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They
made a "Friday the 13th" Part 2. This is another
horror story that cried out for a sequel. Bad exercise form
is one thing but this was a disaster. 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.
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.
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, over-stimulating
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).
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.
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.
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!
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..."
About The Author
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Nick
Nilsson is Vice-President of the online personal training
company BetterU,
Inc. He has a Bachelor's degree in Physical
Education and Psychology with emphasis on biomechanics,
physiology and kinesiology. He has been inventing new
training techniques for more than 16 years.
Nick
is a personal trainer and the author of a number of
bodybuilding eBooks including "Metabolic Surge - Rapid
Fat Loss," "The Best Exercises You've Never Heard
Of," "Gluteus to the Maximus - Build a Bigger Butt
NOW!" and "The Best Abdominal Exercises You've
Never Heard Of" all available at: www.Fitness-eBooks.com
He can be contacted at betteru@fitstep.com |
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