Gym knuckle heads

[oldtimer1]

I don't know why it bothers me but I hate trainers that lie to themself and others. I have seen guys doing incredible shallow squats bragging to their friends that they use 500lbs in training. I know I shouldn't care but looking at how deep some guys squat they should realize a 100lbs old lady could do the same.

I find the same thing with many exercises. Guys that cheat an exercise to impress themself and others. Some of the kings of cheated exercises is the incline dumbell bench press. I have seen far to many guys take dumbells that are way to heavy for themself and watch them do half to three quarter reps. Usually these guys throw the weight when they are done so everyone will look at them.

I have seen cheating poor form in so many exercises. One guy was describing his back work out. He said started with 4 sets of 15 to 20 chins. I was amazed. I then saw him do it. It looked like he was having a some kind of jerking fit on the bar. He never went all the way up or down. It looked bizarre. I left wondering if he could do 10 real chins for one set.

The grand daddy of all cheated exercises is the incline leg press. If you put the back board high and use a shallow range of motion, a hell of a lot of plates can go on that machine. I had another friend that said he always goes up to 1000lbs every work out. I was impressed until I saw him do it. The range of motion was barely a quarter of what it could be. When he jumped off the machine I sat down and proceeded to duplicate the shallow presses. He said he didn't know I was so strong. What a knuckle head.

[xenabeachgirl]

Hehe....I saw that very thing yesterday. We were doing chest work and were next to this guy who was on the incline leg press. (This is a guy who must spend like 3 hours a day on the weight floor, because he is ALWAYS there, no matter what time we come in LOL).

So there he is with every 45 lb. plate in the gym loaded on the leg press, sitting there looking around to see if anyone or everyone is watching.....then he proceeds to do several sets of what could not have been more than HALF-INCH reps!! It was hilarious; we had to look away to keep from laughing right there at him.

This guy also likes to do everything he possibly can in the Smith machine.....squats, chest press, shoulders, you name it, there he is. I think the Smith machine has his name on it by now......

[youngblood]

So his name is Smith?

[Troyster]

I like to judge by the person's results.

You never know why a person may be doing an excersise in a slightly different form or manner. Especially squats. An injury could be the cause.

And, on the other side of the coin, I've seen enough knucklheads standing around, verbally criticizing others' form yet they appear to have achieved no results over YEARS (though they apparrently have perfect form, or so they say).

T

[oldtimer1]

Troyster, If I touched a nerve, I'm sorry.


I never criticize anyone in the gym. The most important factor in bodybuilding is genetics. A lot of professionals train without a clue using sloppy form and a lot of drugs. With enough drugs and the proper genes amazing results can happen despite a lack of knowledge and determination. I trained in a gym with a top ten pro years ago who had a terrible work ethic. What he did have is great parents and a body that responded phenomenally well to drugs.

I was just pointing out how people rationalize the weights they lift by using a limited range of motion. A lot of trainers are in denial about what their strength levels are because they lie to themselfs. I didn't mean to hurt anyones feelings.

[Intensity]

Like Lori said, People who know something about training will laugh about someone like this! The only person he will impress are newbies and blind people which only heard the sound of the plates that he is loading for minutes ;D...

So if he is not hurt, like Troyster said, too bad for him, he wont achieve great results... or at least as much results as he can!

Mo

[xenabeachgirl]

YoungBlood said:

So his name is Smith?

That's as good a name as any, I guess! ;D

[Milly]

I have mentioned this several times but what makes me laugh today online and in the gym are the weights claimed and used on most modern machines.

I dont know how many people who tell me they do 500-1000lbs for reps on squats/hacks and reality turns out to be those power leverage squat machines

same with all these 4-5 plate on each side hammer bench presses, these 1000-2000lbs leg presses(sorry but the new machines arent leveraged the same as the leg presses of 5-10-15-20years ago, evry damn gym I have been to no 2 leg presses are the same)

best one is the guys who do pressdowns with the sissies cables because they can do the stack at 150 which is laughable because the the old cable stacks in the gyms dont get used even though they give better fell and tension because 20lbs feels like 50 lol.

anyways for the most part i could really care less how much weight someone does on any machine today as 225lbs on a smith machine incline is way different then 225 on a barbell incline.

Dont get me wrong, I understand that if a guy goes from for example 500lbs on the power/hack squat for reps to 900-1000, thats great he/she is progressing. But as far as that being a true 500/900/1000 lbs I think its time to come back to reality a little bit.

[cavemuscle]

Good point Milly!

I use poundages for personaly reference only, not for bragging rights. And I've started using the simpler pully machines for things like pressdowns, cuz the compound pullys were too easy.

I'm always asking Tom how my form is, since I think that form and execution mean more in muscle growth than poundages.

As has been said many times before, the only person I need to impress is myself.

B

[str8flexed]

xenabeachgirl said:

Hehe....I saw that very thing yesterday. We were doing chest work and were next to this guy who was on the incline leg press. (This is a guy who must spend like 3 hours a day on the weight floor, because he is ALWAYS there, no matter what time we come in LOL).

So there he is with every 45 lb. plate in the gym loaded on the leg press, sitting there looking around to see if anyone or everyone is watching.....then he proceeds to do several sets of what could not have been more than HALF-INCH reps!! It was hilarious; we had to look away to keep from laughing right there at him.

This guy also likes to do everything he possibly can in the Smith machine.....squats, chest press, shoulders, you name it, there he is. I think the Smith machine has his name on it by now......

I think you must go to my gym... we have the same guy

[Liftingchic]

str8flexed said:

I think you must go to my gym... we have the same guy

I am with you on that one.. i have about 3 guys at the gym like that.. :Happy Spinner:

[Arbel]

lol ...used to be like that ....then started working out right and gained 15 lbs
lol

[Troyster]

oldtimer1 said:

Troyster, If I touched a nerve, I'm sorry.


I never criticize anyone in the gym. The most important factor in bodybuilding is genetics. A lot of professionals train without a clue using sloppy form and a lot of drugs. With enough drugs and the proper genes amazing results can happen despite a lack of knowledge and determination. I trained in a gym with a top ten pro years ago who had a terrible work ethic. What he did have is great parents and a body that responded phenomenally well to drugs.

I was just pointing out how people rationalize the weights they lift by using a limited range of motion. A lot of trainers are in denial about what their strength levels are because they lie to themselfs. I didn't mean to hurt anyones feelings.

I know, I know I've been MIA, so this is a long overdue response, LOL. You didn't touch a nerve at all, no worries!

I'd like to add a quick story about a new knuclehead I ran across last week...

Kung-Fu Kanuckle Head:

It always seems there's some silly goof trying to draw attention to themselves at the gym. I don't know if it's an inferiority complex or what, but some people just feel the need to do some extra "stuff" cause they feel out of place or something (like the guy on the treadmill who has to do jabs and uppercuts while running, even though there isn't a punching bag, ring or even skipping rope nearby -- or the guy who needs his friend to literally slap him around before he can do a lift).

Anyways, our freeweight area is basically formed in a rectangle shape. One of the walls is a full mirror, and the rest of the rectangle is the weight racks on three sides around the mirror. There a are a couple gaps on each side for people to walk through.

For some reason, this fellow decided there was no need to use this are for lifting weights (BTW, there was an entire empty aerobics room 15 feet away with full-wall mirrors on three walls...). He had to practice his kung fu kicks.

He stood there, in one of the gaps, staring in the mirror and repeatedly kicking in the air. To call it a kick is inaccurate, as it was more a swinging of the leg (very impressively high, I might add)... I saw him doing this and thought to myself that this could pose a problem.

Sure enough... eventually a lady walked by, carrying dumbells, and intending to re-rack them... BAM, he nailed her on the right cheek and dropped her, weights in-hand.

This might have actually been funny if it weren't so serious. The girl was hurt, how extensively is unknown. One of the weights dropped on a guy's foot and he, in turn, dropped HIS weight on another guy (who luckily caught the dumbell).

The place was so busy that night.

So yes, this guy's a knuclehead. But, it's not surprising and it goes along with the mentality of the gym I attend. They have more rubber bands/balls lying about and trainers applying "plyometrics and pilates" than you can shake a stick at. They are more-and-more pushing the notion that they are not a "gym" they are a "health club".

The guy was given "hell" but was not banned. A friend of mine WAS banned (months earlier) for being to loud when he trains (they don't like bodybuilders and look for any excuse to punt them).

Moral of the story is, watch yourself in the free-weights area.

The girl limped out of the place with a big welt on her cheek but seemed to be OK. Oh and DAMN, you should have seen the size of her husband, LOL. He only glared at the guy but I swear I thought the kung fu knucklehead was dead meat.

T

[xenabeachgirl]

That's unbelieveable Troyster........yet sadly I can see it happening....

Today I really wanted to start flinging plates at these two women who came up and stood next to me in the weight area and started hitting on some guy......giggling, jabbering, feeling his biceps, the whole nine yards......meanwhile I'm trying to concentrate and focus on my next set of bicep curls, and of course there was no way, I had to just sit there and stare at them until they finally scampered off. I've seen these two before, too.......they couldn't find the dumbbells they wanted because someone had re-racked the 22.5's where the 20's should be, and vice versa.....they couldn't figure it out!