Let's see here's some observations some annoying some not:

1. One day I mosey upstairs to hopefully work on an elliptical cuz i have bad knees and I'm really overweight. obv all the ellipticals are taken, it's a small fitness center. One of the machines is taken by some guy in his 70s who is barely moving and in fact he's moving little that he can chat up some girl less then half his age. Not sure if he burned many more calories then just sitting on a couch. I had to get my cardio in that day on the stationary bike sigh.

2. Some early 20s guy was ripping farts like crazy one day. We were the only guys in the gym so he knew, I knew, he knew and we didn't say a word to each other the entire time. I walked 3 feet into the room and promptly walked out a few times as he bench pressed in front of the entrance lol.

3. Had a guy picking his nose for a good 5 minutes which is pretty effing gross. Go to the effing bathroom u classless moron.

4. The cross training guys annoyed me at first. Now I just jump in and do my sets cuz eff them for taking up 6 different stations. Everyone has been cool about it. Seems pretty effing rude, just do your cardio on a machine or go run.

sounds like that could have become really interesting

So I'm waiting to get into this one squat rack today, and have asked the guy how many sets, and am waiting during his last set to get in there. He finishes, I'm going to start stripping the guy's weight off the bar and this guy with a pony tail and an Affliction shirt moves toward the rack.

"Yeah, I am just about to start"

"Oh, well how much weight are you going to put on there?"

"Eventually 265"

"Oh, okay cool" and he goes to the smith machine next to me.

I start doing my warm up sets, and finally have 265 on the bar ready to go, and he comes over to ask for a spot for smith machine squats. Which seems like the most unsafe thing ever. I guess he figures he'll be unable to move his wrists when he fails a 200lb. smith squat. I had to spot him two more times also. He made sure to move the ponytail over the bar every time. I never touched him, I couldn't be happier about that.

Yea I was aware of the 200-300 thing.

I stand by my what in the ****ing **** statement.

I am incredibly busy at work, and will post more on this later. I highly recommend reading Matt Perryman's thorough and evidence-based book.
http://www.ampedtraining.com/maximum-muscle

The book is FREE, and in my opinion, on the must-read list for H&F enthusiasts/nerds/regs. Amongst many other interesting topics, it covers the above.

Apparently my gym is now encouraging doing curls in the squat racks by having empty ez curl bars stationed to the side of the 2 squat racks in my gym. This is despite having a full set of fixed ez curl bars 20-100lb and fixed str8 bars as well 20-100lbs and like 8 million other machines for doing curls wtf?

This is despite the fact that there is actually an increase in people doing squats or DL at my gym.

Well clearly the people doing squats/dl are more likely to come to the gym on a regular basis = less memberships they can oversell to the "i'll go tomorrow" crowd, so after some counter-intelligence gathering from h&f forums a plan was put into effect to drive out those heathens.

Or maybe i'm just out-leveling myself...

While this is geared somewhat for hypertrophy aficionados, it has some interesting and relevant information and is laid out in terms that non-scientists like me can comprehend. thanks

I downloaded it and intend to read it when I have time.

Thanks for posting that AB. I'd like to see your additional comments when you have time.

+1

LOL at all the posts on the New Years resolution people hitting the gyms without trying to figure out basic gym etiquette. The locker rooms have been bad as well, and I don't just mean the old guys who enjoy walking around naked just a little too much.

Each training day last week was an adventure for me. On one day, at peak time no less, a guy was sitting on a locker room bench playing video games on his iPhone! He had no apparent reason to be there, either. No gym bag, no nothing. He was taking as much space as possible, too. Making it worse was the fact that this gym's locker room has a separate area for sitting in which he could have chosen to relax and play all the games he wanted. There's even a flat panel TV there.

As it was the busiest week of the year, all the benches were taken, so a few of us were changing without a place to sit to change shoes or anything. After a few minutes, sensing that the video game guy was completely oblivious to his actions, I finally said "excuse me" as I set some stuff down on the bench next to him. Video game guy ignore me, but a good lifter next to me, who was putting on a shoe while balancing on his other foot, was cool enough to say "oh, sorry" and look to move over. Annoyed at video game boy, I replied, "no, not you, but thanks....I was talking to this guy sitting here playing video games." Finally, video game guy got up. I sat down and offered the other half of the bench to the guy cool enough to offer to move for me.

The next day, the gym was less crowded (early afternoon). In fact, it was just me in the locker room. I was done training and was putting my street clothes on when some newb walked in. Apparently observing that my locker was closest to the entrance, this guy put his stuff on half of the bench I was using and started preparing to grab my locker as soon as I was done (which I didn't notice at the time) -- this despite that there were at least two dozen other empty lockers. Every time I moved something on the bench slightly, he'd rush to claim that open real estate by nudging his bag over into the newly vacant area. Finally, when I had only my water bottle remaining in the locker, he actually reached in, took it, and handed it to me. He played it like he thought I forgot it and that he was helping me. LOL.

The next day, a morbidly obese man was drenched head to toe in sweat. He looked like he went swimming with his shirt on -- that's how drenched in sweat he was. So, what does he do? He sits on the leather couch in the previously mentioned sitting area, of course!!! After all, that's more comfortable than the plastic chairs that are there specifically to accommodate sweaty people. So, I shake my head and proceed to hit the shower. Returning several minutes later, this guy is STILL seated on the leather couch, marinating it in buckets of sweat.

I guess >95% of these people will be gone later this month. Fortunately, they'll leave enough money behind for new equipment and upkeep.

there was a pretty-boy PT next to the squat rack training some 40-year-old pear. he told me i wasnt allowed to squat in my socks because of the gyms insurance policy. he told me after each set, and i just kept saying ok and putting my shoes on inbetween sets, then taking them off right before i unracked the bar. he left before i could do it a couple more times. i kinda wanted to see what he was gonna do.

im sure the actuaries at the insurance company did a bunch of research into squatting with no shoes on and their policy relects that.

Why not just buy a good, cheap pair of shoes (Chuck Taylors, e.g.)? I'll deadlift without shoes no problem, but squatting without shoes seems less than optimal.

Etiquette has been pretty bad so far. I came in yesterday and the squat rack was loaded up with 185, with the maxi pad on the bar, and there was an eazy curl bar with two 25's on it sitting in front of the rack. I asked around and no one claimed so I had to put all that **** up to start my session.

This is pretty common. I'm sure it has much less to do with actually squatting barefoot and more to do with dropping weights on your feet.

I bet there is a big sign in the gym that states shoes are required at all times somewhere.

Kind of douche on your part.

I can remember when I was younger my dad was a regular at the YMCA, but refused to go in January because of the new years resolution rush. I had never noticed this phenomena personally until this year; the gym has just been overrun the past week like I have never seen before. On Sunday there was easily 3 times the normal number of people there, every cardio station was in use, and almost all of the nautilus stations were occupied as well (often by confused looking people with a bit of a 'deer in the headlights' look), at one point there was a short line for the Bosu Ball. I have never seen such nonsense. Some highlights (I swear I am not making this up):


A guy in a leg press machine wearing a jacket and tie.


A guy in the chest press machine with his arms extended and doing 'presses' but with a ROM of well under one inch. He was basically just shaking his elbows a bit - but quickly; it looked like he was in the electric chair. I have no idea what this was about, but it went on for about a minute.


Crunches in the Squat rack.


And my favorite - A guy in the assisted chin-up/dip machine, who for about 10 seconds honestly appeared to be attempting a one-hand assisted dip.

+1

Chuck Taylors FTW

I walked to the squat rack last evening to find an older gentleman reading from this book:



He then proceeded to do reverse barbell curls super-slow (~15 seconds each way.) Sports specificity FTW.

Like shoes are going to protect your foot if you drop a 45lb plate on them.

If you manage to drop the weights on your feet squatting, I applaud you.

Love the January crew, even my ghetto gym gets a few of them.

It'll protect you from a 2.5, 5, or even 10 lbs weight dropping.

So the signs should read "Shoes are required at all times, except when you are squatting?"

I've squat with and without my shoes on. Its very common for this to be a rule at most gyms.

Find a gym that lets you squat barefoot.

given that I joined my current gym in January (just moved) I'm unsure if there is a January rush going on. However, there were 5 people in it on Saturday and I'm pretty sure if another 5 had showed up the place would have been overcrowded.

I'm somewhat sad that I don't get to share these stories from my gym.

(I left my globogym job to pursue this more fully, plus a full-time day job gets in the way.)

But not that sad, I guess.

So my olympic lifting gym moved into the fitness center of a big sports complex. There's hockey, roller derby, soccer, volleyball, Judo, boxing clubs operated out of the place, it's kind of cool. Essentially my coach brought all of his equipment to their already existing gym and runs the weightlifting club in their facility and pays them rent.


Anyway that means we get to watch people from various sports training, which has been predictably lolworthy. The 14-18 year old high school aged girl's volleyball is coached by this fat gay black dude. He has them doing all sorts of bizarre and unproductive exercises. One of them involves looping bands around the top of a pullup bar, grasping the band with one hand, and leaning back while twisting, then doing it with the other hand. I feel like a boderline pedo watching them workout but I'm only 22 so it's slightly less creepy and generally you can tell the 14 year olds from the legal 18 year olds.

Anyway, we have this 19 year old girl who lifts with us and was doing clean and jerks. One of the younger volleyball girls comes up to the oly lifting area and asks the 19 year old what she's doing, she seems interested. The coach storms up. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? Don't talk to her! GET BACK HERE". He sounds horrified and shoots us a look of disgust while he drags the girl back to the smith machine.


That guy must think there's pretty much a rapist convention by the bumper plates or something.

My coach moved into this sports complex intent on getting a bunch of youth lifters and having them destroy local competitions so he can get his level 3 USAW cert or whatever, so far it hasn't been going well and it's only been the people from our old facility lifting =/.