New today on PJ Media: Wasting Time in the Gym

[Mark Rippetoe]

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2014/10...me-in-the-gym/

[Joe Murphy]

The picture of that log cracked me up.

[meetch]

I hear a few Supple Leopards growling in the faint distance...

[Mark Rippetoe]

One is commenting on FB now.

[meetch]

Rip, you should have added a fourth to really chap their asses: Pointing toes forward at any point while in the gym.

[deeprooted]

Rip, you should have added a fourth to really chap their asses: Pointing toes forward at any point while in the gym.

I find it helps in the press actually because as you push your hips forward your balance shifts towards the toes. I think it allows me to keep my balance better and bounce back harder.

[dpg]

Personally, I've found that lifting weights w/o adequate warmup and stretching is a recipe for injury. You don't need to be a supple leopard, but you should at least do a few basic stretches to loosen up your hip and shoulder joints. Between warmup sets of the exercise you're doing that day would be a good time, and a little more when you're finished. If you're over 40 and can lift injury-free w/o dong this, you're very lucky.

[David Lee]

First of all, you left the curls off the log.

Second of all, this flies in the face of the clearly brilliant trainers at the gym who have everyone do a 30 minute warm-up and 20 minutes of stretching before the requisite immeasurable sets of curls, and quarter-rep bench presses.

With a little more warm-up and stretching, they could probably get those quarter-reps up to half-reps in a few months.

[dmworking]

...but you should at least do a few basic stretches to loosen up your hip and shoulder joints.

...and why, exactly? Since one of the main points of the article spells out, y'know, NOT doing that?

[Boomka]

I hear a few Supple Leopards growling in the faint distance...

You almost always see leopards doing mobility work before their hunts. Some even pay folks good money to learn how to fire all their muscles when doing compound movements. It's amazing they made it as far as a species without this knowledge. We could learn a lot from leopards.