Dufisthenics

Today at the gym I had not one but two weight slamming idiots at once.  If you are not familiar with this phenomenon, it is when somebody gets done with a barbell exercise and instead of returning the weight to the safety hooks in a controlled manner they instead decide to let it more or less free fall for a couple inches which makes a shitload of noise and is very distracting.  It also has the side effect of damaging the equipment.

The first offender I have seen/heard before.  He was on the squat rack, squatting pretty heavy, I saw one set with 275 pounds on the bar.  He used good form in his squats getting nice depth with a solid foundation however each time he finished he insisted on leaning forward and quickly ducking, allowing the weights to slam back onto the rack.  The one time he did it so hard that some plates fell off the attached weight tree which he of course didn’t bother to pick up.

The other guy was on the bench press, again a very strong guy.  Once he hit lock out on his final rep he would steer the bar over the hooks and basically drop it, causing another symphony of clanging.  One of the times I was trying to strain through a final rep of my own bench pressing session when the squat slammer dropped the weights again.  It fcked up my rep, I had to pause there for a moment to regain my focus.

I just struggle to understand the mentality of these people.  What extra bonus is gained from dropping the weights?  Does it punctuate your manliness, signalling to the rest of the gym just how heavy the weight is you just moved? Maybe you are just an inconsiderate asshole that doesn’t realize this is a middle of the road fitness center filled with more people collecting social security than not?  If this was a Crossfit garage or a hardcore gym, sure knock yourself out, those places are filled with slammers that get off on how much noise they can make.  My experience with the most recent presidential election makes me wonder if perhaps I am the weird one.  Maybe treating a shared space like it is your own garage is just the way the world works nowadays.  Fck everyone else, time to get mine.

So yea, my chest day was not great.  Both of my attempts at 225 required a slight spot to lock out.

Today’s Workout

5 minutes cardio/stretching

Barbell bench press – 135lbs x 10, 185lbs x 5, 255lbs x 1, 225lbs x 1, 185lbs x 7, 185lbs x 6, 185lbs x 5, 135lbs x 10 (dead stop) 135lbs x 10

Dumbbell pull overs – 60lbs x 10, 70lbs x 10, 80lbs x 6

Cybex pec dec – 130lbs x 10, 170lbs x 10, 190lbs x 8