So I’m doing squats, peak of Conjugated Periodization, and some dude asks me if I’m nearly done when I’ve just started. I say no, probably 20 minutes or so. So he stands nearby and keeps hassling me every 5 minutes or so… in the end I hurry it up, don’t make my final lift, and leave still content to wait for him to finish his squats so I can move in to do my deadlifts. TO MY HORROR, he promptly puts the O-bar down on the cross-bars, puts on “1.25kg” weights, AND DOES BICEP CURLS!!! I’d had it, this was like the 10th time this has happened… I’m fairly non-confrontational so I didn’t approach him… but I put my complaint down on paper and (perhaps foolishly) put it in the suggestion box. Now I didn’t curse, but putting asterisks in place of key letters kind of implies it… so now the gym owner is deciding whether to throw me out for it. Yeah, I did wrong, I apologise, but get thrown out…! Ah well… live and learn I guess. OK, I’m done. Cheers.
Thrown out of a GYM for an asterisk??? I’d run away from that pansy a**ed gym. It sound like it has too much estrogen in the air anyway.
that sux bro, here’s my story, I’m done with my workout except for squats (I save the best for last… I really enjoy squats hehe) so I see a woman doing some squats in one rack and a dood loading up a bar in the other rack, he loaded it up without a lot of weight so I’m like dood is doing curls. So I ask him how many he has left and he goes 5 (5!!! argh). So me the jerk says: you know this rack is really for a power movement like a squat or a deadlift. And the dood sheepishly nods or what not and I just kinda wander around like an idiot. Then he loads up two 45s on each side and does I don’t know what the excercise is called but it looks like it works the shoulders, basically the raises the bar to around his chin with a close by grip. Anyway I felt like an idiot and apologized, he just shrugged and kept on going. The point I realized was that hey if he was there first it shouldn’t matter if he was dancing the whatoozie or what not in there, he was there first and I have no right to tell the dood what to do or to leave and that I should chill out a bit.
Well, you were doing squats in the curl rack, and if you put in asterisks heaven only knows what you were thinking! That sucks, I’d look for somewhere else to train and if they kick you out ensure you get a refund of any prepaid subs.
Confrontational? You don’t have to get in someone’s face to tell him again that you have 20 minutes left. Look up the difference in being Assertive and Agressive. Maybe that good buddy just didn’t understand that there other pieces of equipment he can use to get his workout finished. Even if he did, his impatience got to you. Next time try giving him the same kind message every 5 minutes and enjoy the audience. Or ask him if he wants to work in with you on the same thing you’re doing. I have a lot of work to do to get my body attractive, but at 46 it doesn’t pay me to let myself get bent up because someone else needs to learn another lesson in life. And I certainly don’t want to waste the motivation and time I put into getting to the gym to lose a set.
Some good calls folks.
Then there’s the fact that this guy has a gym monopoly in my town. I’ve no intention of opening my own. Might weld up my own squat rack though… my own music, just me out in the bush with the kangaroos and koalas… [grin]
Some people are too lazy to pick a barbell up off the floor, in order to do a set of curls.
Some people are too dumb to realize you can use the end of a bench, so you don’t have to pick a barbell up off the floor, in order to do a set of curls.
This just happened to me too, over the weekend.
Tell him to chill. After all, Rome wasnt built in a day and even God rested on the 7th day.
Mark, I hope you’ll also be doing Dingo deadlifts and won arm wombat snatches 
LOL - forgot about the wombats… might have to include some emu presses and platypus side-raises too…
I find the worst offenders for doing bicep curls in the squat rack are the football players at my university. I’ve only seen a few of them actually do squats and even then they only do quarter squats. The entire team must be full of genetic/steroid freaks. I doubt they even watch their diets because in the gym they are constantly talking about all the alcohol they drink.
kicked out for an asterix huh? doesnt sound very aussie to me - you hear worse language than that at the yoga and relaxation centres in oxford st!
my advice is to be a prick (notice no asterix) once in a while - just tell him to piss off next time. It doesnt sound like the kind of gym where he is going to have a go at you anyway.
ps how about echidna squeezes for forearm and hand development?
Stories like yours always remind why I love working out in my garage.
And some people wonder why I work out at home.
MBE: “Enjoying self-imposed soiltary confinement since 1804.”
-Eric