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How to work out like a man
Mar. 20th, 2016 04:20 pmI can't get over gym errors. I don't mind them, and it's great being quietly smug for what I can do in the gym. If everyone had as much knowledge and discipline as I do then I would not be strong by comparison. I suspect people doing these things are wasting their time in the gym, "working out" rather than training. Sure it doesn't affect me, and they're 100% free to do it or read the paper if they like. I still wonder what is going on, why, and as a product of what motivation
1. Cable pull with your back and legs. There are tons of exercises you can do with cable pulls, and virtually all of them can be done wrong. The consistent sin of all the mistakes is pulling more weight than you can handle; compounding that sin is using your legs, back, and momentum to yank the weights to make them move on that guided track. Examples include locking your knees under the bar on pull-downs, either pushing forward - or more commonly leaning back to jerk the cable and lean with your back to yank the weight down, not stopping for a second at the arc of the motion (that takes effort and may take proper form). If doing seated cable rows, a common version is bending the knees, and starting all your momentum with your legs as if you where on the rowing machine, and after your legs are extended, leaning back - essentially bypassing your shoulders entirely. You can sit on this thing and move from start to finish without ever bending your elbows.
Another classic is doing the double-cable chest pull, but instead of reaching across your chest to engage your pecs, push straight down. All you think people will notice are your grunts and big weight numbers - not the fact you're pushing straight down which uses completely different muscles.
A recent edition is the abs-praying-pulldown. I just discovered this abs-looking exercise as many people did it. However unlike them, I looked up form on the internet: http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/RectusAbdominis/CBKneelingCrunch.html
Notice the slow motion, pause at the bottom, and pulling elbows to legs. Now look at everyone in the gym - the lean far from the cable, bounce at the top of each rep, bounce off the bottom with no pause (and often the bottom is not a full range of motion), and yank the cable down with elbows towards floor. The amusing fact is many of them are using their back to pull down the cable ropes for this abs exercise.
Don't forget to drop the weights at the end, so they fall the last 2-18", and make a big bang. This will show everyone around how strong you are. Sound = strength.
2. When you get tired, throw in some left-right alternate movements. You see old men do this a lot - particularly on abs exercises.This allows whatever wrong muscles they are using to rest while they do something even more off-target. Perhaps they think there is some imagined audience who will be fooled to thinking they did that weight for that many reps, who doesn't realize that not doing the same thing more times is called "resting."
For instance, jamming your feet under a bar and yanking yourself into leg-pulling "sit ups" will eventually make your quads tired, and maybe even your abs. When this happens, show how strong you are by turning to touch alternate elbows to knees. Not only does this switch muscles, but you can switch from middle to left and right - giving a 1/3 effort to rest ratio. Don't worry, while you can feel the rest happening, everyone in the gym will be fooled into thinking you're so strong you have to do these twists to make the exercise hard.
3. Bicep curl with your back and legs: This never gets old. The top fake-bicep curl cheats are easily: a) no range of motion, b) bounce the bar by pushing the start of the motion with the tops of your legs, c) without moving your arms, lean back to create momentum, and then dive forward and under the bar to give the illusion that you got it to your shoulders with your arms, d) never change the bend of your elbows, instead keeping them firm while your back and legs create momentum to throw the weight up, and e) pause for a long time at the top while looking at your "flexed" biceps in the mirror - because there is actually no effort in standing with the bar resting on your chest this way.
4. Alternate left and right arm, with each resting while the other does 1 rep. This technique is usually used on bicep curls or dumbbell chest press. To improperly execute properly: Alternate. 1. at. a. time, with dumbbells, so that while one arm "works," the other is relaxed and resting. Also feel free to twist as you do each rep, pulling back, legs, and obliques into the exercise. This is generally only an option on bicep curls or chest press, but it has been applied to oddities like the 1-legged seated press, calf raise machine, and even the abductor/adductor machine (which can result in a zero effort movement if you get your range of motion just right).
Note you can do the same thing effectively for an actual workout if while one is moving up, the other is moving down. There are a lot of problems with this, but 50% rest time is not one of them.
Lunges - a lot of folks alternate lunges with each leg. I'm not sure this is wrong, but it does seem to give the alternate leg a chance to rest.
5. Do not do any full range of motion. This is the escape of everyone from people who almost do real weightlifting in the squat rack, to the smith-machine masters. The most common place for this offense, of course, is the leg press. Real men love the leg press because they can load up a ton of weight (some literally) and scream so everyone can see them moving lots of weight. However, most people using the machine don't get their knees near 90%. Bonus round - hyper-extending the knees at the top, aka resting, and make noise and grimace as though you are holding it up at the top with strength.
Conversely, princesses will use the leg press with 20 lbs on it, which is baffling because at that weight, getting out of the chair will take more strength than the work they put into pressing less weight than their body weight - on a lubricated slide. When I see this I just assume they're in rehab and silently with them a speedy recovery.
Sadly a lot of fairly decently strong people do this on free weight squats, though usually not with much weight. I'm sympathetic to the fear of getting low with weight when you're not used to it, but the idea that you have to get at least as low as parallel seems fairly well publicized information, plus it's more common than doing it wrong.
6. No gains. It's an online strength debate club chant, but a fair one: If you're not getting stronger, faster, more flexible - something, anything, then why are you going? Gains are often the distinguishing issue between "working out," where attendance = completion, and "training" where you measure some sort of current status, set a goal, take steps to reach the goal, and start the cycle over. Sure this sounds like a business process - it's kind of an everything process.
So what is going on? Do they Work out to establish and maintain how strong they "are?" Is this why they never think about or ever compete in any formal measured competition? I'm guessing from observation that a lot of people don't want to get stronger, but want to be "strong." Whatever they think strong is, they go to the gym once a week, or month, do the thing they did in HS or at the senior center, and chuckle at how strong they remain. Their motivation does not seem to be fitness or improvement, so I'm grasping at why it is.
I admit I've always liked the idea that I'm next to some guy doing bicep curls doing less weight than they are, but with proper form, and each of us is silently enjoying how they are stronger than the other - win-win! I don't actually do bicep curls, but perhaps the bicep curl lean master thinks my deadlift is doing a bicep curl the wrong way.
I'm sure this post will annoy people and I'll get the usual chorus of "Why does it bother you?" I admit I'm not even strong enough to have my own utube channel. I do not mock or sneer at anyone doing these activities in person - heck I'll spot 'em if asked. I'm genuinely curious what is going on, and frankly frustrated because I'd really rather help them get better - but I hear walking up as unsolicited coach man is rude.
1. Cable pull with your back and legs. There are tons of exercises you can do with cable pulls, and virtually all of them can be done wrong. The consistent sin of all the mistakes is pulling more weight than you can handle; compounding that sin is using your legs, back, and momentum to yank the weights to make them move on that guided track. Examples include locking your knees under the bar on pull-downs, either pushing forward - or more commonly leaning back to jerk the cable and lean with your back to yank the weight down, not stopping for a second at the arc of the motion (that takes effort and may take proper form). If doing seated cable rows, a common version is bending the knees, and starting all your momentum with your legs as if you where on the rowing machine, and after your legs are extended, leaning back - essentially bypassing your shoulders entirely. You can sit on this thing and move from start to finish without ever bending your elbows.
Another classic is doing the double-cable chest pull, but instead of reaching across your chest to engage your pecs, push straight down. All you think people will notice are your grunts and big weight numbers - not the fact you're pushing straight down which uses completely different muscles.
A recent edition is the abs-praying-pulldown. I just discovered this abs-looking exercise as many people did it. However unlike them, I looked up form on the internet: http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/RectusAbdominis/CBKneelingCrunch.html
Notice the slow motion, pause at the bottom, and pulling elbows to legs. Now look at everyone in the gym - the lean far from the cable, bounce at the top of each rep, bounce off the bottom with no pause (and often the bottom is not a full range of motion), and yank the cable down with elbows towards floor. The amusing fact is many of them are using their back to pull down the cable ropes for this abs exercise.
Don't forget to drop the weights at the end, so they fall the last 2-18", and make a big bang. This will show everyone around how strong you are. Sound = strength.
2. When you get tired, throw in some left-right alternate movements. You see old men do this a lot - particularly on abs exercises.This allows whatever wrong muscles they are using to rest while they do something even more off-target. Perhaps they think there is some imagined audience who will be fooled to thinking they did that weight for that many reps, who doesn't realize that not doing the same thing more times is called "resting."
For instance, jamming your feet under a bar and yanking yourself into leg-pulling "sit ups" will eventually make your quads tired, and maybe even your abs. When this happens, show how strong you are by turning to touch alternate elbows to knees. Not only does this switch muscles, but you can switch from middle to left and right - giving a 1/3 effort to rest ratio. Don't worry, while you can feel the rest happening, everyone in the gym will be fooled into thinking you're so strong you have to do these twists to make the exercise hard.
3. Bicep curl with your back and legs: This never gets old. The top fake-bicep curl cheats are easily: a) no range of motion, b) bounce the bar by pushing the start of the motion with the tops of your legs, c) without moving your arms, lean back to create momentum, and then dive forward and under the bar to give the illusion that you got it to your shoulders with your arms, d) never change the bend of your elbows, instead keeping them firm while your back and legs create momentum to throw the weight up, and e) pause for a long time at the top while looking at your "flexed" biceps in the mirror - because there is actually no effort in standing with the bar resting on your chest this way.
4. Alternate left and right arm, with each resting while the other does 1 rep. This technique is usually used on bicep curls or dumbbell chest press. To improperly execute properly: Alternate. 1. at. a. time, with dumbbells, so that while one arm "works," the other is relaxed and resting. Also feel free to twist as you do each rep, pulling back, legs, and obliques into the exercise. This is generally only an option on bicep curls or chest press, but it has been applied to oddities like the 1-legged seated press, calf raise machine, and even the abductor/adductor machine (which can result in a zero effort movement if you get your range of motion just right).
Note you can do the same thing effectively for an actual workout if while one is moving up, the other is moving down. There are a lot of problems with this, but 50% rest time is not one of them.
Lunges - a lot of folks alternate lunges with each leg. I'm not sure this is wrong, but it does seem to give the alternate leg a chance to rest.
5. Do not do any full range of motion. This is the escape of everyone from people who almost do real weightlifting in the squat rack, to the smith-machine masters. The most common place for this offense, of course, is the leg press. Real men love the leg press because they can load up a ton of weight (some literally) and scream so everyone can see them moving lots of weight. However, most people using the machine don't get their knees near 90%. Bonus round - hyper-extending the knees at the top, aka resting, and make noise and grimace as though you are holding it up at the top with strength.
Conversely, princesses will use the leg press with 20 lbs on it, which is baffling because at that weight, getting out of the chair will take more strength than the work they put into pressing less weight than their body weight - on a lubricated slide. When I see this I just assume they're in rehab and silently with them a speedy recovery.
Sadly a lot of fairly decently strong people do this on free weight squats, though usually not with much weight. I'm sympathetic to the fear of getting low with weight when you're not used to it, but the idea that you have to get at least as low as parallel seems fairly well publicized information, plus it's more common than doing it wrong.
6. No gains. It's an online strength debate club chant, but a fair one: If you're not getting stronger, faster, more flexible - something, anything, then why are you going? Gains are often the distinguishing issue between "working out," where attendance = completion, and "training" where you measure some sort of current status, set a goal, take steps to reach the goal, and start the cycle over. Sure this sounds like a business process - it's kind of an everything process.
So what is going on? Do they Work out to establish and maintain how strong they "are?" Is this why they never think about or ever compete in any formal measured competition? I'm guessing from observation that a lot of people don't want to get stronger, but want to be "strong." Whatever they think strong is, they go to the gym once a week, or month, do the thing they did in HS or at the senior center, and chuckle at how strong they remain. Their motivation does not seem to be fitness or improvement, so I'm grasping at why it is.
I admit I've always liked the idea that I'm next to some guy doing bicep curls doing less weight than they are, but with proper form, and each of us is silently enjoying how they are stronger than the other - win-win! I don't actually do bicep curls, but perhaps the bicep curl lean master thinks my deadlift is doing a bicep curl the wrong way.
I'm sure this post will annoy people and I'll get the usual chorus of "Why does it bother you?" I admit I'm not even strong enough to have my own utube channel. I do not mock or sneer at anyone doing these activities in person - heck I'll spot 'em if asked. I'm genuinely curious what is going on, and frankly frustrated because I'd really rather help them get better - but I hear walking up as unsolicited coach man is rude.
