Another
of the Worst, Most Horrifying Workouts I've Ever
Witnessed
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.
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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 at:
http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue13.htm
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, 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).
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..."
