Joined a new gym last night. Hilarious

[WildPegasus]

I regularly see this guy at my gym who wanders around doing nothing other than various presses and curls with a five pound plate in each hand. I have yet to see him do anything else and this goes on for at least half an hour each day. Maybe he's doing Crossfit: Parade.

[Bart Hakvoort]

Guy doing RDLs... standing on blocks... in the only power rack. So many questions...

On the plus side: my gym got a power rack, yay! Only one I've ever seen in a commercial gym. For a commercial gym, my gym is pretty cool. Lots of young people, on average pretty strong.
Last time there was an olympic paul vaulter doing hang power snatches (I'm no expert, but I guess that's what they're called) with 135. EVERY head in the gym was turned.

[Dastardly]

You need to take the weight out of a rack to get the most out of RDL's

[Bart Hakvoort]

You need to take the weight out of a rack to get the most out of RDL's

That's the weird thing: he was picking it up from the ground (while standing on blocks!) inside the power rack... I thought he was going to do deficit deadlifts, but proceeded to do RDLs.

[bob g]

....
On the plus side: my gym got a power rack, yay! Only one if ever seen in a commercial gym. For a commercial gym, my gym is pretty cool. Lots of young people, on average pretty strong.
Last time there was an olympic paul vaulter doing hang power snatches (I'm no expert, but I guess that's what they're called) with 135. EVERY head in the gym was turned.

Yeah, trim looking elite athletes can be surprisingly strong. Check out the lifts of world class decathletes.

[t0rment]

You need to take the weight out of a rack to get the most out of RDL's

Wut?

[Noema]

Taught a kid how to do Squats and RDLs yesterday. He actually came up to me and asked me to teach him.

He'd been doing quarter squats with 135lb with really bad form (rounded back, knees caving in, feet really close together). I gave him some cues to help him keep lumbar extension and after some practice sets with the bar he was doing some solid reps. He tried 135lb going below parallel and got pinned under the bar in the first rep, so he ended up doing 3x5 with 95lb with good form.

He looks like he's disciplined and dedicated. He even carries a paper notebook around and records all his lifts. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. It's refreshing to see someone who actually wants to learn. One time I politely pointed out to one dude that his deadlift form wasn't optimal (rounded back, unlocking the knees way to early on the way down and hitting them with the bar on every rep, etc) and he basically told me to go fuck myself.

The kid I helped yesterday is doing a gimmicky program that promises the moon and the stars with that annoying used car salesman, ebook prose kind of pitch, and I think he'd be much better served by doing a simple novice Linear Progression like Starting Strength or Greyskull Linear Progression, but I don't want to go all evangelist on him.

[Dastardly]

Wut?

I meant you lift it off the hooks on a rack of some sort, so you get to start the lift from the top with no residual fatigue from deadlifting it from the floor.

[t0rment]

I meant you lift it off the hooks on a rack of some sort, so you get to start the lift from the top with no residual fatigue from deadlifting it from the floor.

I know what you meant. Still dumb. RDL weight will not be that heavy relative to DL weight. If you're fatigued lifting 50-70% of your max for one rep, I don't know what to tell you.

[Dastardly]

I know what you meant. Still dumb. RDL weight will not be that heavy relative to DL weight. If you're fatigued lifting 50-70% of your max for one rep, I don't know what to tell you.

Typically, a person can lift more with a RDL than a conventional deadlift. If not more weight, then much more reps.