Newbies in the gym

[LifeofRiley]

Working out in public is fun if for no other reason than to feel better about yourself at the expense of people that suck. Until YOU'RE that guy that sucks. In which case you should go to the bathroom and wait about ten minutes until it's just the people that suck again.



If most of y'all worked out where I do I could find myself spending a good two hours in the bathroom. I'd have to start taking a book to the gym and doing push ups on sticy tile floors.

[LifeofRiley]

Working out in public is great if for no other reason than to feel better about yourself at the expense of people that suck. Until YOU"RE the guy who sucks.

In which case you should excuse yourself to the bathroom and wait about fifteenten minutes until the person has gone it's just the people that suck again.



If most of y'all worked out at my gym I could find myself spending a good two hours in the bathroom. I'd have to start taking a book with me to work out. Please stay away from Planet Fitness.

[LiftingSteve93]

I've seen some of these before. I don't give advice to people I don't know unless they ask me, but the coach isn't always bad. And to one of the above posters, just because someone is weaker than you doesn't mean they don't know good form or can't help

[sfalcon1]

Give it a month or two and the newbie crowd will thin out.
It's the first of the year resolution crowd right now.

^^ this and that they will still end up helping out on keeping your membership at a lower cost...even when they no longer show up.

BTW, they forgot the "hoarder"! We have a few of these were they think the whole free weight section is their personal gym.

[fittofattofit]

^^ this and that they will still end up helping out on keeping your membership at a lower cost...even when they no longer show up.

BTW, they forgot the "hoarder"! We have a few of these were they think the whole free weight section is their personal gym.

^^^^^ True ..... the person who does a 'megaset' with 6 different pieces of equipment and takes 20 minutes to do one circuit


And the vid bumped:
I'm sure that most of you have already seen this, but I saw it today for the first time and it rang so true!
My gym is full of newbies, especially in the evening and I've seen all of these types so far

[/QUOTE]

[Corbi]

I've seen some of these before. I don't give advice to people I don't know unless they ask me, but the coach isn't always bad.

The coach is the worst, we have 1 guy who will critique everyone even though he doesn't do $hit because he has a 100 excuses on why he can't lift this or do that. This asshat will actually grab peoples arms mid lift and force them into another position. He has never touched me and doesn't give me advice because i have some sort of weird force field going on when i'm at the gym that prevents douche bags from getting too close. But I told my wife if this guy ever touches me I will go all Bodyhard on his ass and probably lose my gym membership.

[LiftingSteve93]

The coach is the worst, we have 1 guy who will critique everyone even though he doesn't do $hit because he has a 100 excuses on why he can't lift this or do that. This asshat will actually grab peoples arms mid lift and force them into another position. He has never touched me and doesn't give me advice because i have some sort of weird force field going on when i'm at the gym that prevents douche bags from getting too close. But I told my wife if this guy ever touches me I will go all Bodyhard on his ass and probably lose my gym membership.

Lol going up and physically correcting someone is out of the question

[quietchef]

They forgot one..... The idiot that picks up the dumbbells and proceeds to do his movement while directly in front of the rack, preventing anyone else from grabbing any other ones for 20# +/- of what's in his hands. Just taking one pace back is sooooo hard, huh? Or are you nearsighted and forgot your glasses?


End of rant.

[fittofattofit]

Working out in public is great if for no other reason than to feel better about yourself at the expense of people that suck. Until YOU"RE the guy who sucks.

In which case you should excuse yourself to the bathroom and wait about fifteenten minutes until the person has gone it's just the people that suck again.


If most of y'all worked out at my gym I could find myself spending a good two hours in the bathroom. I'd have to start taking a book with me to work out. Please stay away from Planet Fitness.

I've always worked out in public gyms and it's true --- it helps you to feel good about yourself! I see so many people who just do it wrong --- the squatters who load up 3pps on the bar, and then high 5 each other after bending their knees 2"

The coach is the worst, we have 1 guy who will critique everyone even though he doesn't do $hit because he has a 100 excuses on why he can't lift this or do that. This asshat will actually grab peoples arms mid lift and force them into another position. He has never touched me and doesn't give me advice because i have some sort of weird force field going on when i'm at the gym that prevents douche bags from getting too close. But I told my wife if this guy ever touches me I will go all Bodyhard on his ass and probably lose my gym membership.

The 'coach' is the one that offends me .... your guy takes the cake though. I'm surprised no-one has told him to FO yet!

Lol going up and physically correcting someone is out of the question

^^^^ this

They forgot one..... The idiot that picks up the dumbbells and proceeds to do his movement while directly in front of the rack, preventing anyone else from grabbing any other ones for 20# +/- of what's in his hands. Just taking one pace back is sooooo hard, huh? Or are you nearsighted and forgot your glasses?


End of rant.

Or the one who moves a bench so close to the rack that you can't step out for a squat!

[wesleysh21]

i have some sort of weird force field going on when i'm at the gym that prevents douche bags from getting too close.

Same here, and I love it! I have been tempted a few times to be a coach myself, but I've never actually approached a total stranger. I've approached people at the golf driving range before, but only because they were clearly trying to figure out a specific problem, were getting confused and angry, and it was clear to me what they were doing wrong because of my angle.

I have learned to control it now, but I am definitely the meathead. My first lifting came in the football weight room, and the coaches made sure everyone was lifting like a meathead.

[DSUP]

I told my wife if this guy ever touches me I will go all Bodyhard on his ass and probably lose my gym membership.

No way that guy has the nads to try that $hit with you and reps for the phrase "all Bodyhard on his ass!"

[Corbi]

They forgot one..... The idiot that picks up the dumbbells and proceeds to do his movement while directly in front of the rack, preventing anyone else from grabbing any other ones for 20# +/- of what's in his hands. Just taking one pace back is sooooo hard, huh? Or are you nearsighted and forgot your glasses?


End of rant.

You see those in every gym, don't know if they are clueless or just don't give a $hit? They wil move if you go to get some db's near them but then will will step right back up in front of the rack, perhaps they are near sighted and can't see their awesomeness in the mirrors from more than 2' away?

[OutdoorsinCO]

I've approached people at the golf driving range before, but only because they were clearly trying to figure out a specific problem, were getting confused and angry, and it was clear to me what they were doing wrong because of my angle.

I do this, but only after I realize the folks next to me have stopped driving and are stuck watching me. I used to royally suck at golf, slice every time. I was able to fix it so when I'm out on the range if someone looks lost and is looking at me I offer to help.

They forgot one..... The idiot that picks up the dumbbells and proceeds to do his movement while directly in front of the rack, preventing anyone else from grabbing any other ones for 20# +/- of what's in his hands. Just taking one pace back is sooooo hard, huh? Or are you nearsighted and forgot your glasses?


End of rant.

Good lord I hate that.

Another one when I worked out I'd be doing say biceps or something, I used to have this one dude, without fail would stand behind me, at a distance but still in the mirror and flex his biceps while doing mine. I finally got tired of him doing it and I put my weights down and looked back at him and asked if he wanted to work in since he was so focused on flexing. Could have sworn I was asking him a physics question based off of the bewildered look on his face.

I don't know...maybe I should have taken it as a compliment?

[DesertDude11]

One that was overlooked is the 98 yr old dude that spends 99% of his time in the locker room naked.

There is this guy at Gold's who I have NEVER seen out on the floor. However, each and every time I go into the locker room, he is standing at the mirror buck naked combing his hair or shaving or plucking his fukin nose hairs.

Honestly, I don't have anything against naked guys.. I mean it IS the locker room and you should feel comfortable getting undressed and everything BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TEA BAG THE SINK FOR A HALF HOUR EVERY DAY!!!!

/rant

[igsm1969]

I do a lot of kettlebell work. Great way to get heart rate up as well as gain strength (and even some awesome muscle definition, LOL). We now have a great new fitness center at our school that has been said to be one of the top in the nation. Perform Better helped in the design and choice of all the equipment since we train athletes. Well, our old fitness center was the itty bitty room that was a horrible mess. It had the old, and I mean OLD cable leverage machines. Worst of all, the freeweight area was tiny and the dumbells had loose ends and many were not matching. I was doing swing snatches one day with a kettlebell and had my user space already established. I always check all around me to make sure I have plenty of room so that I don't clock someone upside the head with a bell. Mid swing, this dude decides he is going to cut in the path of my bell to get to the rack (which I was well away from, but he should have waited or done a detour to avoid me, as he could have). All I could think to say as I nearly broke my arm to stop swinging a heavy bell to avoid hitting him because he was that close was, "DUDE! I'M SWINGING!" This is not the only time. And it is not just when I am doing kettlebell work. I have had guys cut close to me on the olympic platform when I am deadlifting, or if I am already doing sleds down the turf, someone always has to cut in front of me instead of waiting until I am on the other side....one of these days I am just going to keep going and run someone over and go, "oooopsie!" LOL. Otherwise, I have had some newbies come to me about certain exercises they needed help on. Yesterday it was this woman who wanted to learn metabolic ropes. I showed her the basic ones and then some more advanced ones she could do as she mastered the others. I enjoy helping people who come to me. It's a great feeling to see that look on their face that they feel proud that they have learned something new. But as much as I want to stop some people who have horrible form, I don't. I have seen althletes squat on their tippy toes....even our fitness director....he does quarter squats and I have to wonder if it is for a different purpose (such as power, since you get more power at lower range of motion), or if he is just a terrible squatter, LOL. Over the years, as I have studied human movement in academia and have studied exercise form and strive daily to put it into practice, I spot good and bad right away, and the bad sticks out like a sore thumb. It is hard not to notice.

[Corbi]

wow

TLDR, please learn to utilize paragraphs. Have a great day.

[dunemonkey]

I've seen some of these before. I don't give advice to people I don't know unless they ask me, but the coach isn't always bad. And to one of the above posters, just because someone is weaker than you doesn't mean they don't know good form or can't help

I have a feeling you might be talking about me. As I said in my post, it wasn't just that "coach" was weaker than me. It was that he was giving me unsolicited advice on form that was directly contrary to the form I use from Rippetoe, widely accepted as at least one of the acceptable forms for squats. He wasn't helping me because my back was rounding, because I was on my toes, because I wasn't breaking at the hip, etc. I was doing all those correctly and doing deep squats. He was "coaching me" because my eyes weren't where he was once told and because he likes high bar squats (I like low). It's the guy who read one thing about how to do a lift (sometimes wrong, sometimes just another safe variation of the same lift). The point is that there was nothing wrong with my form. It just wasn't the form that HE liked. And it annoyed me.

[drudixon]

Lol... on spread. So many things I miss working from home.

[igsm1969]

Learn to stop being insensitive and to read then....I don't go around advertising this, nor am I required to, but having MS has affected my writing style. So....

TLDR, please learn to utilize paragraphs. Have a great day.

[dungeonmistress]

I got Into it yesterday with a dickbag who is not a newbie-he even pointed out to me That he's been working out at the gym longer than me, which of course opened the door to me telling him he's been doing it wrong forever and doesn't know what he's talking about.

Yesterday was quads day. i wanted to use the hack squat and asked him
If he was using it as he was using the back as a ballerina barre lol. he said he was and added he was supersetting. it wasnt until i took a closer look that i saw he actually was hogging 4-5 pieces od equipment, 3 of which i needed and was doing circuits and taking his sweet time. so i trained my quads all out of order which was ok more or less but after 45 minutes i asked how many sets he had left and he says 2. It was about that time that I went off. He wears stinky musk oil and I wanted to punch him in the head.

I almost forgot about the newbie that kept stepping right In front of me as I did seated bb Inclines. I'm not talking a wide berth, I'm talking so close he could step on my damned feet - and he did it twice. He got an earful too but I was nice since he's a newbie. Next time the niceness goes away. I realize I probably come off as a prima Donna but too bad. If he's not paying attention to my safety or my ability to pump out a good set then I feel I need to aware him.

[LiftingSteve93]

I have a feeling you might be talking about me. As I said in my post, it wasn't just that "coach" was weaker than me. It was that he was giving me unsolicited advice on form that was directly contrary to the form I use from Rippetoe, widely accepted as at least one of the acceptable forms for squats. He wasn't helping me because my back was rounding, because I was on my toes, because I wasn't breaking at the hip, etc. I was doing all those correctly and doing deep squats. He was "coaching me" because my eyes weren't where he was once told and because he likes high bar squats (I like low). It's the guy who read one thing about how to do a lift (sometimes wrong, sometimes just another safe variation of the same lift). The point is that there was nothing wrong with my form. It just wasn't the form that HE liked. And it annoyed me.

Yeah I understand what you're saying. I was just playing devils advocate. But it is always good to keep an open mind when hearing advice

[Corbi]

Learn to stop being insensitive and to read then....I don't go around advertising this, nor am I required to, but having MS has affected my writing style. So....

Not insensitive as I did say have a great day, doesn't take much effort to hit the "enter" key and break up a wall of words. My old eyes don't like dealing with that, please don't be insensitive to us elders.

[igsm1969]

Yeah, well, thank you for wishing me a great day. There are things my eyes cannot deal with. Nor my declining mind. I apologize to anyone who even has to deal with me in my state.

Not insensitive as I did say have a great day, doesn't take much effort to hit the "enter" key and break up a wall of words. My old eyes don't like dealing with that, please don't be insensitive to us elders.

[rpay10324]

Not sure of this has been mentioned but we also have the "nester". You know the douchebag that sits on a piece of equipment and uses his phone for 5 minutes at a time. Today we had a guy sitting on a bench under the smith machine (which we have one) playing with his phone. I did 3 sets of leg presses before he finally attempted a set.

[JRT6]

funny.....thanks for the chuckles....

thank the LORD in heaven, I avoid ALL of those guys in my home gym! LOL...

If I find a newbee in my basement there's gonna be a problem.

[w8killer]

I got Into it yesterday with a dickbag who is not a newbie-he even pointed out to me That he's been working out at the gym longer than me, which of course opened the door to me telling him he's been doing it wrong forever and doesn't know what he's talking about.

Yesterday was quads day. i wanted to use the hack squat and asked him
If he was using it as he was using the back as a ballerina barre lol. he said he was and added he was supersetting. it wasnt until i took a closer look that i saw he actually was hogging 4-5 pieces od equipment, 3 of which i needed and was doing circuits and taking his sweet time. so i trained my quads all out of order which was ok more or less but after 45 minutes i asked how many sets he had left and he says 2. It was about that time that I went off. He wears stinky musk oil and I wanted to punch him in the head.

I almost forgot about the newbie that kept stepping right In front of me as I did seated bb Inclines. I'm not talking a wide berth, I'm talking so close he could step on my damned feet - and he did it twice. He got an earful too but I was nice since he's a newbie. Next time the niceness goes away. I realize I probably come off as a prima Donna but too bad. If he's not paying attention to my safety or my ability to pump out a good set then I feel I need to aware him.

Damn straight.

[w8killer]

Not insensitive as I did say have a great day, doesn't take much effort to hit the "enter" key and break up a wall of words. My old eyes don't like dealing with that, please don't be insensitive to us elders.

You know you can hold the CTRL key and scroll your mouse wheel up while reading a web page and it will make it bigger bud.

Just saying...

[JRT6]

If you're able to type a thirty line run on then you can hit the enter key a few times too without pulling the ADA act.

[larryselina]

I'm sure that most of you have already seen this, but I saw it today for the first time and it rang so true!
My gym is full of newbies, especially in the evening and I've seen all of these types so far

Your video is very funny, I like it

[fittofattofit]

One that was overlooked is the 98 yr old dude that spends 99% of his time in the locker room naked.

There is this guy at Gold's who I have NEVER seen out on the floor. However, each and every time I go into the locker room, he is standing at the mirror buck naked combing his hair or shaving or plucking his fukin nose hairs.

Honestly, I don't have anything against naked guys.. I mean it IS the locker room and you should feel comfortable getting undressed and everything BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TEA BAG THE SINK FOR A HALF HOUR EVERY DAY!!!!

/rant

"BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TEA BAG THE SINK FOR A HALF HOUR EVERY DAY!!!!"
I laughed so much at this!

I got Into it yesterday with a dickbag who is not a newbie-he even pointed out to me That he's been working out at the gym longer than me, which of course opened the door to me telling him he's been doing it wrong forever and doesn't know what he's talking about.

Yesterday was quads day. i wanted to use the hack squat and asked him
If he was using it as he was using the back as a ballerina barre lol. he said he was and added he was supersetting. it wasnt until i took a closer look that i saw he actually was hogging 4-5 pieces od equipment, 3 of which i needed and was doing circuits and taking his sweet time. so i trained my quads all out of order which was ok more or less but after 45 minutes i asked how many sets he had left and he says 2. It was about that time that I went off. He wears stinky musk oil and I wanted to punch him in the head.

I almost forgot about the newbie that kept stepping right In front of me as I did seated bb Inclines. I'm not talking a wide berth, I'm talking so close he could step on my damned feet - and he did it twice. He got an earful too but I was nice since he's a newbie. Next time the niceness goes away. I realize I probably come off as a prima Donna but too bad. If he's not paying attention to my safety or my ability to pump out a good set then I feel I need to aware him.

Shall we call him the 'circuit breaker'?
I think the same guy has visited my gym in Aus

Not sure of this has been mentioned but we also have the "nester". You know the douchebag that sits on a piece of equipment and uses his phone for 5 minutes at a time. Today we had a guy sitting on a bench under the smith machine (which we have one) playing with his phone. I did 3 sets of leg presses before he finally attempted a set.

I know this guy as well!