Gym Muppets 2: Poor Form

Continuing on from my post of a few days back, and after stealing the title of 'gym muppets' from the comment left by my brother, here we return to something else that i have noticed on my many trips to the gym of late. With MUSC being a considerable employer in Charleston, there are - as you can imagine - a wide variety of people who work/study there. This means there are also a wide variety of people using the gym at the MUSC Wellness Centre (as it is so called). There are a considerable number of students, but also a few doctors, and some senior citizens - good for them, I say. However, one thing that has struck me repeatedly of late is that an awful lot of people just really do not what they're doing - almost always when it comes to the weights and machines. Now this is not just limited to the more senior folk (who may not have had much exposure to this sort of thing before anyhow) but actually a surprising number of my generation and therabouts clearly aren't sure what they're doing. What is even more surprising is that a few of the guys (in the weights room) are reasonably built - and it makes you wonder how much better off they may be if they were doing things properly.

Take, for example, the bench press - a mainstay of any chest routine (or it should be). Now as I usually go to the gym on my own, i use a Smith machine to do my sets (as i don't have anyone to spot me - unless i ask). I've seen a lot of people doing presses by themselves - fair enough, they hopefully know the limits of their strength and so won't get stuck - although on occasion i have had to step in to help someone out who's clearly struggling. This is minor compared to those who seem to think that bench pressing means you have to bounce the bar off your chest - and i'm just waiting for the day that i hear a loud 'crack' when that happens - and someone fractures a rib or two. On top of this, many people seem to think arching your back off the bench as you lift is the correct thing to do. Throughout my time in the gym over the last few years, one thing I was always told by my then-training partner Phil was that quality is always far better than quantity - something i have tried to remember. It looks like a few people here need a lesson or two in that, before someone does some serious injury to themselves.