Monday, December 19, 2011

Weird Things I See at the Gym

I usually workout at Snap Fitness which is a smaller 24 hour type of gym. However, these past few weeks I was visiting my parents so I was working out at a different bigger chain type of gym known as LA Fitness. My brother has their "elite" membership where he can bring in two guests with him, so it was awesome I got to workout at the gym for free :)


I used to workout at this LA Fitness years ago when it first opened and have worked out at several different LA Fitness locations since then as well. Since moving to Minnesota, I've been at Anytime Fitness and currently Snap Fitness. I chose these gyms instead of the bigger gyms mainly due to location and cost.


My transformation occurred working out at Snap Fitness :)
After working out at a smaller type gym for two years, what I realized coming back to this LA Fitness is that there are a lot more tools, douchebags, and people doing the strangest things at these bigger gyms!


Here are some of my observations during my three weeks at LA Fitness.


Kipping pullups
I've heard about these kipping pullups before. I've read they're a part of Crossfit, something I had no interest in and didn't know what it was until I recently read about it in Men's Health (I still don't have any interest in it and don't really agree with their principles). I've seen a video of someone doing these before and thought to myself "what's the point....these are just extreme cheating pullups". Extreme cheating on anything is pointless in my opinion. I thought it looked stupid in the video, but seeing it done in person was even more ridiculous!


WTF!!! Just as the commenter on youtube said: Fifty-four Butterfly Kipping Pull-ups, yet zero real pull-ups!


Kipping dips
Same thing as the kipping pullups...these looked reeeeeaaally stupid. I don't understand the point of doing these movements if you're going to kip in order to do them!


Large groups working out together
By large, I mean any more than two people together. You normally see these groups in three's but I actually saw a group of four too! These guys do more talking with each other than working out. I don't see how anybody can get a good workout rotating with more than one other person. The rest periods are too long and they end up socializing more than exercising. The worse part is if you need the equipment they are using...you can't really ask to work in and then you have to wait forever until they are done with it!


Socializers
These guys come to the gym mainly to socialize. They might fit in a couple sets of chest and biceps in between their socializing. They wander around and look for people to talk to. Whether the person is resting, doing cardio, or even in the middle of a set, it doesn't matter. These guys will want to talk to anybody....anything to avoid actually lifting a weight.


It's gym time...Not social hour.
Partial rep guy
It seems there's always at least one of these guys at every gym I go to (even my small gym).  I'm not talking about the guys that do partials in order to lift more weight. These guys actually seem to do a total body partial workout...on every exercise they do! It's like their doing it because they think it's more effective or safer for their joints or something. Looks very odd (not to mention ineffective)!


Everyday bencher
There's seems to be one of these guys at every gym I've been at too. Everyday is a chest day for them. They start off with flat barbell bench, usually bouncing big weights off their chest. And they seem to do 50 sets before finishing off with a couple sets of lat pulldowns and bicep curls. LOL!


Ridiculous outfit guy
Whenever I saw this guy at the gym, he was wearing the same thing: cut off jean shorts, under armour headcap, a black string racerback tanktop, and workboots. WTF! Firstly, how can he workout in cut off jean shorts?! Secondly, how can he go out in public like that?! I wish I could have snapped a picture to upload here to show the ridiculousness! This is a specific example but I've seen a few other very odd outfits as well.


It looked something like this but imagine a fat guy instead of Marzia Prince LOL!


LA Fitness...where you might see the weirdest things in your life
Have you guys seen any of these same things at your gyms? What other weird, odd, or toolish things have you seen at your gym?

10 comments:

Quoc said...

Haha awesome blog. I witnessed something pretty weird the other week. A guy was doing shrugs in the smith machine against the wall. Usually to get in the smith machine you step over the bar. Instead this guy jumps hangs on the top of the smith machine and swings himself across the bar like he just threw down a monster jam! I just don't understand...smh

Duong Nguyen said...

Haha that sounds like monster tool to me! I wish we could capture all this stuff on video.

attm said...

Cool blog man and transformation. Uh the funniest thing i saw was this kid that went to my high school several years after graduation at a golds gym. I think he was a little slow so i never laughed or stared at him like the other guys at the gym.. He would wear everyday these daisy duke trunks with an england flag across the butt and a matching tank top with a matching bandana tied on his head.. yeah and he would do a set of light weight then slam them on the ground and strut around with his chest poking out to see if anyone saw him.. every set smh

Adel Moussa said...

personally, I am already looking forward to the january issues of the stupid fitness magazines like Mens Health & Co with the 6 weeks to abs plans and the most ridicolous exercises you can think of... I am often literally rolling laughing on the floor (rofl'ing) when those 20%+ body-fat guys are rolling around on the yoga mats doing the most ridicoulous "exercises" you could think of to make their abs "shine" in full glory...

mykey said...

The thing that really annoys me is when people do walking barbell lunges grunting across the room. Or when people take a bar to bring to the corner to do corner rows when there's a perfectly good tbar (my gym only has one bar per bench)

Duong Nguyen said...

Thanks attm! There's actually a "slow" guy at my small gym too and he does wear some weird stuff sometimes (not as weird as what you're describing)...but he actually looks like he knows what he's doing and is pretty strong too.

LOL Dr. Andro, I know what you mean. It does seem as if Men's Health tries to come up with weird new exercises just for the sake of being different...not necessarily more effective.

Mykey, those things aren't really weird but I can see how it would be annoying to not a have a bar available for a bench.

Richard Ma said...

I watched that video with the kipping compilations and te push up ones are pretty ridiculous. This is a funny blog because I see almost everything you described at the LA Fitness I go to. I haven't caught anyone kipping yet, but I'm sure I will. There's this one guy who wears tight bicycle shorts with a tank top and sandals!! Not quite what you saw, but I'm sure this could be categorized as being weird haha.

Duong Nguyen said...

Haha that is a weird outfit Richard. Kipping pullups are something to be witnessed in person...something to laugh at!

SJ the Destroyer said...

Love this blog!
I used to work out at the Snap Fitness's in St. Paul and saw my share of oddities! The guy wearing all bodybuilding-company attire with sunglasses and blaring heavy metal coming from his Walkman, yes, I said Walkman...

Duong Nguyen said...

Thanks SJ! Someone wearing shades inside is always an odd thing to see! A Walkman might even be weirder! lol

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