Well, like Neurotik, i’ve never heard of anyone taking just 15 seconds between sets.
I clearly have made one of the basic mistakes of the SDMB. People come to the BBQ Pit to bitch and snarl, not to speak of civility and getting along with people. I lost track of that central fact. Please disregard my posts in this thread, and go back to your vituperance.
I’d apologize, but it just wouldn’t fit in the Pit.
In other words, you’re wrong, you refuse to admit it and are backing off. Neither mhendo, jimpatro nor I were rude to you in any way. Nobody called you names or insulted you that I can see. None of us was anything except civil to you.
Me either - and my personal trainer is a competitive body builder. She always had me wait 45 seconds to a full minute between reps.
Darn no-editing policy.
We always let someone else work in if they needed to, as well - which has happened exactly once since I started at the gym.
I really only got snarky after the smartass Skybox remark.
I am totally with you when it comes to those who are hunched over, practically laying on the bars and lifting half their body weight up onto their arms. It’s especially annoying when they’ve got the level cranked up to 10mph or something (NO sweetie, you’re not doing 10mph, half of you is, the other half is laying on the equipment’s bars).
But anyway, I don’t get how just hanging onto the front bar, that is, while standing up straight and just holding on, (I am another one that needs to do that, shattered tibia and plates and bolts inserted about two years ago), decreases how hard a person is working out.
I get into the TUZ (throw up zone, sweating, hacking up a lung, puffing like a freight train, turning beet red) just fine even when I am holding on to the front bar.
I tend not to use the treadmill, but prefer the elliptical or stairmaster, those you can use your fingertips to keep your balance on the side rails, for some reason, it’s too awkward and uncomfortable to do that with treadmills.
Rule #1: THE GYM IS FOR WORKING OUT.
You wanna pick people up? Go to a bar. Eat? Restaurant/cafe/deli. Lounge in the pool? Go to the beach/actual swimming pool complex.
I understand that when you see an attractive person at the gym, you might want to get to know them better. Good for you. It annoys me and I wouldn’t ever respond positively to someone trying to pick me up there, but if you must, do it in the foyer/locker room (if they’re of the same sex)/whatever. Not on the machines. Not standing in front of the eliptical trainer I want to use. You want to take a nice relaxing soak in the pool? Hey, me too. I do after I leave, at a rec centre pool, the kind with waterslides and kiddie pools, not in the tiny three lane one at the gym that people need for swimming lengths. You want to eat? Eat before hand, or afterwards, not wandering through the gym chowing down on an apple.
Oh, and not everyone is comfortable with public nudity, so I understand changing into your clothes in the shower stall. I will not, however, stand for doing your makeup and hair in the shower stall. What, people can’t see you apply foundation, mascara, or hair gel? Get over it!
Naked is fine to a point, but walking around with the towel slung over your shoulder like a praetor isn’t a good time. You try not to look, really you do, but you wind up seeing things you don’t want to.* Wrap it up and cut back on the amount of time everyone is exposed to that.
Are women the same way? Is it kosher to walk around the women’s locker room with the gals hanging out?
Old man balls. WTF? Why does gravity work so much in one area of the package, but not the other? And for the love of Og, trim. You don’t have to clear-cut the area, but when it gets difficult to separate dick from bush* its’ a distrubing image.
**Insert joke here.
I understand your point, and I don’t disagree, but that is one thing I liked about the last gym I joined before my current one.
Upstairs were the shiny chrome dumbbells and elliptical trainers and Nautilus machines.
Downstairs were the power racks and splintery plywood deadlift pit and blocks of chalk everywhere.
Upstairs was Spandex and “I just want to do a little toning”. Downstairs was Serious Iron. And never the twain shall meet, as is right and proper.
Of course, downstairs was also that 285 lb. monster squatting with blood running out from under his gym shorts from his Dianabol injection site, too. They used to shoot up in the locker room.
Regards,
Shodan
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Norski (and European in general) tradition is to go into the sauna naked (and freshly showered), you then jump into the lake naked also (and since you showered before entering the sauna, you’re as clean as can be, even if you are sweaty).
Also, almost all saunas are mixed. That means men and women of all ages and sizes nekkid together. Sometimes I just don’t understand the American hangups about nakedness.
I was staying at a very nice hotel in Paris on a business trip once, and one of the American guests actually entered the sauna wearing those big baggy swim trunks and reeking of old sweat. All the European guests just gave him the evil eye until he finally left.
Between REPS?
Man, I wouldn’t want to be stuck behind you.
-High-school boys who come into the gym and lift with poor form in hopes of building up some muscle before football season will have to attend remedial orientation.
-The same boys who look at me confusedly as I hand them a spray bottle and paper towel to wipe down their equipment, and then refuse to do so, will have to do bench presses while laying on the shower-room floor.
-The same boys who then refer to me as “old man” will have a York ‘45’ shoved into his yap.
At least I know you know what I meant. Sets, reps, what’s the difference?
You aren’t alone on that particular subject.
It’s less about nudity than it is about having some strangers ass in your face under the crowded conditions of a locker room or sauna.
I was watching a TV show a little while back. I think it was on HBO-Z. It was part of a series about unusual behaviour or something, and this particular episode looked at nudist communities in the United States.
One of the nudists theorized, quite reasonably it seemed to me, that most Americans cannot separate the issue of nakedness from the issue of sex. Nakedness, for many Americans, directly implies sex and sexuality. Not only does this make nudity uncomfortable for most Americans, but the connection of nudity with sex means that any situation where adults and children come together to be naked also carries with it an awful hint of pedophilia.
The person being interviewed said that she had heard, on frequent occasion, Americans announcing their opposition to nudism on the grounds that it would lead to the early sexualization and/or the sexual exploitation of children.
But ya know, I like that nudity is a rare thing. Who wants it all over the place. It’s great when there’s just a hint of skin. And then when you finally get behind closed doors, it’s more special because you feel privaleged and it’s what you’ve been waiting for all day. YMMV.
mhendo, that’s very true. When a naked woman presents herself, my natural thought process is “Would I like to tangle with her, or would I not like to tangle with her.” American male.
I’m wondering what the major point is here. Being nude around others. Or seeing others nude.