Originally Posted by
Kyle Aaron
Sounds like a fair assumption, Carlos. But there's a difference between their not knowing a lift and letting you do it, and their not knowing a lift and stopping you from doing it.
I mean, at my gym, nobody else gets people squatting so low, not even the manager who's done Olympic lifts. And nobody prescribes deadlifts. But nobody interferes when I coach people to do it.
This is in contrast to my previous gym where a co-worker complained I was giving people deep squats, and I was called into the office by the manager to discuss it. He told me "industry standard" was just above parallel.
I asked, "where is this industry standard written down? I want to make sure I follow it for other lifts, too."
He got a bit pissed off. "It's just understood, ask anyone."
"My instructor at PT school told us below parallel."
"That's just one instructor."
"He was an osteopath."
"Well the industry standard is different."
"Hmmm."
"With your PT clients do what you want, but with general gym member it's different."
"What if they've been training for months and gradually increased strength and mobility?"
"That's okay then."
"Alright I will continue to use my judgment then."
"Okay."
In other words, some fuckstick had complained, he had to be seen to be responding to this complaint, and I could continue doing whatever I reckoned was right.
We had a kid come for his practical placement part of his PT course. He said, "Kyle, I see you always stress the importance of good form, but trainer X doesn't, he has people rocking all over the place during lat pulldowns, half-squats and so on. Why the difference?"
I had to be tactful. "I'll tell you why I train people as I do, to know why X trains people as he does, ask X."
Unfortunately there is no gym paradise, every place has its issues. Rip's gym is, by all accounts, very serious and professional, and has got 50 members. I don't think that's putting chilli and beer on his dinner table.