Saturday, June 10, 2006

New Rule for Bodybuilding #5

If you're just starting out, begin by learning the basic exercises with little weight (#2), some recommend using no weight, just the bar for the first couple of weeks. Then remember:

5. Do not create a habit for yourself, of either grunting loudly while lifting, or of banging your dumbbells together.

If I were teaching someone, say, how to drive, I would suggest not getting into bad habits in the first place by avoiding them from the start. I would say, "don't learn to drive while having a phone glued to your ear at the same time."

Grunting = way too much weight for what you can handle or needy for attention. I have heard people do a Tarzan-like call. I have heard guys making sexual-type noises while lifting in front of women, as if that would get them turned on or interested.

"If I've just heard you grunting in the weight room like a walrus, there's no way I'll talk to you." --Nina, 24, florist

If you really feel that grunting is in fact useful to you consider this--your grunting may just be a way for you to exhale a bit of air as you are giving it your all to get the last rep finished. Try just exhaling by blowing out air, and forgetting the noise part.

Banging = lack of control, lack of proper form, or lack of consideration for others trying to lift, lack of consideration for the gym owners who have their bolted dumbbells slowly and gradually broken; lack of consideration for others who have to use broken equipment. :| But most importantly, if you bang your weights together during certain chest and shoulder exercises, you are not fully contracting at the end of the movement with a pause and so you're form could use some adjustment.

If you picked up either of these habits because you watched “some guy” at the gym do the same thing, you will have to unlearn them because it is distracting to you, yes you, and very annoying to others (me). It is not necessary to incorporate useless quirks into your routine and making them into habits. The good part is that it's easy--just learn the exercises correctly with low weight. You might get better results and others won't feel uncomfortably embarrassed.

3 comments:

Peter Matthes said...

This is a funny post.

First step is getting to the gym.
Then I will follow your advice.

Mischka said...

This cracked me up! :) I don't think bodybuilding is for me though :p

Little Baby Jade said...

William ??? of course they are for real. What doesn't sound real to you.

Are you for real?

Duh.