Joined a new gym last night. Hilarious

[Rick Harlan]

"Here’s what I mean by heavy versus light weights, by the way. Five and eight pounds are light weights, then up to 12 pounds is medium, and 15 and above is heavy."

The guy recommended that he lift no more than 10 pounds.

Where do people (especially experts) get numbers like these? Ten and 15 pounds barely amount to carrying in the groceries. Never mind that 13 year-olds used to (still do) throw around 50-100 pound hay bales on the farm.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Where do people (especially experts) get numbers like these? Ten and 15 pounds barely amount to carrying in the groceries. Never mind that 13 year-olds used to (still do) throw around 50-100 pound hay bales on the farm.

Not sure where the numbers come from, but in the 80's the boxes that used to hold two stacks of reams of paper for copiers and printers got cut in half to one stack by the mid 90's. So the experts are revising demands downward. Water cooler bottles are probably next.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Never mind that 13 year-olds used to (still do) throw around 50-100 pound hay bales on the farm.

I was one of those kids. Except I was a bigger than usual kid at 5'8" 160 lbs. and started at 12.

[Brodie Butland]

Not really a gym story: My son is 13, but still sees the same doctor from when he was a baby. He had a doctor's visit, and when the guy (who claims to be a former wrestler) commented on how strong he looked, my wife mentioned that my son is lifting weights (he's less than 10 workouts into SS). The guy recommended that he lift no more than 10 pounds. He's at about 0.6, 1.1, and 1.5 times his body weight on the press, squat, and DL with a huge upside, so he told me that he just agreed and smiled inside.

"But you'll HURT your GROWTH PLATES!"

[said in the "you'll shoot your eye out" tone from A Christmas Story]

[Greg Ruhl]

I was one of those kids. Except I was a bigger than usual kid at 5'8" 160 lbs. and started at 12.

I remember bringing in and splitting (maul and wedge) a few cords of oak for each winter...

[tan125]

Saw a guy this morning doing 85-lb upright rows ... with straps.

[Budgie Smuggler]

There are guys at my gym that wear straps on their circuit of every machine, not once wrapping them around the handles.

[Bartman]

This and all the guys who wear tapered belts for their entire circuit around the gym machines.

[Calvin]

Not really a gym story: My son is 13, but still sees the same doctor from when he was a baby. He had a doctor's visit, and when the guy (who claims to be a former wrestler) commented on how strong he looked, my wife mentioned that my son is lifting weights (he's less than 10 workouts into SS). The guy recommended that he lift no more than 10 pounds. He's at about 0.6, 1.1, and 1.5 times his body weight on the press, squat, and DL with a huge upside, so he told me that he just agreed and smiled inside.

I went to the same doctor from birth till grad school. I remember asking him when I should get a new doctor. “When you want to or you leave town” he said. It was funny going in at 20 for immunizations before an international trip. I didn’t take a lollipop. He was a great guy.

[Bill Been]

Thursday I squatted with the worst bar in the worst rack I've ever squatted in, but I got another taste of what you poor bastards go through in commercial gyms. Trainer Guy had a new female client and put her through an awesome circuit of incline barbell press with him working her elbows for her, inverted Bosu ball planks with him poking the thing to make it wobble, the worst kettlebell swings I've ever seen which were weirdly heavy for Day 1 at 25lbs. She kept complaining that it was hurting her shoulders but he was undaunted. Friday the same Trainer Guy had a young male in there doing a similar circuit on his Day 1 and I'm pretty sure the kid had a hypoglycemic episode. He fell out some sort of way and I overheard them say he got better with some food. The rest was unremarkable except for the infatuation with seated pressing. Big Bro set up a near-vertical bench in the squat rack with the safeties at forehead height and pressed from there. At one point he had 135 on the bar, but I never actually saw him move that and I'm pretty sure he failed and de-loaded it to 115. The next day, Old Bro did seated partial ROM presses with "135" in the Smith Machine to about 4" above his head. The noise was impressive, although once he noticed I was pressing 155 for sets of 5 he sorta dialed back the histrionics. The final head scratcher was Athletic Bro who looked like an athlete and who I overheard say to Old Bro that "I have a rugby match tomorrow". He looked the part, and maybe the 185 bench to 5" above his chest for triples was part of light day, and dragging a pair of heavy DBs out to the (ubiquitous) incline bench and not really doing anything with them was also programmed.