMN NECK!

No one wants to walk into the locker room, make that first turn to have old man balls right in their face. It’s not for the lack of not wanting to see a dick, or being homophobic. It’s common courtesy to cover yourself up so others don’t have to see your balls touch the floor.

Also for you those of you whose balls are not touching the floor yet, cover yourself up too.

Ladies be glad you don’t have to deal with this. It’s like getting unsolicited dick pics in your phone except you can’t delete the photo or laugh at how small it is with your friends at that moment. I’m sure those of you who use the women’s locker room have a version of this and I’d “totally” love to hear about it! (That’s sarcasm)

This is something that can’t be helped and unfortunately we just have to deal with it until one day gyms make a towel policy.

Until next time, hit the gym, do something productive, and try to be less of a jerk.

May 22, 2019 0

Wrong Wednesday – Gym Etiquette #03

What is up everyone?!?! Welcome back to the third Wrong Wednesday and third Gym Etiquette post. To give a quick overview of what Wrong Wednesday is for everyone who is most likely new; Wrong Wednesday is where I write my opinions on what I think is wrong with the gym, what people do wrong in the gym, and more.

Today’s post is going to be about something that is super frustrating to see. We’re going to go over half-repping and ego-lifting since both of them go hand in hand. Now you may be asking yourself “How does this fall under gym etiquette?” It falls under gym etiquette because I don’t want to correct everyone’s form on every exercise and the worst gym goers are ego-lifters who are almost always half-reppers as well.

Now I’m not going to go into correcting everyone’s form because that will be annoying and boring. Though I will start this off by setting some basic ground rules for full reps of the Big 3 Lifts:

Chest Press: Bar touches chest and arms lockout

Squat: Depth of at least parallel or below and you stand all the way back up

Deadlift: Someone show me a half rep, I can only think of bouncing the weight. Don’t look like a cat

There are millions of examples of half-repping in the gym. In fact, most of us are guilty of half-repping something, at some point. The problems lies in when you don’t know you’re half-repping or when you are half-repping weight you can’t actually lift. If you are “lifting” more weight than you can actually handle with bad form, while acting like you lifted it with good form, then you’re an ego-lifter.

There is an ego-lifter in every gym, everywhere. Usually there is more than one. They’re the guys who walks up to the squat bar throws on 315lbs and can only go down 3 inches. They’re the guys who throws 225lbs on the chest press and bounces the weight off their chest so hard it leaves a bruise. They’re the guys who looks like a cat when they deadlift (I’m looking at you Drake).

Not only will ego-lifters cheat anyway possible in order to “lift” the weight. They’ll brag about how much weight they can “lift” in nearly every conversation. When you try to tell them their form is wrong they’ll make excuses about light weight, how you’re just weak and more.

At this point I would try to give some advice on how to help with ego-lifters but they can’t be helped. Their mind is too fragile to accept that they just need to lower the weight and have good form.

Half-reppers can be helped though because they’re not always ego-lifters. If you’re spotting someone who is half-repping or has other form deficiencies try to be as nice as possible when explaining to them what they did wrong.

In the end, if you don’t have correct form you’re only cheating yourself out of gains. If you’re going to cheat be like Arnold and cheat curls. If nothing in this post made sense to you then follow this link for examples of ego-lifters and half-reppers.

Until next time, hit the gym, do something productive, and try to be less of a jerk.

May 15, 2019 0

Wrong Wednesday – Gym Etiquette #02

Hello there and welcome back to the second Wrong Wednesday! To give a quick overview of what Wrong Wednesday is for everyone who is most likely new; Wrong Wednesday is where I write my opinions on what I think is wrong with the gym, what people do wrong in the gym, and more.

For today’s post we’re going to talk about numbers. No, not the amount you’re squatting. Not the amount of weight your bench. The numbers I’m talking about are simply the weights around the gym such as dumbbells, fixed ez curl bars, fixed straight bars, and plates.

Why do I want to talk about these though? Well that is because some people are so dimwitted they don’t know how to put them back in the right spot. I don’t know what gyms you go to but for some reason where I workout people are unable to read numbers. At first I thought that the spots weren’t labeled for where to return the weights to but nope. Then I thought, “maybe they can’t read English….” but that was only a thought that for a split second because you don’t even need to be able to read the numbers. It’s just matching what numbers look the same. Why is this hard? If the numbers were written in the Chinese numerical system I’m sure I could match what symbols look like to put the weights back correctly.

More often than not I am moving 50lb dumbbells out of the 25lb dumbbell spot. Sometimes I’ve found the 80lbs dumbbells where the 10lb dumbbells should be. What’s so hard about this? The dumbbells are different sizes and have different numbers written on them. I mean the 80lbs dumbbells are bigger than the 10lbs! That’s your first clue!

When you are putting away your weights, which you should be, make sure to put them back in their respective spots. It’s not hard, it’s very simple. The 85lb dumbbell doesn’t go where the 10lb dumbbell goes.

We do this so that everyone can find the weights they need more easily. So that someone isn’t accidentally using a 45lb and 50lb dumbbell at the same time during chest press (we’ve all seen it). Pay attention to what you’re doing and put your weights away in the right spot!

Let’s say you do put everything back in the right spot but others around you don’t. Those of us who do can help them out by doing a few things. First, we could be their mothers and clean up after them. Put things back in the right spot and forget about it. But this won’t correct them and they’ll continue this behavior in the future.

If we really want to help them we can inform them on what they’re doing wrong. Maybe they just didn’t realize that it was the wrong spot. If that’s the case, be nice and let them know. If they’re not some turd burglar then they’ll probably correct their mistake. Basically, if you’re going to approach someone try to be as nice as possible and don’t get into a fight. There are only so many people that can be helped and we can’t be everyone’s mothers.

Let me know down below what some of your grievances are with people at your gym or the gym itself! If you enjoyed this post, disagree with me, or have a story for me; then leave me a comment below! If you want to keep up to date with future postings make sure to click that follow button to follow my page for future posts! If you want to keep up to date with me between posts make sure to head over to my Instagram with the link at the top of the page.

Until next time, hit the gym, do something productive, and try to be less of a jerk.

May 8, 2019 1