Posted by alexandra_k on November 2, 2018, at 20:18:24
In reply to Re: and another gym bites the dust..., posted by baseball55 on November 2, 2018, at 17:12:41
> Actually, my favorite thing is to go to the gym in early afternoon when the place is mostly empty. I'm pretty much a solitary exerciser. Maybe because I was such a klutz as a kid and got teased for it. I have never in my life understood team sports or fandom.
Yeah. When I first started I would go around 10:30 am, which was pretty similar to the early afternoon time that you speak of. When I started out I couldn't do anything, really. I was very self conscious and embarrassed. I thought everyone in the gym would be in amazing shape and would know what they were doing and would laugh at me, or whatever. I booked a time with a trainer first off and got shown how to use some of the machines for a program.
I worked that program and increased the weights on the program so it was work for me to do 3x10. I got a new program which involved free weights. I didn't really understand what squats were about and I discovered some dude called Mark Riptoe had written a whole chapter of a book on squats. So I got the book...
Then I discovered the Snatch online. Some crossfit video. A fairly early crossfit video well before it was cool. They posted a bunch of technique videos for athletes, primarily. Becuase crossfit people were involved with training High School or in some instances College athletes. And some of them were pretty athletic and could do a pretty good approximation of Olympic lifts...
Then I found someone who trained in the gym online... And he said to come along and he'd try and help me out. And I did take instruction from him to start with (and I was lucky he was actually (at the time) taking instruction from a guy who used to represent Australia in the Olymipics). And the later guy was pretty knowledgeable generally - and most importantly knowledgeable enough about... Ego... About helping people... Allowing people.... To develop inner confidence and about not bossing them around for the sake of it. He was a decent guy, yeah. And the former turned out to be a bit of a jerk (in a young male kind of a way)... But I learned heaps from him, anyway. He was also into flexibility things and rope climbing and so on... Learned from this guy who used to be there... Kit Laughlin or something... The monkey gym... He did a heap of posture and flexibility stuff... Into barefoot training early on before that was cool...
I learned heaps.
Gymgoers did try and interrupt. Just to chat. Sometimes to pick people up (a meat market sort of a thing). Sometimes just to try and boss people around and control them. What worked about training in Australia is that the people who knew the most were actually in charge and they used their power for good. That's what worked. That's why I could work there.
Here... Only the idiots ever seem to get to be in charge. And they choose to use their power to further promote idiocy. So...
Ya just gotta hide / get away.
I asked the manager specifically...
I said that I was instructed by someone (I left names out -- but I think she probably had been telling everyone within earshot about it for the last few days and they probably didn't have it on camera).... I was instructed by someone who worked there to put clips on. I said I left rather than violating an instruction from an employee, and so now I wanted to have a chat with him about it (this was quietly in his office - with the door open).
- Real clips weight a lot and those crappy clips still weigh a little
- They often (but not always) shift around on the bar so you need to fiddle with them a lot to reset them
- I was lifting rubber weights that were designed to be dropped for a deadlift (not a bench press
- There is nothing about clips on the extensive wall list of rulesI offered to show him what I was doing so there could be no confusion. When I was setting things up I dropped the rubber weight and assessed whether he minded that. He didn't seem particularly pleased - but he let it go (note to self he might start complaining about that down the line).
When I lifted it to my shoulders without clips and held my arms out like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk3PARuBiHY
And started doing little jumps with it - he looked really very uncomfortable indeed (he didn't understand the shoulders are stabilising the bar and not the arms) and he thought tiny little movements would result iln the weights flying off.
I then put the little clips on and started lifting one end of the bar up and shaking it (trying to get the weight to fall off one end) and the clips actually did a really good job of keeping my tiny little weights on the bar (they would have simply fallen off with any real weight). He seemed really very comfortable about my shaking the hell out of it with tiny clips on (whereas I would not want people to ever feel comfortable with tiny little clips that are not manufactured to any proper standard) -- but I'd keep my mouth shut in the gym...
I then unloaded the bar with light (rubber) weights the easiest way I'd been taught. You lift it like a deadlift. Then you intentionally tip it so one of the weight falls off one end. Then you intentionally tip it in a controlled fashion so the other weight falls off the other end. This can be done in a controlled fashion and actually doing it in a controlled fashion strengthens your wrist and your grip strengh and so on. This is actually a really safe way to get that first plate off (there's a jack trick to get more plates off first). Otherwise... You gotta get down really low and upright row the bar and then try and pull the plate off with your other hand -- and people are far more likely to get injured trying to do that.
Anyone who has spent any time in a gym learning how to put the weights away would see that that was safer. In a ... You know it when you see it sense.
Anyway...
He really really really really really really really didn't like that. He seemed to think that the weights could be safely tipped off the bar. So...
I don't think he lifts much.
I can't lift there. The employees will hover around and start invoking the 'health and safety' Gods because they don't know what they think they have been appointed by God to only allow people to do things they feel comfortable with them doing and they have had very little education with respect to... Overcoming their own anxieties about weightlifting.
They are paid to...
Well... They don't seem to be paid for their customer service, clearly.
Yeah.
It's sad...
I wish I had have been into the gym when I visited the US. I remember another student who visited said he did visit the gym. He was the basketball team in there. I really feel really sad, indeed, i didn't get to see some of the best teams in the States in the gym doing their thing.. And just see the gym.
I was never into sports. I enjoy it now. The athletic movement. I am sad that the tv coverage doesn't show the angles I'd really like to see. You don't get to see the crucial bits. You don't get to see different shots of baseball pitches. You don't get to see basketballers land.
I like more amateur coverage (if you can get it). The same athletes at lower level competitions, I mean. Beucase you are more likely to get lots of down-time coverage so you get to see their posture when nobody is looking. That kind of thing.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1101759
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20180816/msgs/1101775.html