At What Point Do You Think You Are "Qualified" to Give Out Advice?

This. I’ll also add that something I recently have not just realised but accepted is that not everyone in the gym cares as much about getting bigger/stronger/leaner as I do and that’s just fine. That’s the biggest determinant if what people will do. There are people who care more than I do who will go to lengths I won’t and vice versa.

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When criticized or given advice, rather than be offended, ask two questions.

  1. Are they correct?

  2. Can I learn something from it.

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As for giving advice, I’ll usually ask myself a couple of questions first.

Do I lift more than them?
Do they look lost and in need of help?
Do they look like they’ll hurt themselves?

3 No = give them advice
2 No = practice some common sense and assess the situation
1 No = go back to minding your own business, if they really wanted help, they’d ask or at the very least stare till you have no choice but to talk to them

And even if I do “give them advice”, I’ll usually start off with, hey buddy, need any help?

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Checking with someone more experienced can save a lot of time doing things incorrectly.

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THIS!!! Exactly how it was done back in the Day!!!

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Yes absolutely ask for advice. I humbled myself and asked a very young fella at a commercial gym for advice on deadlifting after watching him pull 4 plates for reps. It was hard to ask because I was about 30 years old and he was obviously much younger than me, but he was strong and knowledgeable. I had never known how to engage my lats and he showed a trick by taking a small band and tied it to the bar and a dumbbell. The object was to keep a bit of tension in the band by pulling back with my lats. After getting the feel of engaging my lats properly, in time, I was able to ditch the band and pull more weight. I’m glad I asked him.

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Thinking of you @dt79

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Omg that’s from the movie Downfall! I watched it like 10 years ago! Which genius thought of adding fake subtitles to it LOL?!!!

That reaction when he hears, “They were also not looking ahead and down. Most of these powerlifters were driving up with their heads.” LMAO!!! Seriously fucking LMAO! “Has this Texan fuck been to a powerlifting meet during the last 20 years? What the fuck!” Wahahaha

Thanks for posting this!

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“But he’s THE expert on squat form” “So fucking what! Have you seen the fucking Lillibridges squat?”


LMAO!!!

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:laughing:

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You’ve never seen the “Hitler finds out…” videos?

There are, like, thousands of these on YouTube!

I’ve seen that scene a million times with different subs but never actually seen the movie…

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No but I’ve just watched a few after watching that Rippetoe one lol.

You should. It’s pretty good if you can tolerate them “humanizing” Hitler. The good thing is they don’t justify his actions.

Duke.

You come off as extremely immature, and about the last person I would be interested in listening to advice from. And I think you have zero personal awareness of this fact. I’m generally of the opinion that anyone under the age of 20 should not be giving advice. There are, of course, exceptions, but you are definitively not one of them.

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Reminds me a lot of this kid:

At the time, he was squatting 155 pounds, benching 95 pounds, and deadlifting 210 pounds and literally had a thread bemoaning “0 progress in his arms” - and yet, he wanted to give pointers to others in the gym. Pretty much the gold standard for this behavior.

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It’s funny cause I saw the guy’s username (Massthetics) and I almost thought he was the same guy on youtube.

Lifting weights is trendy. Trendy things always bring arrogant pricks and people trying to create an identity for themselves.

Nowadays, everyone is a competitive powerlifter, physique expert via instagram, people even dress a certain way to tell society “I workout in a gym.”

I squat and pull because it keeps my legs strong. I press and row to keep my upper body strong. Not any more complicated than that.

I don’t see why ordinary people, just like myself, want to make it anymore complicated. It took me a long time to come to that simple conclusion, and I blame it on internet forums just like this, fitness articles, the galleries of people whom have literally made an entire industry off of exercise, unrealistic steroid achievements that make normal healthy men feel inferior, etcetera-- a simple concept, completely blown way out of realistic proportion. I always try my best now, when I speak of strength and wellness to anyone, to speak of it as the very simple concept that it is.

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I actually feel this way regarding a lot of the programs Wendler writes.

The core concept of 5/3/1, jokers, vice versa, make sense and seem sound because, at its core, it’s a fairly simple idea.

But I don’t know how the man makes what seems to be literally hundreds of programs from it.

That being said… I think building strength may be a simple concept but it’s also incredibly difficult to plain understand.

Basically we’re practicing, ya? Practice makes perfect. Strong guys are strong because they practiced in a way that works for them and spent years practicing.

Yes, you’ll have those folks who are naturally capable of deadlifting 500lb off the floor the first time they try (never-mind the fact that they’re probably that strong largely because of some shit they did OUTSIDE the gym that they also spend a lot of time doing), but I’d wager that virtually everyone who deadlifted 600lb or more did so because they spent a long, long time practicing at it.

Lifting is like every other activity known to man- you need to practice it to get good at it. And, like every other activity known to man, most people aren’t willing to put in that practice. Which is perfectly ok (though when we start to get into the health benefits things get a bit murky…), but then you start to have dicks who think that they’re more awesome than others because they happen to put in a bit more practice than some other guy.

Don’t know about the Competitive part but a lot of people are getting into the sport and enjoying it. I don’t think only a select few people can be in a sport when it should be enjoyed by all and everyone should be allowed to compete. Complaining about people for aspiring to be better than they are is improper.

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I think he’s just referring to the amount of people who’re competing in powerlifting because its trendy and lets face it, ‘powerlifting’ is a pretty god damn easy sport to pick up.

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