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General Gym Observations General Gym Observations

01-14-2010 , 05:48 AM
I had a pretty heavy wtf moment yesterday morning.. a woman mid-40's.. scraggly looking.. clearly out of shape (new years resolution?) and absolutely soaked in a gray t-shirt (worst look ever imo). I was on the treadmill after my workout and she was on a set of ellipticals that are in a row directly in front of me.

It appeared she was doing a plateau style workout with little to no resistance then heavy resistance intervals.. I couldn't quite tell because she had a magazine over the panel. Anyway, she would be moving at a snails pace probably just enough to keep the machine on.. then when she hit the resistance she would grab the left arm bar with both hands and crank on it with all her might like she was trying to launch a nuke.

Needless to say...this threw her completely off balance and she would nearly fall off the machine on almost every attempt to crank. I was only supposed to run 1.5 miles.. I stayed on the treadmill for nearly 3 and 1/2 because I was waiting for it to happen.. and yes.. it did!!! She cranked the left arm bar with both hands.. lost her balance and went swinging over the side holding onto the arm like it was a piece of the titanic sinking. People on the machines next to her helped her out and she was fine but lol!
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01-14-2010 , 10:26 AM
There was nearly a broski fight at my gym today.

Lone brosky - Lots of tats, would be mean looking if he wasn't doing seated overhead press with like 10kg on a barbell.

Group of brosky's - 3-4 arab/asian guys who always come in together and do the gayest workouts I've every seen. Literally every rep will be assisted by one of the others. This includes chinups, where the assisting dude will stand in front of them with their head at groin hight lifting at the knees, and shrugs, where the guy will stand right behind the other guys ass dry humping him through every set. Its ****ing hilarious.

The gym I'm at is a tiny gym attached to a traditional kung-fu school. None of the staff speak more than 3 words of English. The main dude was on the desk that day. This guy is about 5'2'' and bald, and all around the gym are pics of him either training with Jet Li or some old shaolin monk, or doing absurd triple ninja back-flips with swords in his toes and stuff. He's ****ing hard-core.

So the broskis start squaring off to each other. As the kung-fu dude starting walking over, I was praying so hard "ONE TIME DEALER!".. but I guess the broskys weren't as dumb as they look because when they saw him coming they scattered like a flock of startled bro-sparrows. Very funny.
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01-14-2010 , 06:23 PM
A guy, mid 20s, bald, tribal arm tattoo, some kind of training store logo t-shirt on, walks in to the gym and goes straight to the power rack while wearing a belt, knee wraps, elbow sleeves and wrist wraps and proceeds to work up to about ten reps of 160kg/352lb 4-inch rom standing knee bends while grunting aggressively. To call them quarter squats would be generous. He had the safety bars set to about belly button height. I laughed quietly to myself while finishing my bench presses.
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01-14-2010 , 10:18 PM
Yesterday I saw a PT give standard awful squat coaching to tiny middle aged dude. Feet touching, no depth etc. The icing on the cake was that the bar was set so high that the noob actually couldn't get it off, even with full tiptoe reach. Every set started with the PT spooning the guy as they lifted it off the rack together. Supersetted with walking lunges, of couse.

I have no idea why anyone would hire this PT. He's a bald, thin, 30ish year old guy who turns up to train his clients in jeans.
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01-14-2010 , 10:46 PM
Balding and 30ish would put me over the top, I definitely wouldn't hire him
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01-14-2010 , 11:44 PM
dave tate and jim wendler (and yours truly LOL) are all bald 30 something year old dudes, im pretty sure you could get some decent training advice from any of us
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01-15-2010 , 12:02 AM
A rather uncoordinated fellow got tired of trying to skip for longer than 5seconds and proceeded to start smashing the medicine ball into the ground. He lost control eventually and smashed a hole right through the drywall then kinda wandered off like it didn't happen.
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01-15-2010 , 01:33 AM
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Originally Posted by xLed
A rather uncoordinated fellow got tired of trying to skip for longer than 5seconds and proceeded to start smashing the medicine ball into the ground. He lost control eventually and smashed a hole right through the drywall then kinda wandered off like it didn't happen.
k first post that's made me lol in a while.
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01-15-2010 , 02:47 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JammyDodga
There was nearly a broski fight at my gym today.

Lone brosky - Lots of tats, would be mean looking if he wasn't doing seated overhead press with like 10kg on a barbell.

Group of brosky's - 3-4 arab/asian guys who always come in together and do the gayest workouts I've every seen. Literally every rep will be assisted by one of the others. This includes chinups, where the assisting dude will stand in front of them with their head at groin hight lifting at the knees, and shrugs, where the guy will stand right behind the other guys ass dry humping him through every set. Its ****ing hilarious.

The gym I'm at is a tiny gym attached to a traditional kung-fu school. None of the staff speak more than 3 words of English. The main dude was on the desk that day. This guy is about 5'2'' and bald, and all around the gym are pics of him either training with Jet Li or some old shaolin monk, or doing absurd triple ninja back-flips with swords in his toes and stuff. He's ****ing hard-core.

So the broskis start squaring off to each other. As the kung-fu dude starting walking over, I was praying so hard "ONE TIME DEALER!".. but I guess the broskys weren't as dumb as they look because when they saw him coming they scattered like a flock of startled bro-sparrows. Very funny.
lol bro-sparrows
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01-15-2010 , 04:48 PM
So I just finished my work sets of 150kg deadlifts - good for me, great for my gym, but not so good for here. Whilst taking the weights off, I kind of stood up to rest my back, which after my 5rm max DL, was a bit tired, then the following exchange happened between me and this pretty huge brosky with twig legs.

Brosky: Is your back sore?
Me: Huh?
Brosky: Cos what you did, its nothing.
Me: Eh?
Brosky: You are doing good mornings, you dont do them like that. What you did, its really bad for your back.
Me: Lol, no, deadlifts.
Brosky: Thats even worse.
Me: wtf?
Brosky: You do them like this.
(Brosky proceeds to mime some kind of stiff legged deadlift, picking it right off the floor with his legs straight the whole way)
Me: Um... no, I'm doing deadlifts, with my legs???
Brosky: OK Man (shakes his head) its your health.
Me: lol wtf rofl - me and some random dudes from the internet are going to laugh at you later.

Last edited by JammyDodga; 01-15-2010 at 04:49 PM. Reason: May not in fact have said the last part, but my inner thremp was dying to
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01-15-2010 , 05:30 PM
Wow that made no sense to me at all for about 5 minutes. I finally get it now, he thought you were trying to do stiff legged deadlifts, which he thinks are good mornings. And he also thinks deadlifts are bad for your back, but through some bizarre logic stiff legged deadlifts aren't. The sad thing is that there is no telling how long brosky has been lifting weights to achieve his most excellent upper body and he still doesn't know this.
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01-15-2010 , 05:47 PM
Saw an old guy (70ish) at the gym today doing all sorts of BB type exercises and machines with light weights. He had some muscle definition on his arms but mostly he was just rail thin, especially the legs. I kinda felt sad for him, assuming that he's been doing these relatively useless exercises all of his long life and gaining very little from it. If only he'd have been properly informed...

I also saw a different old guy (60ish) put a weight belt on, strap a 15kg plate into it and then procede to do 3 sets of 10 dead hang pullups. Now that was impressive.
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01-15-2010 , 05:53 PM
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Originally Posted by Wolfram
I also saw a different old guy (60ish) put a weight belt on, strap a 15kg plate into it and then procede to do 3 sets of 10 dead hang pullups. Now that was impressive.
I wish I could do that and I'm 27... pretty sick
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01-15-2010 , 08:59 PM
what do we make of the guy with rock solid heavy dead lift and bench form that does quarter squats in the smith machine?
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01-15-2010 , 10:06 PM
Everyone at the gym does quarter squats, if they squat, so him being able to deadlift is the real unusual part.
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01-15-2010 , 10:19 PM
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Originally Posted by pkrplyrX
Wow that made no sense to me at all for about 5 minutes. I finally get it now, he thought you were trying to do stiff legged deadlifts, which he thinks are good mornings. And he also thinks deadlifts are bad for your back, but through some bizarre logic stiff legged deadlifts aren't. The sad thing is that there is no telling how long brosky has been lifting weights to achieve his most excellent upper body and he still doesn't know this.
I guess this is a question for basically the entire forum-

The exchange is obviously ridiculous and that guy should keep his mouth shut about things he knows nothing about, but does everyone view it as irrational to prioritize having a most excellent upper body over working on one's squatting and dling?
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01-15-2010 , 10:40 PM
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Originally Posted by sfcard
I guess this is a question for basically the entire forum-

The exchange is obviously ridiculous and that guy should keep his mouth shut about things he knows nothing about, but does everyone view it as irrational to prioritize having a most excellent upper body over working on one's squatting and dling?
The two are not mutually exlusive.
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01-15-2010 , 10:48 PM
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Originally Posted by Soulman
The two are not mutually exlusive.
I appreciate that, but some people on this forum clearly prioritize one over the other and are applauded for their efforts and the top heavy brosky is the prime target for criticism, so I think it's a fair question. Basically I'm asking if people see it as right vs. wrong, or something more subjective.
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01-15-2010 , 10:53 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sfcard
I appreciate that, but some people on this forum clearly prioritize one over the other and are applauded for their efforts and the top heavy brosky is the prime target for criticism, so I think it's a fair question. Basically I'm asking if people see it as right vs. wrong, or something more subjective.
This is mostly fair criticism of this forum. We prioritize strength training because it is useful and most people in a poker forum like this are going to skew towards objective reasoning. However, like Soulman said, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

People who train for performance (strength) first do so at a very small cost to physique improvement (looks), while the reverse is not true. People who train like bodybuilders with splits and use machines end up costing themselves significantly when it comes to strength and gain very little (if any at all) when it comes to physique.

All novices generally require the same programming, even if their goals are wildly different. And in the long run, a person who trains for nine months for strength alone is at a huge advantage if he wants to then focus on hypertrophy and bodybuilding. He will outpace the brosky very quickly when it comes to "looks" (assuming you normalize for genetics).
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01-15-2010 , 10:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sfcard
I appreciate that, but some people on this forum clearly prioritize one over the other and are applauded for their efforts and the top heavy brosky is the prime target for criticism, so I think it's a fair question. Basically I'm asking if people see it as right vs. wrong, or something more subjective.
lol wat
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01-15-2010 , 11:00 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by kyleb
This is mostly fair criticism of this forum. We prioritize strength training because it is useful and most people in a poker forum like this are going to skew towards objective reasoning. However, like Soulman said, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

People who train for performance (strength) first do so at a very small cost to physique improvement (looks), while the reverse is not true. People who train like bodybuilders with splits and use machines end up costing themselves significantly when it comes to strength and gain very little (if any at all) when it comes to physique.

All novices generally require the same programming, even if their goals are wildly different. And in the long run, a person who trains for nine months for strength alone is at a huge advantage if he wants to then focus on hypertrophy and bodybuilding. He will outpace the brosky very quickly when it comes to "looks" (assuming you normalize for genetics).
Thanks Kyle, that makes sense.
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01-16-2010 , 12:26 AM
no one here prioritizes his lower body to the degree that top heavy tards favor their upper body.
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01-16-2010 , 12:41 AM
I think that all of you who get these guys coming up and saying**** to you must have something in common...
I do a bunch of weird ****, stretching, back bridges/walkovers, deep squats, deadlfts etc. At my 24 hr fitness and I've never once had anyone say sht to me... And I don't wear headphones either
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01-16-2010 , 12:51 AM
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Originally Posted by milesdyson
no one here prioritizes his lower body to the degree that top heavy tards favor their upper body.
I agree with that. I'm talking more about strength vs. aesthetics, I guess diet as much as programming. And I know that being top heavy is not aesthetically pleasing to everyone, particularly those who are into strength training. I'm not trying to pick a fight or attack anybody. Also, your videos helped me fix my brotastic press form, thanks.
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01-16-2010 , 12:52 AM
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Originally Posted by sfcard
brotastic press form
Does not compute. No bros perform the barbell standing press.
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