So I was in my gym in Berlin today, doing leg day number 2 of my de-load week (doing Westside). Banged out some front squats and romanian deadlifts and decided to finish out with some high rep, low weight good mornings (115 lbs). I was just reading the squat rack curls thread yesterday and hearing stories of doing good mornings and getting told “you’re not doing squats right.” So I finish up my 3rd set and get the inevitable tap on the shoulder from one of the 2 hugest guys in my gym (both obviously roided up lightbulbs who only wear baggy long pants, never shorts, conveniently enough). He tells me I’m not squatting right, and I reply that I’m doing good mornings, not squats. He says then I’m using too much weight (lol!) and it’s really bad for my back, and I need to keep my knees completely straight when I do them.
I tell him that this is very light weight for me and he was like “ok, just trying to help” or whatever, then starts telling his friend watching him benching on the SMITH MACHINE what I’m doing wrong. So for some reason I’m in a good mood, and I’m like fuck it I’ll ask the guy to help me out. I told him I used to have back problems but since I’ve done heavy deadlifts/good mornings they have completely gone away, etc. etc. I tell him I’ll do a rep his style. So I go really close stance and keep my legs almost locked (I’m not dumb enough to lock them completely). He says I should still lower the weight and do high high reps, then says he’s an exercise scientist or something.
Somehow the conversation switched to squats, and he demonstrated a “proper” squat and good morning with JUST the bar. He couldn’t get either exercise even close to parallel, and seriously looked like he was struggling with the bar on this “squat,” having trouble balancing it as well. I seriously couldn’t keep myself from smiling as I watched a dude with like 22 inch arms and probably pushing 275 with ~10-12% bodyfat who probably can’t even squat half of what I do. He tries to do a front squat with olympic grip and can’t do it properly (with just the bar again), after which I bang out a set of olympic grip front squats for him. He says squats are very very dangerous, and he’s “afriad of them (ich habe Angst von Kniebeugen)” especially if you go ass to grass, and that leg press is better because you can use more weight (!). He says I need to stop going so low on the front squat. HAHAHAHAH
Keep in mind, in four months of being at this gym, I see this guy 1-2 times a week, and I’ve never seen him do a leg exercise of any kind. The first thing he does is dumbbell curls every workout, then moves to benching on the smith machine (where he puts like 30kg on each side).
On a positive not, both he and his friend said my German was excellent and better than lots of turks who’ve lived here for 20 years. LOL I was very cordial to both of them the whole time, but I’m not stopping heavy good mornings or powerlifting style squats, so I think I’m going to print out a bunch of articles from T-Nation and elitefts and hand them to him if he tries correcting me anymore.
