I went to the gym today. I was squatting. I was finding it really hard, and my torso was coming a little bit too much far forward at the bottom.

Halfway through my second set the ~55 y/o personal trainer on duty stopped me. He told me he would not let me continue to squat with that form or that heavy. I knew it was a little too heavy and my form had broken down, but it certainly wasnt terrible.

I looked at him with the face you use when ten seconds early you were just squatting heavy.

He told me I was squatting too low. He then asked me if I knew my 1rm. wtf? I told him no. He asked me how i could know what weight to squat with if I did not know my 1rm. I told him because I know my 5rm, and I am doing sets of 5. I also told him that proper squat form is ATG. He also told me I was not driving through my heels. I told him that i was llifting with my toes off the ground, I had to be driving through me heels. he told me not to squat with my toes off the ground. I told him to demonstrate proper form for me. he refused because he was "not warmed up" some other guy helpfully stepped in and did a 1/4 squat. the PT told me my torso shouldnt be coming forward.

I argued. I was clearly agitated, but at not point did I shout or swear, nor was I rude. I told him that every strength expert I knew of said you have to squat below parallel, he said he didnt care and I was banned from doing it while he was on duty (he is on duty half the time, I have squatted below parallel like a dozen times with him on duty lol). I asked him if he would change his mind if i brought in peer reviewed material from world class strength experts saying squatting below parallel was proper form. he said no because he knows they are wrong and has trained with matthew pinsent. fwiw he is scrawny and has bad posture. he probably trained in a gym at the same time as MP. like **** MP does quarter squats.

he left, I sat down for 10 mins to cool down, then did the rest of my workout excluding the squats. afterwards I tried to discuss it again, making an effort not me reasonable.

he said to me "if i came in your house i would follow your rules". I told him that he is not a customer of mine and that i would actually listen to reasoned debate if we disagreed. He also told me to calm down. at this point I actually wanted to stab him, but instead I told him "I have remained polite" or something to that effect. he said "I never said you didnt but you are clearly agitated" NO ****ING **** IM AGITATED MONGOLOIDDIEDIEDIE.

The discussion ended with him making several more appeals to his own authority, stating that he would not accept any peer reviewed materials i brought him because he knew he was right, and me telling him i would contact the owner. I was at no point rude nor did i swear. i was agitated throughout and raised my voice, but i did not shout and did so because the **** kept interupting me

So here is my problem
1) i get free membership at this gym because the owner is a friend of a friend, so i do not want to switch gym.
2) I only live near 4 gyms, out of which i have visited 3. one was shut the 2 times i saw it, the other didnt have a squat rack (for real) so unless the one remaining gym pulls it out the bag i am ****ed
3) I will contact the owner, but even though we have a friendly relationship i fully understand that it is tough for him to go against his employee, plus for all i know he thinks his employee is correct.

My plan is to VERY calmly and politely phone the owner tomorrow and explain the situation, and ask him to discuss the below parallel issue next time i come in.

Thoughts on the exact line I should take? what should i use to convince him squatting below parallel is good, and what do i do if he is not so open to discussion?

What's that saying about giving people a little power? Anyway, since you have a friendly relationship with the owner just bring it up with him and it will be sorted out.

Is he a PT or a supervisor? Who gives a **** unless he has some sort of authority.

Tell him to eat a dick. Christ. This **** is infuriating. Keep us updated.

Sounds like he was trolling you, honestly. Saying you are clearly becoming agitated, of ****ing course I'm agitated some know-it-all just came up with unsolicited advice and ruined my workout, then you had to defend yourself.

tell him to go **** himself

I think he is both. he told me all about his PT qualifications, and he was behind the reception desk while i was in there (it overlooks the weights room). He definitely is employed directly by the gym and is not a 3rd party trainer.

Take peer reviewed materials to owner? Offer to sign a waiver absolving them of all responsiblity if you hurt yourself?

Whatever happens now you will be in an uncomfortable situation everytime you go to that gym with him around, which might interfere with you getting the most out of your workout.

tmc,

your approach sounds like the best one. Perhaps the owner might be more inclined to listen to reason. Point to very obvious authorities on why squatting deep isn't inherently dangerous, like powerlifting world records etc.

If the owner still won't listen to reason, horse's head on PT's pillow ldo.

I mean this concludes the fact that people at the gym are just ******ed and have their own set of ideas of what lifting correctly is, even if it's wrong.

I think you should just start squatting again, and if he comes up to you throw the bar at him and tell him to eat ****

power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

so he interrupts you DURING a set, and YOU end up begging for squatting privileges?

just stay silent and say 'mkay' when he's done. then he leaves and you keep squatting. begging is never the right answer unless you're married....

i wouldn't call the owner. just keep squatting. if he brings it up again, ask him what he's going to do about it. if he wants to throw you out of the gym, THEN you call the owner and complain that he touched you inappropriately.

the last time i talked with a trainer about squat depth, we talked for half an hour before we agreed that it depended on bar placement. woooo obviously

If someone actually touched the bar while I was squatting, I wouldn't hesitate to hit them in the face with the largest weight I could reach and/or lift.

Sadly, my current plan of just ignoring people who give ****ty advice is likely to lead to the former happening.

But luckily I don't work out anymore so who cares.

the thing is, very high chance he will file an employee report about this incident, and obviously it will be entirely his side of what happened. As my dad pointed out, if i do not get in contact with the owner within 24 hours his version of events will become fact as far as the owner is concerned, and therefore **** me up if i need to discuss this with the owner in the future. Also i feel that passive aggressive is rarely the solution, and that aggressive aggressive is only sometimes the solution.

also i didnt beg at all. at no point did i even ask for him to let me squat. i just tried to start a dialogue about why he is wrong.

*edit* also thremp, he didnt touch the bar, if i had my wits about me i would have finished my set before stopping, but unfortunately heavy squats scramble my mind

You focus should be on being able to train the way you want. Ignore the urge to go down the path of showing him why he is wrong.

i agree, but i strongly suspect that to train how i want i will have to show the owner why ATG squatting is good, which will involve showing this guy is wrong. but yeah, i agree my focus should not be to embarrass the PT douche.

you're saying ATG but you also said your torso was leaning forward. what kind of squat are you doing?

ok i will be precise. obv your torso i meant to come a bit forward as you go down to keep the weight over your heels. my torso was going down too quickly and coming up too slowly.

you turned your low-bar back squat into a goodmorning because it was heavy and you were fatigued.

you shoulda told PT dude you were doing GM-squats. ask him if he's ever done: concentric-only chain-suspended GM-squats to a parrallel box imo

Post a vid so we know what kind of form you have. I personally would have said thanks for the advice and resumed squatting ASAP.

yeah, it good morninged a little. i thought i had this sorted, but adding weight today brought it back. it wasnt a huge deal though. no vid because i have no camera of any sort.

you took a bad line here... even though this is truer with girls than guys, it is still true with guys and especially douchebags like our trainer friend; people act on emotions not intellect. so when he was saying why low squats were bad, or why he thought they were bad, or why he was banning you from doing them, the reasons he gives you are almost surely wild lies. for instance he might think that he thinks the reason he doesn't like low squats is because they are dangerous, but give me a break, this random dude doesn't care about your well being, and the true reason could be something as obvious and cliched as he isn't good at them.

"Mediocre people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they consider such departure as criticisms of themselves."

yeah good morning is a very common form breakdown, i have the same thing, when it gets heavy. just keep improving your DL and it should sort out. if it gets too bad just reset 10% and work up again, that should sort it out for a while at least.

oh yeah a few days ago some new trainer tried to make me train in his gym with shoes on. i think i agreed with him that it was dangerous and i'd put them on in a minute.

the owner won't give a **** who's right. tell him you had a run in with a bad trainer and felt you should bring it to his attention. he'll care more about something that could potentially hurt business than a trainer who's misinformed.

tmcdmck, i really don't think you were being aggressive. he told you to stop squatting, and then you stopped squatting. you needed to let the issue draw to a natural conclusion instead of bending to his unreasonable request. you needed to hold your ground, even if he does have the authority to kick you out of the gym.

haha, i want to bring back "what're you going to do about it?"

that **** is the best

really though, what is he going to do about it? put his hands on you? call the cops? god would i love for him to calll the cops and have them respond and just taze him for stupidity.


reminds me of some **** i dealt with at planet fitness "you can't deadlift here" just nonsense. 99% of the ppl in the gym are doing everything wrong, why not involve yourself with them and leave me the **** alone cause i know what i'm doing here bub.