You also notice people will cheat on just about every machine and routine, be it through improper form, or otherwise. I just keep in mind, that many people aren’t exactly conscious of what they’re doing, in the moment.
It’s part of why trainers and mirrors exists, because it’s hard to really gauge, plus your body has a natural tendency to redistribute the effort in some way. Resisting that is what leads to most results, but again, you have to mentally and actively discipline yourself to do so, which is more tricky without some aid.
That said, unless there is threat of injury, they’re still doing work, so it is what it is.
At my old gym they had a lengthy sign hanging near the ellipticals. It said something like:
“Using the elliptical without using your hands utterly defeats the purpose of the elliptical…blah blah blah…please use the arm-pumping dealies when using the elliptical…if you don’t want to use your arms, use the stairmaster instead.”
So somebody working at the gym was really annoyed by this. But a sign like this is so obnoxious that it made me want to keep my arms dangling just to spite them. Besides, there are reasons not to- like when I had tendonitis in my wrist. Or if I just didnt feel like it.
At some places, I do see people occupy machines, which aren’t dedicated to the task they are doing. If a person is waiting to actually do the correct exercise on that machine, it can get annoying. I’m guessing it was enough of an issue at this gym, that people complained about it and the staff posted the sign.
Yep, this is the most common gripe I see, like people in the squat rack doing curls or other exercises that don’t require the racks. People tweaking their workouts to suit themselves, as the OP posted, is really only their business. In fact, this attitude is another common gripe I’ve seen about gyms - some busybody trying to “coach” everyone else. I recently listened to a friend’s half-hour rant about someone at his gym telling him he was breathing wrong - he’s a personal trainer with various certifications and has won his class in bodybuilding competitions.
But there may be muscle groups that get their best workout when you lift really large amounts of weight the distance that you see this person doing, those halfway-distance hoists. Or an OK workout while sparing certain joints the wear and tear that come from the effort to extend when fully collapsed.
I dunno about bench pressing per se but I use the leg press in the fashion that you describe; I have a knee joint that really hates me when I try to use the leg press and let the plate come down past the safety catch thingies (the ones you’re supposed to pull aside once you’ve started doing leg presses, I guess). I’d rather pile on more weight and just take it up from the starting point to full extension. I know it’s less work and I’m well aware that I could not shove the same amount of weight if I let it get a lot closer to me first.
If anyone asks or comments I say I am doing an exercise called “spotting”, not “lifting”.
Sure, plenty of people in the gym “doing it wrong”. Who gives a fuck. (Besides the OP.)
I look for people doing something new and doing it well. It doesn’t happen very often but it makes my day when I find a new way to challenge my body and change up my routine.
I was confused—for a long time I thought you meant they were wearing arm weights while climbing the stairs, or something, and I couldn’t figure out why that would be cheating.
This is being dramatic. Reasonable, means acknowledging when you’re not doing something correctly, and using a machine best dedicated to the task you’re performing. It has less to do with who has order of priority, and more to do with proper etiquette and conduct when there are limited machines.
Some people genuinely don’t understand how to use machines, and so they’re oblivious to what they’re doing, until someone informs them. The other day some guy was waiting on me to finish using the calf extension machine, after which, he started doing leg presses. The actual leg press was available. He was effectively tying up someone else from using the machine, for a task better served, elsewhere.
If you’re running a gym, have invested in specific machines, and have legitimate complaints about the above, I can understand why you’d do something about it.
That’s not the argument. It’s that people are taking up the one machine available for a certain type of exercise when there are other machines available to do the exercise they want to do. It’s not a matter of them doing it right or wrong - it’s a way to maximize the use of limited machinery.
This applies more to weight machines that it does to cardio machines.
In the case of the ellipticals, there are two components- the arm-swishing part and the legs part. Somebody was enough of a busybody to write a long, obnoxious sign complaining about people who are using only the leg part and not the arm part. The sign suggested to use the stairmaster if you’re not swinging your arms, but a stairmaster and an elliptical aren’t really the same exercise. If, for whatever reason, you don’t want to use the arm part and there’s no comparable machine, why should you be banned from the machine just because someone’s annoyed that you’re doing it wrong?
Personally, I wouldn’t care so much, as I agree, it’s not as big an issue on cardio machines. However, I do get the logic and general principle of directing people to dedicated machines. There are exceptions (such as if you can’t do impact exercises, in your example), but they should be rare(er) cases, as opposed to repeated habits which warrant attention and action.
In the gyms I’ve been to, they wouldn’t care, as they tend to carry enough cardio machines. Ultimately, I see this differently than the OP, where a person can be on the correct machine, but side-stepping some of the effort. In that scenario, you only ever “cheat” yourself, so… shoulder shrug
I only worry about people using equipment in the gym incorrectly when they are doing something that could get themselves hurt. For example using a stationary bike with the seat way too low or mashing the pedals instead of spinning them. I might, just might, mention something to them.
And if you point that out politely, and they have the adult good sense to respond politely, you may discover that they didn’t know, and you have fought ignorance like a good Doper, and all is well.
Or that they have some biomechanical limitation that makes the way they’re using the equipment non-optional for them, even if sub-optimal. (I think of people with ranges of motion limited by arthritis, for instance.)
But if you snarl because the incompetent is wasting a perfectly good machine that you could make better use of*, you probably won’t have any positive outcome.
Yeah, that isn’t the scenario you outlined. It’s one of the earlier ones in the thread.