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From cartoonstock.com[/caption]1) Skinny people who try to lift too much with bad form
I don't know why this even annoys me in the first place, but it does. You can kinda gauge how much a person can lift by his size. If he's small and skinny, chances are he's not going to be lifting much, and if he's huge, chances are he can lift pretty big. Of course there are exceptions, but they are VERY rare.
What I get annoyed with is when skinny people, who clearly don't have the strength to lift a certain weight, will still attempt that weight, and use atrocious form to get the weight lifted.
Case in point, just last week at Hougang gym, there was this pale skinny dude who was maybe 3/4 my size, looking really scrawny. He goes to the bench, and packs on freaking 50kg (for a total of 70kg) and begins doing bench presses. The problem is, from the fully extended position, he barely goes down more than 10cm before going up again, and he does this for every rep. I don't think this was intentional as when he got up he began rubbing his chest in a 'ooh-i'm-so-worked-out' manner.
Come on, doing half f*ck reps doesn't mean you can actually bench that amount! Keep that ego in check and lift what you actually can, with proper form.
I know it's like none of my business... maybe it's just my ego speaking, like 'shit that dude is lifting more than me I have to find something wrong with him'. But still! Stop cheating yourself!
2) People who don't look strong but lift incredible amounts
Remember the exceptions I was talking about earlier? This is it. Normally when you see someone pack on, say, two 20-kg plates on one side, you will expect that person to be some kind of muscular beast or something (two 20-kg plates on each side is at least 100kg)
Last week, I saw this uncle - he was wearing knee braces on each knee which seemed to indicate some sort of previous injury - he was pretty lean, didn't look too strong or anything, at the squats rack. He looked like your ordinary fit uncle, who maybe plays badminton once a week and runs once in a while. Normal-sized legs. When he began squatting and I looked at the weight, my jaw dropped. He was squatting freaking 120kg!! Are you kidding me!! This guy twice my age with average legs is squatting double my weight?! He was doing them with pretty good form too. A-ma-zing.
This doesn't annoy me as much as #1, but it still makes me think 'damn, I wish I was like that.' Annoying! I want to be that strong too!
3) People who don't look like they can lift more than me but they lift more than me
Because all lists should be at least 3 items in length, I had to think up of one more so this is it.
I'm not the biggest dude in the gym (obviously) but I'm also not the smallest dude in the gym. So once in a while I'll see someone smaller than me, and I'll think 'ok, he should be able to do X amount on this exercise'. Then when he proves me wrong and actually lifts heavier than me, it annoys me!! Like walao! I also want to lift that amount can?!
Actually this point extends to 'all people who lift more than me' which is probably 90% of the gym users. I feel a tinge of annoyance - maybe it's envy - when I see the person I'm sharing the bench with start with my working weight as his warmup weight, and he goes on to add 10, 15kg to it. Grr. I have a feeling this will be doubly worse when I gym in the US.
Ok that wraps up this pretty boring rant-entry. The next 'fitness journal' should be an interesting one, if I don't have anything else to say in the next 2 weeks - I will be comparing my 'before' and 'after' photos! :D Stay tuned for that, coming in the second week of August :)
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