Public Gyms

Public gyms for me are always variations on a horror theme. There is the bloke whizzing up and down looking like a funny little monkey on the chinning bar –all curled up. Then there is the hysterically funny female hanging on on the treadmill. Why do I say hanging on???? Well these females (I have to say I have never seen a man do this) have set the incline on the treadmill to the highest setting and are hanging on the the bar for grim life as they bobble along for hours and hours – presumably wondering why they never seem to get slimmer no matter how often they go to the gym. Of course afterwards they always have nice skinny latte with their mates – and a biscuit (never a Jammy Dodger here – one of those nice ones with oats in) afterwards. Tee Hee Hee

It seems to me that people leave their brains in the boot of the car and go completely into auto-pilot when entering the gym. On each machine, the manufacturere has gone to some effort to make it clear what part of the body this machine works. But people heave away on these machines with shoulders in the ears, elbows flailing madly, backs flapping about like the washing on a line. News, people. If you can’t feel a muscle working, then that is because it isn’t. Other muscles are – and they shouldn’t be.

So we have the famous bicep curl. Worthy of a blog in itself. You know, I go on courses with men with HUUGE muscles. And I have witnessed The Biceps Curl. Why don’t people think????? (And yes, personal trainers are at the sharp end of this particular rant) What is the elbow – a hinge joint. To do a bicep curl, the only movement is at the elbow which hinges up and down. It does not involve the shoulders or the back. At all. Doing a standing biceps curl with a bar should not look like you are in the act of making love!! Shimmying your way through a set of hammer curls leads the physiotherapist’s funds for a new BMW. To do a biceps curl really really well, the weight may just be a little lighter than the ego likes – but, hey, engage a brain cell or two and you will not only grow bigger biceps, you will save yourself a trip to the sports massage parlour.

OK, girlies. Cardio sucks. So: typical gym = blokes heaving away with weights. Girlies doing CV. Hours and hours of it. Grimly plodding – or zooming - away for hour after hour. Eyes on the TV - brains in handbag. In fact I am so cross about Cardio Vascular I am going to write a separate blog on the subject. Anyway, for now, girlies, as Charles Poliquin would have it Insanity Defined = Keep Doing the Same Thing and Expect a Different Result.