Do you haz manly grunts?

[Dastardly]

This is about aggression under the bar.


I train without a group, in usually quiet small gyms (other than people having conversations), where I am usually the only person lifting to my limit - not because I am using ridiculous form either but because I am actually pushing the limits of my strength each and every session.

No one does progressive loading.

When weights get hard it takes me longer & longer to get fired up for the lift. I get scared of it in all the quietness. I think it would help a lot to explode with animalistic fury & grunting. It would most definetely supercharge workouts and overcome sticking points.

But I would look like a total fool and weird everyone out, especially as im lifting weights on bench & presses that are like half of what other people can do for reps. Id look like such a freak screaming for a 66lb press.

Ive seen a few of the 70's big videos recently of justin & crew at Wichita. The enviroment & people there just seems so incredibly awesome. Everyone so fired up and focused on the same goals.

I am just mad jealous and wish I had somewhere like that to train. Id never leave the place.

[milesdyson]

I train alone in a globo gym and don't need to make sounds to get ready to lift. Any time I'm going to do something I know will be very hard, my heartrate increases and I get an adrenaline rush. Sometimes I think of gym idiots to get a little anger going inside, like guys who refuse to rerack their plates or think it's tough to quarter squat 4 plates.

[Sgsolberg]

I don't grunt too much, but my breathing does get very heavy. Grunting is certainly acceptable on the last rep of a heavy set.

[sfhoser]

As a life long weakling, having a Garage Gym has helped overcome that. At the globo gym I felt like an idiot trying to be aggressive on a lift that was so obviously light to most people there Crossfit helped at times with learning intensity but still it can be hard to get all animalistic about a lift when still its a feather weight in comparison to the other people there - especially when a girl is out lifting you

So doing Starting Strenght and able to expel grunts/groans/obsenities helps a ton.

But if your gym is quiet and no one really there, just go for it. Scream and see what they do never know maybe they will follow suit.

[Tom Campitelli]

There's nothing wrong with grunting. When the weight is heavy, sometimes grunts occur. Don't worry too much about what others think. There's no need to be obnoxious, but gyms are places where hard work is supposed to be done.

[MikeMc59]

I grunt when i squat heavy.. started to just come out around 300 lbs on the bar.. just part of the lift for me, its totally non intentional.. Who gives a fuck anyway?

[blowdpanis]

This is about aggression under the bar.


I train without a group, in usually quiet small gyms (other than people having conversations), where I am usually the only person lifting to my limit - not because I am using ridiculous form either but because I am actually pushing the limits of my strength each and every session.

No one does progressive loading.

When weights get hard it takes me longer & longer to get fired up for the lift. I get scared of it in all the quietness. I think it would help a lot to explode with animalistic fury & grunting. It would most definetely supercharge workouts and overcome sticking points.

But I would look like a total fool and weird everyone out, especially as im lifting weights on bench & presses that are like half of what other people can do for reps. Id look like such a freak screaming for a 66lb press.

Ive seen a few of the 70's big videos recently of justin & crew at Wichita. The enviroment & people there just seems so incredibly awesome. Everyone so fired up and focused on the same goals.

I am just mad jealous and wish I had somewhere like that to train. Id never leave the place.

People really dislike strong outpouring of emotion.

As a funny story related to this, I recently posted one of AC's videos in a health & fitness forum I moderate on a site less friendly to this sort of thing, and the general response was overwhelmingly negative, suggesting that the grunting/yelling was indicative of being an attention whore and so forth. For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, people (perhaps dudes) are extremely uncomfortable with seeing an authentic outpouring of emotion from other dudes, even in the context of lifting. They seem to assume the very worst, and I am guessing this mindset is what makes places like Planet Fitness or whatever possible.

While I'm a pretty quiet lifter, I'm still inspired by people that passionate about their lifting, and would love to lift in a gym where people wouldn't be weirded out if I happened to yell out after hitting a big PR.

[kreszentia]

I yell fuck on every rep of the last working set of squats.

I work out in my basement.

I can't imagine not being able to yell fuck. It's good for a 10% increase in power.

[theuofh]

Occasionally, I'll grunt and its usually a mental thing, like I think the rep will be harder than it end up being. It will be at like rep 3 or 4 then I'll realize the weight went up and I got another couple in me, which I am then quiet for.

Sometimes I'll do it if there is an attractive girl lifting close to me, just so I can get here attention and let her know I am the f---ing man.

Just kidding on the last one.

[George Noble]

Sometimes when I need to get psyched up. What an earlier poster said about emotions is very interesting because I am much less comfortable about it around people I don't know. Anyway, I never yell under the bar. Hold your air.