Warning: 90% of this will be me complaining. For those who don't give a shit about me and my Manhattan Gym Problems, skip to the bottom:
Horrible day today. I was all out of sorts. First day at the new gym, which was nice because I didn't have to carry my clothes, belt, shoes, chalk, and microplates with me to the subway, down the stairs, back up the stairs, and to the gym. For the first time in forever. Literally.
But despite the place billing itself as NYC's most hardcore gym, this just means they have at least two machines to work every bodypart. It's a BB gym. Huge, beautiful space with exposed brick and 30' high ceilings used for...about 100 selectorized and plate loaded machines. There are two angled squat racks and one power rack stuffed into the corner, where there's about 3 inches of space between the end of one bar and the beginning of the next, and the ceiling is only about 8' tall. Fuck me. Also shit bars, of course. They do have 4 (that I saw) round 45lb iron plates, but the rest hex plates. And some plates are inaccessible because everything is so close together that you can't get to it without moving several other pieces of heavy equipment.
Also, the power rack doesn't have safety bars low enough to rack pull from. One of the angles squat racks has spotter arms that do go to approx the right position for rack pulls (maybe 1/2 an inch to an inch too high, but do-able). But that rack's spotter arms' highest position is too low for actual use while squatting. So if you want to squat and be able to fail, you have to use the power rack. And press in there, too, because there's a light fixture over the squat rack with spotter arms, so can't press there. So you have to squat and press in the power rack, then move over to the angled squat rack with spotter arms for rack pulls. And hope everything is available when you need it. Which it wasn't today as you'll see.
Except one problem. When I get there - and this is 2pm, mind you, the least busy time in any gym's day - there's a guy curling in the power rack. No I'm not shitting you. He's curling 55lbs and taking up the only power rack to do so. I figure he won't be long so I start warming up on a squat rack. He proceeds to do 55, 65, 75, 85, 95, and 105 lb curls, all waiting about 3 minutes between sets. Then shrugs with 115 for several sets. He was in there for about 40 minutes, not counting any time before I got there.
So I ended up doing my first two sets on the squat rack with no option for failure. Not usually a problem on volume day, but it's nice to have them there just in case.
Something felt very off on the first set. 3 reps in I realized I forgot my belt. Fuck me. twice. Because I usually pack a big backpack full of all my stuff, and today I didn't do that because this new gym is close. The change from my usual routine threw me off and I forgot to bring my belt. No wonder the first set was so hard.
I live very close by, so went home, got belt, came back. Next set sucked too. I felt like my right lumbar erectors were just screaming. Haven't had that happen in a long time. I checked the bar, and besides for being a cheap ass shitty bar, also realized I had loaded one side in correctly. Instead of 390, I had an extra 5 on the right side and had done 395 - unbalanced - for the first two sets of 5. Fuck me again. Twice.
By this time the dude left the rack (asshole), so I moved everything over there since I felt so shitty and was actually worried I might need the spotter arms. Unloaded my bar, moved over to the power rack, loaded it back up (correctly) to 390 for two more sets of 5.
Then, for the first time I can remember, I voluntarily chose to forgo a work set. Today was just a shit day and that 5th set wasn't in the books. In that god damn cramped little corner of what could be the absolutely most beautiful gym in Manhattan. Dammit.
Press went ok. Moved back over to the spotter armed squat rack for rack pulls. Went a little light since first time doing them in almost 3 months, but went ok.
I don't know if I can stay at this gym. It's really pretty horrible. I pre-paid for 6 months but have 3 days to cancel. I might. Even though I just spent $700 on equipment from Rogue (which hasn't yet arrived) so I could at least use a decent bar and have some bumpers for cleans there. But it's such a horrible area to lift in. There's barely space for deadlifts or cleans anyway. God dammit!!!
Forgot to add that the gym storage closet is back there by the rack. So about 20 separate times, gym maintenance staff had to walk back and forth through the extremely narrow space of the little area where the racks are, which they also crammed with a few selectorized pieces. They would do this while I was in the middle of a set, coming very close to me. Several times, they clanged into my equipment while walking by carrying pr pushing some rolling stuff. None of these times was I actually in the middle of a set, or someone might have gotten killed. So ya. Fuck me.
Actual lifts:
Squat
warm up to 395x5x2 (unevenly loaded by mistake), 390x5x2
Notes: Right erectors fatigued and screaming
Press
Warm up to 196.75x5x3 - PR
Notes: Not sure how meaningful this PR is since bar and all plates are different than before, so no idea on actual weight. But never done more than 195 for 3 sets of 5 before.
Rack Pulls
225x4, 365x2, 405x1, 495x1, 525x5
Notes: A little harder than I expected, in the hamstrings no less. No problem with the rogue erector, which is what I was worried about.
I feel very shitty and unaccomplished right now, and worried about if I can make it work at this place to hit a 550 (575 stretch) squat and 630 (650 stretch) deadlift this year.
I won't even tell you how much horrible training - among the regular members, and the "personal trainers" that I saw during my time there. It was absolutely brutal. Funny thing is how many people actually squatted, but how few even went halfway down.
God. Dammit.