This guy handled advice in an outstanding way. He disagreed but was appreciative of your sharing it, so he thanked you and moved on with his workout without getting distracted into a debate.

When I started training Westside style, I started asking anyone spotting me to take the bar up hard if they had to touch it at all with a simple explanation that any help meant I had failed the lift. If they wished to discuss the supposed benefits of helping with a few extra reps, I'd simply point that this help would always come at the weakest point in my lift -- precisely the area on which I needed to train more, not less.

This had the surprising effect of eliminating literally 100% of two-fingered "help". I recommend you all try it out. Again it's a simple polite request: "please do me a favor....if you have to touch the bar AT ALL, take the bar up with full force."

Can you explain why? I use clips for everything but I can be convinced otherwise for bench. Not trolling just curious.

If you get stuck you can tilt the bar to each side to have the weight slide off.

This tilting idea on the bench seems like a pretty crazy idea.
Not only would I smash several mirrors doing it in my gym, I might kill someone with a smack to the head of the bar and get sued.

People that say this do so because if you get pinned under the weight, you can tilt the bar to one side and empty the weights... I'm not dogmatic about it, but I disagree, I think that it's safer to have clips so that the weights can't slip off one side and cause the bar to seesaw back the other way.

Obviously the ideal way is to have a competent spotter and failing that, bench in a cage/rack with the safety pins set at an appropriate. Also, the benches at my gym have little safety pins that are nearly as effective.

I always use clips in the gym, including on the bench, out of concern for injury from sliding plates.

When training alone, OTOH, clips are dangerous. I'd never use clips when training alone out of concern for injury or death from getting pinned under the bar from failure, exhaustion, injury, fainting, or anything else that only has to happen once.

At least on the bars at my gym, the plates are pretty hard to slide off if it's not horizontal.

Also, if you're failing the squat, just let it roll back and bail.

Some data on bench press injuries and death: http://www.cpsc.gov/library/foia/foi...f/weightlt.pdf

This is true when you're lifting what you are doing, not so much when doing 135

A couple years back I benched without clips and failed. i couldn't roll it off me and noone was nearby so i just dumped the plates. Some old guy from across the gym came over. He talked down to me and said, "Everyone has forgotten clips before but don't do it again". I didn't put on clips so I could purposely do exactly what I had just done.

Your chest would have to be very uneven to lose the weights on accident.

while 135 isn't a lot for many it may be the equivalent of some people doing 315 there is no reason to use clips even for them..

fwiw I use clips when I do 135 as a final set that I do to exhaustion because they always tend to slide when I'm doing that many reps at a quicker speed.. But I probably stop 2 to 3 reps before I know I'll have an issue and even if I failed I could roll it down

A girl had ramped up the angle of her treadmill and was walking, I'd guesstimate, at between 7 and 8km/h. Her hands were firmly holding the handles and she was slightly tilted backwards. Doesn't this defeat the purpose of the incline? I've never been on a treadmill in the first place but it seemed to me that she removed the stress from her back to a large extent and on the ankles to a lesser one...which would be why you'd want to walk/run on an inclined treadmill in the first place?

I dumped my bench for the first time last week in a public gym. Luckily no one is around during the daytime .

I've never had to dump plates, but I have had to roll it down to my waist so I could sit up and get it off me that way. I can see how the heavier you get the less that becomes a viable option though.

Why don't you just set the safety bars? I can set them so I touch my chest without hitting the bars, and when I fail I just roll it down towards my chin and the bars pick that up. Then just slide out sideways with minimal risk of death or loud noise making.

great choice if you work out at home in a rack. sucks for others if you take up the only rack with adjustable pins at a gym where there are multiple benches.

I hope you work out at home and you are not the guy in the gym who benches and curls in the squat rack making me wait 45 min to do my squat workout.

Got done with squats in cage and an older bro is using the pistol rack which is the only good place to do press( cage is too short you hit the top when you press in it). He says 2 more sets so alright I'll just warmup on the ******ed raised deadlift platform and then do worksets in the rack. Not really sure why he needs 3 minutes rest/set for some sort of reverse grip row at a weight that didnt look incredibly tough for him but w/e.

He finally finishes with his last set and takes no less than 3 steps away from this thing when a shirt goes flying on the rack from another older bro that is friends with this dude. He proceeds to do some reps of different shyt including behind neck press with the empty bar set up 135 with clamps on the safety bar wander off for 5 minutes with the shirt still on the rack then do one more set and leave. FFFUUU older bro after work exchange program

??

Totally forgot about this...

Saw a trainer have a woman sit in an office chair and simply go up and down the hall in it forwards...

partial leg curls?

I use clips on everything but never bench at near-maximal loads alone.

I live on the edge and bench near maximal loads, alone, with clamps, frequently..... in a rack with safety pins....

knee rehab exercise