You have never seen exercise techniques this bad.
Click here for part one!
If you've ever been to a gym on a regular basis, you've no
doubt witnessed some pretty bad exercise form at work. In
a previous story, I told you about "Dave," the guy who got
shot out of the pec deck. You can read about him here.
And The Story Begins...
But this story isn't about Dave - it's about a lady I'll
refer to as "Phyllis" (though a better name might have been
"Hurricane Phyllis"). It was a cold, winter morning when I
witnessed this lady's horrendous workout at a big name gym
in Chicago and I'll never forget it.
I was sitting on the stationary bike, doing a warm-up when
she walked in, stuffed into a pink spandex outfit 3 sizes
too small, wearing glittery high heels and marinating in
perfume.
She walked directly over to the treadmill and started it up.
I had never seen anybody walk on the treadmill in high heels
before so I figured this would be worth watching. I was not
to be disappointed.
"Phyllis" was doing fine for the first minute so I went
back to reading my magazine. Then I heard this huge "THUMP!
Thumpthumpthumpitythumpthump..." I turned and looked and
there she was, crawling on her hands and knees as fast as
she could, desperately trying to slap the shut-off button
every couple of steps!
I jumped off the bike and ran over and hit the shut-off
button. She stopped but the treadmill, of course, kept
going, rolling her right off the back end and flipping her
over on her back. She flopped around like a big, pink,
overturned and confused turtle for a minute. It was really,
REALLY hard not to laugh. "Phyllis" was fine. She thanked
me and walked off, like this had happened a million times
before.
And this was only the warm-up...
I got back on the bike. I had a feeling this lady was going
to be a lot more entertaining than reading.
Pulldown Machines
She hobbled over to the pulldown machine, sat down then
pulled the pin out and threw it on the floor. Not looking
to bulk up, evidently. She took a grip on the bar wider
than even a double-jointed orangutan could manage safely
then started pull down behind her neck.
Now, this exercise is not good for your shoulders to begin
with but she didn't stop the bar at just her neck. She
continued pulling the bar down behind her back until the bar
was all the way down at her waist!
I had never seen anything
like it. She had turned the exercise into a wide-grip,
behind-the-back pushdown. It was like she was trying to
scratch her entire back with the bar. It was a good thing
she had hardly any weight on the machine.
Ten useless reps later, she was done. My rotator cuff was
aching just watching it. But instead of standing up with
the bar and setting the one measly plate down gently, she
just let it go and let that single plate crash down like a
thunder clap. The bar whipped around and smacked her in
the side of the head. Luckily for her, it seemed she had
so much hair spray on that the bar just kind of bounced off -
no damage done.
Without a backward glance at the weight pin still lying in
the middle of the floor, she walked over to the free weights.
At this point, I just knew "Phyllis" and free weights were
not going to be a good combination - kind of like filling
a child up with sugar, overstimulating them with games and
cake, blindfolding them, spinning them around, giving them
a hard club then telling them to swing at a cardboard animal
filled with candy hanging at crotch level. Definitely not
a good combination.
She picked up the lightest dumbells on the rack (I think one
of them may have actually been a plastic novelty pen shaped
like a dumbell and not actually even a real dumbell).
Side Lateral Raise
She stepped back and started doing dumbell lateral raises.
Let me tell you, an albatross had nothing on this lady. She
was flapping her arms so big, if she'd have had feathers,
she would've been halfway to Mexico by the time she finished
her set.
But alas, her grip must have been failing (and it was a good
thing she was standing close to a cement wall and not a
person) because the next thing I knew, she lost her grip on
one of the dumbells. It flew out of her hand and smashed
into the wall with a huge CLANG then fell to the floor with
and even bigger CLANG! She set the other dumbell down and
walked away, not looking the slightest bit embarrassed.
I thought I had seen everything. WRONG! The best was yet to
come and she had only been in the gym 10 minutes.
Adduction Machine
She walked over to the adduction machine (the one that works
the inner thighs), sat down and began doing reps. She must
have done at least 20 sets of that single exercise over the
next 30 minutes. Not a particularly good way to do this
exercise but not dangerous in and of itself. It seemed to
me like the party was over. Wrong again.
Barbell Squats
Somebody had evidently put it in this lady's head (though
it was equally surprising that it didn't come directly out
the other side) that doing squats would be a good thing for
her. She went over to the squat rack (the open one, not
the enclosed power rack - that, of course, would have been
way too safe) and set herself under the bar.
Now, even before doing 30 minutes of adductions, I doubt
this lady would have been very stable on this exercise. She
took one step back with just the bar on her back then took
another step, and another and another and another. She had
totally lost her balance and was falling backward with
every step!
Barbell squats are a very dangerous exercise if not done properly. Check out the HUGE mistake Jean-Pierre Fux made by trying to impress the camaras in a photo shoot.
Before anybody could react, she was stuttering out of the
squat rack and falling backwards towards a rack of dumbells.
She crashed into the rack, lost her grip on the bar and
dropped it behind the dumbell rack with a huge SMASH!
Then she stood up, checked her hair in the mirror, pulled
spandex out of her unmentionables, and hobbled out the door.
I looked over at the weight room supervisor, who was
snickering quietly.
"Does she do that all the time?" I asked.
"No." he replied, leaning back in his chair. "Sometimes she
has a bad day..."
Good Luck,
BetterU@fitstep.com
Recommend this article to a friend by e-mail here!
Visitor Reviews Of This Article!
Read Visitor Reviews - Write Your Own Review
Back To Nick Nilsson's Main Page
Back To The Articles Main Page.
Related Articles
Things We Love To Hate In The Gym!
Gym Etiquette
The Pipsqueak Posse
