The Gym....

Since I have been going to a gym near the office to do my workouts at lunch, the homework assignment from Patrick was pretty simple.  In fact long before he asked us to blog about what we see at the gym, I have been noticing more and more the stark contrast in training styles, the people who really seem to know what they are doing versus the ones who are winging it, or seem to think that just going to the gym, regardless of what you do there, is going to get you into better shape.    I definitely get a lot of looks at the gym when I exercise, I think that is more a factor of me being the only person there who jumps rope, uses resistance bands, and doesn't use any of the machines than anything else.   No one has come up and asked me what training program I am on, but I probably don't look terribly approachable when I am grunting thru my reps. 

I don't want to be too critical of the people at the gym but what I notice a lot of is people taking long breaks between reps, or doing some sort of circuit training but each exercise focuses on a different muscle group and by the time they get back to the same group it has been 5-7mins.  The guys that do a set then walk around for a couple minutes, looking at themselves in the mirror, talking to people.  Then there is the guy who just does one set of each exercise, maxes out and moves on.   There are the speed walkers on the treadmill who then do a dozen situps or so when finished and that is that.   There are the people who never work out their legs, you see them focus solely on upper body and even then it is mostly upper upper body, ie chest and biceps.   There is the person who doesn't seem to know what the hell they are doing, curls with their elbows flying away from their sides, I am just waiting for them to throw their back out.  Then there are the guys who are just spazes, am sure you know the type.   There is the yoga crew, the stretchers who then do a bit of time on the treadmill, there is the guy who does spastic pull ups, I am not sure what muscle group he is trying to work there.   Then there are the couple guys and girls who are in shape, they are obviously on a training program or have learned how to do things properly, they work efficiently, they actually take a lot of notes, or check their notes, they do some similar exercises as PCPers, V-sits, Planks, Kung-fu sit ups, they do a couple different exercises for each muscle group and multiple sets.   Finally there are the roid users, well, maybe they aren't REALLY using roids, but they might very well someday.  They do only free weights, no cardio, they are big, but have a belly in some cases, they grunt and pant and make the most noise, they have end of summer tans in the winter, they wear muscle tees and flex too much and like to wear spandex shorts which frankly should not be allowed.  

You can really see the people wasting their time vs those who are getting some benefit, I have seen the same people there each and every lunch time for the last 3m, and in at LEAST 60% of the cases, they haven't changed a bit in 3 months of working out 4-5x a week.   I thought about posting a flyer for PCP the other day...

One week to go...