Strangest Person at Your Gym

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[quote]Geography wrote:
…does ass-ups. What is an ass-up you ask? Remember when you were a kid on the monkey bars and you would hold on to the bars and your legs could come toward you and basically you could rotate your body through while not letting go, then drop to your feet? Well he does that, stops 1/2 way, and pulls his now inverted ass up toward the ceiling.

I honestly think that he believes the crowd that watches him admire him, while actually we are waiting for his fake tan grip to slip and pile-drive his Orange Julius melon into the mat below.

I’ve heard talk of that before. Something similar is called a “gorilla pullup” or something?[/quote]

In that position, isn’t the movement basically a shrug? Except for having to keep your ass balanced towards the ceiling, the only way you’re going to move your ass up is by shrugging your shoulders.

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[quote]pookie wrote:
Geography wrote:
…does ass-ups. What is an ass-up you ask? Remember when you were a kid on the monkey bars and you would hold on to the bars and your legs could come toward you and basically you could rotate your body through while not letting go, then drop to your feet? Well he does that, stops 1/2 way, and pulls his now inverted ass up toward the ceiling.

I honestly think that he believes the crowd that watches him admire him, while actually we are waiting for his fake tan grip to slip and pile-drive his Orange Julius melon into the mat below.

I’ve heard talk of that before. Something similar is called a “gorilla pullup” or something?

In that position, isn’t the movement basically a shrug? Except for having to keep your ass balanced towards the ceiling, the only way you’re going to move your ass up is by shrugging your shoulders.
[/quote]

Yeah I was corrected a few posts behind this one. I knew it was something that looked odd.

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[quote]rippedatwork wrote:
thighlord wrote:
Gym I used to go to had this guy wearing a little black (sometimes white) skirt or maybe it was a tutu.

He also had white tights ( or whatever you call them), a white camisole and white gloves. But let’s not forget his beige outfit.

And man that guy had more hair on his chest and back than chewbacca but he at least kept his hair in a ponytail. That was decent of him.

OMG!I have seen this guy!!! Can there be more than one in Ontario? He would wear a pink tutu and white tights. He had a white mesh shirt he would tie in a knot at his chest. He had thick black hair on the front and back.

Weird.

[/quote]

Is this him?

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There is this one guy at my gym, probably 27 or something. He used straps on ever pull motion he did yesterday (pulldowns, hammer strength rows, pullup, and one or two others). Today he did supinated 1 arm tricep cable extensions standing on a wobble pillow.

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[quote]enterthedojo wrote:

toughcasey wrote:
ThatGirl77 wrote:
oaxaca joe wrote:
enterthedojo, that “UNCONVENTIONAL!” story just about ruined my workout this morning. I was into my 3 set of bp when all of a sudden somewhere inside my head I hear someone holler “UNCONVENTIONAL!” I started laughing so hard I had tears, man. I had to summon all my deep-seated rage just to finish off that rep. The worst part is that every time I got back on the bench, I would bust out laughing again until I finally yelled “UNCONVENTIONAL!” myself. Cured me.

HAHAHAHAHA That went through my mind last night during my workout. LOL

haha! im glad in not the only one, i think im going to get a shirt made! this is a classic story.

Hahahaha thats awesome! But ADMIT IT, it worked didnt it!?! There’s some method to his madness… UNCONVENTIONAL!!![/quote]

I told my wife & kids this story and they thought it was pretty funny. So tonight at the dinner during a lull in the conversation my wife just lets out with a hearty “UNCONVENTIONAL!” for no apparent reason. Makes me worried about when else the urge might hit her…

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[quote]pookie wrote:

In that position, isn’t the movement basically a shrug? Except for having to keep your ass balanced towards the ceiling, the only way you’re going to move your ass up is by shrugging your shoulders.

[/quote]Well, he is able to bend his elbows a bit, like an upside down upright row I guess would be the best was to explain it.

So his head and torso are upside down and his knees are to his chest, ass up in the air…he pulls up his body using his arms and move I’m guessing about 6-8 inches. He looks like he in trying to rectally insert the halogen lightbulb swinging from the ceiling directly above him.

And on every “rep”, he returns to a dead hang like he is going to do a pull-up.

So the entire motion is pull-up, knees to chest, rotate hips up and legs go through the space where between body and the pull-up bar, now his ass is facing the ceiling—pauses—performs “ass-up”, swings legs back through and returns to regular dead-hang pull up position.

Repeat for 5-6 ridiculous reps. The applies Dy-O-derm and returns to Cir de Sole.

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shit, i’m sure that the vast majority of people in gyms think anyone doing any serious training is crazy. people stare at me like i’m fucking a dog i just set on fire when i do tens sets of cleans. people constantly stare at the wrestling shoes I wear when I lift as well.

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I am far from strange compared to many at my gym, but I will admit that some of the stuff I do is unusual.

Case in point: my gym doesn’t have a glute ham raise machine. I used to use an ab bench on a decline but it hurt my knees and also my achilles.

Yesterday, I put a bosu in the powercage, lowered one of the safety bars right to the bottom and removed the other one, kneeled on the bosu and anchored my heels under the bar. I decided to try this on a Thursday when the gym is quieter… though since I was using the cage for both that and pullups, and there’s no glute ham raise alternative, it was justifiable.

Anyway, a guy gym buddy was there, and after witnessing that, and then seeing me doing pistols, he told me he thought it was ‘cute’ to see me doing all these ‘weird’ exercises - which surprised me slightly since they seem like basic stuff in some ways. But when I thought about how weird all that crap must’ve looked I have to laugh at myself.

As for other weirdos doing unusual lifts - occassionally I see a little Asian dude doing some pretty nice oly lifts. Awhile back I saw him doing one-arm oly snatches with a pretty impressive weight for his size. Whenever I see someone in my gym doing a lift like that, I strongly suspect my boyfriend trained them at some point. I sometimes ask if they’re training with anyone and every time I’ve asked they’ve confirmed my suspicions.

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[quote]rippedatwork wrote:
thighlord wrote:
Gym I used to go to had this guy wearing a little black (sometimes white) skirt or maybe it was a tutu.

He also had white tights ( or whatever you call them), a white camisole and white gloves. But let’s not forget his beige outfit.

And man that guy had more hair on his chest and back than chewbacca but he at least kept his hair in a ponytail. That was decent of him.

OMG!I have seen this guy!!! Can there be more than one in Ontario? He would wear a pink tutu and white tights. He had a white mesh shirt he would tie in a knot at his chest. He had thick black hair on the front and back.

Weird.

[/quote]

I might have missed the pink tutu but it’s okay that I didn’t see it.

Were you in Ottawa?

131

[quote]enterthedojo wrote:
At my old gym there was this crazy tall guy about 45 or so years old that used to come in around 5pm dressed in a post office uniform (I really hope he was actually a postman) and go straight to the bench press area. He would put on 2 plates per side and without a warm up, jump on the bench and pump out reps.

EVERY SINGLE rep he would yell “HUSSSSSSS… HUSSSSSSSS” and as he muscled out the last rep of EVERY set he would scream “UNCONVENTIONAL!!!” He would stay on the bench for about 45 mintues, resting about 5 minutes inbetween sets staring creepily at whoever was nearby. He would do this about 3 times a week and I never saw him do any other exercise!

The scariest thing was, after about 5 months of the time I first noticed him, he began to amass disciples for his “UNCONVENTIONAL!!!” school… about 3-4 people in the gym would yell that out during their sets and a few people would work in with him on bench.

That guy was awesome.[/quote]

That is freakin hillarious.

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[quote]medevac wrote:
We have one that I can think of off-hand:

Orange Man. This guy uses fake tan and has that orange Dy-O-Derm look. He does several strange things…a wide, wide, “omg is he going to do a face plant?” push up, later he’ll do a little aerobic dance routine with steps and pivots, etc in place right beside the machine or db he was using.

But the best thing is when he approaches the pull up bar and does ass-ups. What is an ass-up you ask? Remember when you were a kid on the monkey bars and you would hold on to the bars and your legs could come toward you and basically you could rotate your body through while not letting go, then drop to your feet? Well he does that, stops 1/2 way, and pulls his now inverted ass up toward the ceiling.

I honestly think that he believes the crowd that watches him admire him, while actually we are waiting for his fake tan grip to slip and pile-drive his Orange Julius melon into the mat below.[/quote]

That sounds somewhat like a ‘skin-the-cat’, but not quite. (The ‘skin-the-cat’ is a fairly common exercise among gymnasts.)

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Lifting on and off (mostly on) at a myriad of gyms for the last 17 years has given me the opportunity to witness the following…

A man in his 40’s w/ a WORLD class upper body and ZERO legs. He only wore string tank tops and funky spandex pants, w/ the shirt tucked in of course. He trained for 2 hrs/ 5 days a week, nothing but upperbody. If his legs matched his upper body, I’m SURE he could have one a few BB contests.

An obese woman who only used machines with the pin OUT of the weight stack for 100 rep sets. She wore ONLY spandex pants and HUGE tee shirts, as if we couldn’t tell what was underneath. The kicker, she wiped every machine w/ CLOROX bleach wipes before and after she used them…

A brown haired Hulk Hogan clone who, although jacked out of his mind, never went heavier than 315 on ANYTHING even though I’m sure he could have… all the while screaming "FUCKING A !!! after each set. He was also my middle school gym teacher.

A 5’3" Napoleonic Complex having, roid freak w/ a decent upperbody and no legs. He’d constantly make innappropriate comments to EVERYONE about EVERYTHING. I asked him to kindly refrain from making comments whilst I was lifting.

He told me he “didn’t listen to guys smaller than him” and tried to push me. My response was to pick him up and hang him by his perpetually worn Valero velcro weight belt on a hook welded to one of the I beams. I still feel bad to this day for doing it, poor lil guy could’ve gotten hurt.

My favorite person of all had to be this one character who would tell anyone and everyone that “to be jacked, you only have to work out a few times a week” Meanwhile this guy worked out 7 days a week, sometimes twice a day…but he would alternate between 1 of 5 gyms owned by the same person.

My FAVORITE: He came into the gym on a friday night at about 7 pm to get a “quick workout in, before his date” all the while wearing dress pants, a dress shirt, and dress shoes. He did a couple sets of arms, chest, back, and shoulders. At least he was smart enough NOT to ruin his leather jacket by taking it off. That’s right, not only was he dressed up, but he was trainin w/ a leather jacket.

1 Like
134

funniest thing i saw was a young guy come into my college gym. the only other people there were me and my workout partner.

the kid obviously had no idea what he was doing. he sat on the leg extension/leg curl machine and proceeded to do curls with the leg extension attachment; hold the thick foam pads in his hands. he went on to tell us how he was “feeling the burn.”

sadley, I never saw him again.

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[quote]BH6 wrote:
I’m with you on this one. On some other forum thread, some guy is writing about me, “There is this dude who always wears chuck taylor shoes like he is trying to be retro or something and all he does is take up space in the curling rack by doing power cleans and snatches like he is in the olympics or something. What a douche. He doesn’t even squat right, he holds the bar in front of him. I’ve never seen him curl, someone should teach him how to workout.” [/quote]

Hey, quit writing about me!

We’ve got the dancing singing guy, the 110lb curlers, the locker room ball-blow-dryer guy and the spandex shorts and gut guy. We have the upper-bodybuilders too.

We’ve got one of each, and sometimes two.

-folly

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[quote]BH6 wrote:
I’m with you on this one. On some other forum thread, some guy is writing about me, "There is this dude who always wears chuck taylor shoes[/quote]
Got that one covered, mine are black

I do those, but you know it’s not “real” lifting right? I mean, you’re using so much momentum, anyone can do that ;-)[quote]
What a douche. He doesn’t even squat right, he holds the bar in front of him. [/quote]
OOooo or do overhead squats and see what kind of reaction you get. “Why are you using such a light weight, you must be weak.” “Yep, I sure am, why don’t you show me how it’s done.”

[quote]I’ve never seen him curl, someone should teach him how to workout." [/quote]Alas, when will we ever learn. If this guy were in Belgium I would swear he was talking about me. Who knew I had a long lost relative in Canada. -Aaron

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My isn’t nearly as funny a some of these (unconventional gets a mention, and damn you if that fucks up my next workout.)

Anyway, last gym I worked out at, this older lady, probably about 60, would bring a swiss ball into the cardio area and drop it in front of a TV. For the next hour she would sit on it, bouncing a little up and down, doing shoulder presses with 2.5 or 5lb dumbbells. She had awesome shoulder endurance… or something.

Current gym, on my first day there, I saw a larger, overweight white guy spotting a really skinny asian kid doing squats. And by spotting I mean spooning, literally, knees against the back of his knees, hands reaching around holding the front of his waist. The poor asian kid couldn’t even get to a half squat because the big guys knees were pressed into him blocking range of motion. It was completely ridiculous and nauseating at the same time. I told my g/f who didn’t believe me until she started training there the next week and witnessed the same thing.

Turns out the big guy is actually a personal trainer working for the gym. I haven’t seen him training the asian kid for a long time though.

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There’s this one guy who looks a lot like an Elvis fan.

There’s this woman who swears up and down that she was part of a government plot to takeover all of the Burger Kings in the city.

There was a roid user who got cancer of the balls from injecting deca there because he thought that it would give him more mojo.

There’s this other guy who likes to work out in his mother’s wedding gown while standing on a Swiss ball.

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[quote]thighlord wrote:
rippedatwork wrote:
thighlord wrote:
Gym I used to go to had this guy wearing a little black (sometimes white) skirt or maybe it was a tutu.

He also had white tights ( or whatever you call them), a white camisole and white gloves. But let’s not forget his beige outfit.

And man that guy had more hair on his chest and back than chewbacca but he at least kept his hair in a ponytail. That was decent of him.

OMG!I have seen this guy!!! Can there be more than one in Ontario? He would wear a pink tutu and white tights. He had a white mesh shirt he would tie in a knot at his chest. He had thick black hair on the front and back.

Weird.

I might have missed the pink tutu but it’s okay that I didn’t see it.

Were you in Ottawa?

[/quote]

This guy is still around, saw him at a gym in Ottawa on Saturday. Afraid it was a black tutu and thong with “nude” hose…

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yeah, a lot of people using swiss balls, just look funny. at my college gym, there were a couple guys who would train on the swiss ball…BY STANDING ON IT! doing overhead presses and squats with just the bar. i feared they’d fall off and seriously injur themsleves. it looked so dangerous and you could see them straining to balance as the stepped onto it.

another guy at a nubodys used to haul around a 4 litre jug of water. i mean, does he live there!? I don’t think he needed all that water for his training session. I didn’t see him working out too much, usually jsut waking around holding his big-ass jug.

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[quote]Jinx Me wrote:
There’s one guy at my gym who’s probably about 45, small, weak, with terrible posture, who looks very much like a toad. I think I’ve seen him in the weight room but can’t recall seeing him lift anything. Mainly he ‘works out’ on the treadmill. He sets it at about 2 mph, and takes these really short, bouncy steps, while shaking and jiggling his arms and wrists. That’s it.

Other than him, some of the strangest people who’ve passed through my gym are various staff members… the current sales guy comes to mind. He’s famous for telling all the guys at the gym how well hung he is. Not smart, for straight guy working in a gym mainly populated by gay males.

This guy has also tried to use jokes to ‘trick’ some of the women (including me) into agreeing to a date with him. He’s not in shape, but likes to walk up behind you when you’re doing a set in front of a mirror, and start flexing.

His workouts, that I’ve witnessed, consist of talking about his penis size, doing tricep kickbacks, and touching his pecs.[/quote]

I think for the sake of symmetry you should tell him to talk about his pecs and touch his penis for 8 weeks and then switch back.