Seriously, dude… You need to learn to ignore them, or else put them on your ‘ban’ list. Either one works…
Thank you for your responses to my informal survey. The (self-reported) emotional maturity of those who responded is even higher than I expected.
And extra kudos to those who went a step further and demonstrated their lack of irrational feelings by volunteering snark and/or personal attacks into the discussion.
Well, it IS a bit of a step up from his usual ‘I do not’ yadda, yadda…
We’ll take what we get.
It doesn’t annoy me, but I do get concerned for people who have poor form when doing any exercise. I often see these people with shoulders hunched, leaning right forward, wrists at an awkward angle. I can only imagine what that must feel like the next day, it’s a recipe for injury. I feel the same when I see someone lifting without proper spine alignment (happens a lot if people are lifting way too heavy).
However, it’s not my place to say anything (when I taught spin and had a presence in the gym I would, but I’m not teaching any more). If anything, I might point it out to one of the gym staff.
Never offer advice unless you’re asked (or they’re about to injure you).
Fun at parties, he is not.
Given that I might be one of the people holding on the rails on the stair machine, no, it doesn’t bother if other people do it. And, unless you say something, and nobody ever does, it doesn’t bother me that it bothers anyone else. If I am on the stair master, I am reading anyway and I don’t notice any glares, if such there are.
And the various personal trainers offering unasked advice on how I should be bench pressing on a Bosu ball, or doing my curls on one leg, or whatever, have learned to stay away from the corner where I and the other gym rats are training. You wanna work in? Fine. Need a spot? Cool. Try to tell me not to use a straight bar doing my curls, or how the machine pullover is better than a dumbbell? Not so much.
No, I’m not going to hire you for personalized sessions. Go away, I’m lifting.
Regards,
Shodan
…but…but…huh? I’ve seen machines like this at the gym, where it’s an elliptical without the arm moving thingers. They purposefully make ellipticals without the moving arms, which obviously means it doesn’t defeat the purpose of using an elliptical.
I’ve gone the same gym for years and for years there has been this one woman who uses the treadmill in what I think is a crazy manner. She supports ALL of her weight on her arms and her feet just go like mad, barely touching the ground. She ‘runs’ far faster than anyone else there and makes quite a racket at it. No, I’ve never said anything but I do think she hogs the equipment. If she actually tried using the machine for what it was designed and bought for maybe she wouldn’t not need it for so long.
I’ve had plenty of the folks Shoden mentions approach me to critique my curl posture or the depth of my squats, and God forbid I don’t fully sanitize every single surface my disgusting body touches, so why can’t they tell the woman on the treadmill that fluttering your feet in the air while the machine runs isn’t the best use of that equipment?
Maybe they have and she told them to STFU and MYOB, just like you could have said.
My experience exercising (yoga) in front of people has really taught me to avoid assuming you know what’s best for someone else. I’m a fairly young, fittish-looking person who just happens to need a lot of props (including the wall) to do the stuff that everyone else can do unsupported. I am sure that I could get my heart pumping harder if I didn’t use my props. But I’d also increase the likelihood of hurting myself because the props compensate for my balance issues, which are not readily apparent just looking at me. I don’t do yoga for the cardio anyway. I do it for strength and flexibility and the psychological benefits of moving my limbs around.
Maybe the treadmill woman is lazy. Or maybe she has issues with her feet or knees that compel her to avoid putting a lot of weight on them. Maybe she’s a klutz and holding on to the rails keeps her from flying off the treadmill. I don’t know. And neither do you.
If true, said woman has some crazy upper body strength. Try holding yourself on the parallel bars like that for more than five minutes.
Fun anywhere, he is not. Yoda yacks when name mentioned, his is. Ban, or ban not. There is no ‘try’.
I’m a gym rat, and I notice plenty of things that people are doing wrong. With the example in the OP specifically, it’s something I notice, mostly because it looks uncomfortable when I see it, but it doesn’t really bother me. I used to try to be helpful and correct people doing things wrong, but sadly, more often than not, people would take offense at it. These days, I’ll only correct someone if I believe injury or damage to the machine is imminent. Instead, I get approached often with questions about my routine, various exercises, or form, and I’m happy to help; afterall, people who approach me are much more likely to be open to my suggestions.
That said, I see this sort of stuff all the time, and while some of is pretty bad, like the guy doing pulldowns by swinging his whole upperbody, or the guy bench pressing by arching his back with his feet on the bench so he only has to move the bar three inches, I’m generally not annoyed unless they’re doing it wrong AND it’s a piece of equipment I’m waiting for. For instance, earlier this week, I intended to do squats, someone jumped on the squat rack right when I was about 10’ away and proceeded to do shoulder presses with 65 lbs with horrible form. That he felt he needed a squat rack to do it is really what initially annoyed me, so his horrible form just made it worse. Either way, I’m at the gym to relieve stress, not make it worse, so I was able to do another exercise for a bit and get on another rack after about 5-10 minutes. It’s just not worth being more than momentarily annoyed at the gym.
So, by the same token, I guess I could see being a bit annoyed if there’s only a few stair masters and I were waiting for one, and someone is obviously cheating, but there’s probably other usable cardio equipment.
Ultimately, when you get down to it, people do a lot of cheating when it comes to their workouts and diets and anything related to health. For everyone person supporting their weight on the treadmill or stair master or doing bad form while weight training, there’s someone else who does ridiculously light weight, or someone who spends a lot of time chatting or posing or reading or talking on the phone, or the person walking 1 mph on the treadmill for an hour or whatever. I can’t be bothered to be annoyed by it because, frankly, pretty much everyone I see at the gym cheats at something they do there somehow.