Actually strong people don’t need to belittle others around them to feel stronger.
My experience with people who are really into working out is that they want everyone to be into working out, and want to help you get there. They’re nerds for lifting. They’re excited to get you excited.
Anyone who shit-talks you for not already being great at it is a fucking poser and you should tell them that.
Bouldering gyms are like this too. The best climbers are the ones stopping what they’re doing to cheer for and hype up the beginners. Mostly very wholesome group
Same here. The real gym bros will take their time with someone who is not fit because you actually showing up to the gym, to them is a sign you want to work on yourself and they value that.
My brother in law does strongman competitions, lifting hundreds or thousands of pounds at a time. I joked once about how I might be able to lift the bar that you put the weights onto (he said it was about 75lbs) and his response was a very positive “you have to start somewhere”
Real chads lift everyone around them
Arnold Shwarzenegger had a super motivating post on reddit(spits) to a guy who felt similar to this fellow.
I lift. I’ve lifted for years. Then I stopped Then I got really fat. I KNEW what it was going to take. 5+ years later. 100lbs body fat lost and 18lbs of muscle added later (no juice) and I’m older, but ripped. All I can think when I see people running, lifting, walking, whatever - with that ‘look’ like you know they are just trying to shed that that fat jacket - is “Come on! You can do this!” I know the discipline that takes! Young, mouthy douchebags at the gym with raging metabolisms that keep them cut, even after eating garbage all week, are just the next group of fat, old people trying to stay healthy and happy.
I helped a guy at the gym get into a solid 5x5 routine once, barely thought about it. Just a regular to chat to sometimes. You could have used this guy to clean a chimney. He got ripped up. Not bulk, but shredded and built it turns out. Few years later, at a different gym now, a guy comes up to me (him - I’d forgotten his face) and tells me what a difference it made for him and how him and 3 buddies all took what I showed him and were all still lifting. Thanked me, told me what a difference my advice made (diet too). Frankly, it was the BEST motherfucking day I ever had at the gym! I felt like my hero, Arnold.
Making fun of others at a gym is Imo, grounds for getting tossed out. Snickering included. Funny how they don’t seem to last at the gym anyway…
My best friend in a small town high school and I were outcasts but because of that we were huge gym rats. We didn’t play any sports but would ditch study hall, shop, and PT and lift in the gym. This was mid nineties and I remember us doing the bodies for life challenge even though we were young and didn’t have a starting body to work from. The most pride I have from those days is we put up a sign above the gym that said “leave your ego at the door”, we would help and stick up for anyone and everyone no matter what, a couple of our classmates parents came in to lift with us while their kids were at practice and thanked us. That meant a lot as a teenager.
Anon experiences human contact outside of highschool for the first time?
Years ago, a buddy got me going to his gym so he could show me the ropes. He’d been lifting most of his life and I really trusted him. It was the sort of gym where people go to do serious work. A lifter’s lifting gym. Everyone there looked so serious and were pressing so much weight. I have never been that sort.
But they were all incredibly kind to me. Helped me when they thought I needed it. Never in a demeaning way. Any bad vibes I got from them was pretty much on me.
Those were really cool times. The gym would shut down about two years later and I haven’t really gone to a gym since.
Sounds made up. I’ve never interacted with a single person at the gym, ever.
Be the chad.
I’ve seen the snickering. I’ve helped quite a few people. Not everyone is open to it, but most welcome it if you treat em with respect.
Same thing with bouldering. You see someone inexperienced struggle with a route and you give em a few pointers. You show em the moves. Can even help people with routes I can’t do cuz I somehow know how to read em.
Be the positive change in the world.
I miss my bouldering gym so much. It was always a great vibe there and people from all skill levels could climb together, chat, help each other out. Any time I went intending to climb alone I still ended up chatting and making friends because so many people are just friendly and happy to be there
Where I moved to has a proper climbing gym but it isnt the same vibe.
I have a question. Would age be at all a factor in the vibe? How about acute arthritis and being a newbie? I wouldn’t expect to just “fit in” immediately, but I’m left wondering if a slower middle-aged dude would have a hard time hanging with that crowd.
Depends on the gym you go to imo. More commercial gyms there’s almost no interaction but more privately owned or specialty gym (powerlifting, strongman, etc) - these interactions happen a good bit.
This sounds like the gym I used to go to. It was mostly massive powerlifters and female Instagram influencer…all super serious into fitness. And guys would ask me to spot them all the time, and we would often share racks and chat. The girls mostly kept to themselves, but the dudes were all pretty chummy with each other.
Although that being said, I still think this is made up because I’ve never heard anyone vocally bad mouthing other people at the gym such that they can hear, and the bad mouthing i have heard has absolutely never been about someone out of shape trying to better themselves. It’s always because someone was being a jerk, or selfish or something like that.
It could also be that they where talking about something else and Anon, being a weirdo who uses 4chan, got the wrong idea.
the snickering part sounds made up, but people definitely ask strangers to spot them
I’ve been going to the gym 4 times a week for 2yrs and I’ve been asked exactly one time to spot someone. Not to contradict you because it definitely happens, but some gyms don’t have that culture, like mine.
100%. Also aren’t your legs straight for a whole deadlift? (I don’t do them, always struck me as a lower back thing)
Edit: spelling
For RDL/stiff legged deadlifts you should only have a slight bend in the knee and focus on moving your ass back during the eccentric instead of letting your knees get forward. It’s a great exercise that will primarily load your hamstrings and glutes, which is why every* girl you see in the gym are doing them. Glutes and hamstring are part of a normal leg day.
For a deadlift you knees will have a greater bend and move slightly forward which puts your body in a better position for maximal force output. You can load it a lot heavier and you’re putting more tension on your quads. Deadlifts isn’t as much of a leg exercise as it is a “your entire posterior chain” exercise.
*not every, just a whole lot
There’s a variation where you keep your legs straight to help you get more bootylicious, but generally no.