thread of getting sw0le

this place has a rooftop pool and has to be at least 60% gay men.

It's a gym in West Hollywood.

well male bodybuilding is still associated with gay culture in parts of the us and in some parts of the world (asians still believe weight lifting is a gay person sport) so i wouldn't be too surprised

p sure more gay men are preoccupied with staying fit compared to straight men though

i am a rebel in that regard

(asians still believe weight lifting is a gay person sport)

what

this is in washington dc by the way. it's called VIDA. overall it's a great gym. very expensive. i would not be able to afford this place normally but someone i'm close to works there. sometimes it seems like there's more staring, socializing, and checking cell phones than you would see at a normal gym but that's probably just my perception. i would rather be at a gold's or w/e but it's really convenient. on the wall of the entrance to the men's locker room there's a giant print of a smooth pec-y torso from the late 90s, which i think is pretty funny. it's the cruisiest locker room i've ever been in. no lewd acts though, it's too rich for that.

they have some really nice barbell racks and platforms but the dumbbells are strangely bad with plastic-y grips. i've gone way down on my squats and deadlifts again but have managed to make it there 2-3 x a week in spite of moving to a new city, starting a new relationship and a new job and with all of that the hardest part, trying to put together some semblance of a diet.

good luck to you in all that!

sometimes it seems like there's more staring, socializing, and checking cell phones than you would see at a normal gym

― The times they are a changing, perhaps (map), Wednesday, February 8, 2017 11:53 AM (fourteen seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

men are more forward regardless of sexual orientation

same thing happened to me in west hollywood

gold's is p good tho, but have heard they are more popular among gay men

xp

xp thanks goole. :). i've found myself thinking about harbl's gym a few times since i moved here just because baltimore is not very far away.

my gym is just the Y!

and Y not?

just moved from goblet squats to barbell squats. i have a very sore neck this morning, a dull pain like a headache in the back of my neck, so i must be doing something wrong. probably placing the bar too high and not enough on my back/shoulders

read up on high-bar vs low-bar squats.

low-bar is the canonical sw0le style but a little harder to master at first. you can lift more with it, though.

i loved the gym today. i just wanted to stay forever.

i avoided fanny pack yesterday by going pretty late. i think today i'm going at exactly the right time to spend my entire workout trying to get away from him.

update: he was not there

I totally have gym enemies too - gymnemies?

Usually they distinguish themselves by wanting to use the equipment I want to use at the same time as I do, and aren't good at it when they do use it. That is really all it takes for me to just hate them with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns. In the past I've tried to change my attitude towards them, just shrug them off in my mind. I am very rarely successful

Had a "circuit trainer" guy in today, totally jacked, "yeah I'm using that" - the squat rack was off limits for like half an hour while he did whatever tf. He touched the rack maybe twice. There's not another rack. CAN I GET A WITNESS PLEASE

it has occurred to me that the amount i've spent on my gym membership in the last few years probably could've gotten me a rack/bar/weights of my very own, and then some

when i move / get a grown-up version of my job i might opt for the home gym

(says the guy who can't actually go to the gym rn)

yeah i would do that in a heartbeat, but i don't have the room

me too. my house is very small and old. there's no space to put anything above the basement and the basement is too shallow and creepy. in my next house i'll do it.

i would like there to be one tiny gym that everyone on this thread can go to and no dudes try to talk to you

My gymnemies are the people who stand really close to you waiting for you to finish using a piece of equipment. like, do some stretches or something else. bugger off

i posted this on the hiking thread right now but weight lifters can benefit from the breakdown this dude made and a lot of it reflects my own experience

https://www.outsideonline.com/2125031/what-happens-your-body-thru-hike

i changed my overhead press form -- narrower grip, breathing & resetting at the bottom instead of the top, so there's no bounce -- and it's haaard. i thought i could tinker with it and continue at my normal working weight but probably not!

going from a dead stop at the bottom is a lot harder for sure

I'm really struggling with squats. Recently moved from 10k goblet squats to 15 / 20k barbells. I thought I was doing them correctly until a trainer came along and (helpfully) corrected me. Now I'm finding them impossible. It feels so unnatural, like something my body isn't meant to do at all.

The main things I have trouble with:

- where to place the bar without hurting my back and neck. first time i did them i had a headache the whole next day, so i started holding it a bit lower down, but this felt very painful and awkward, which leads to....
- holding the bar in a way that's comfortable so that my elbows aren't too far forward or back. It starts hurting my arms and shoulders before anything else
- MOST OF ALL - knees not going over feet. like, how do you do this without feeling like you're going to topple backwards?

I get the impression that the answer to all this is 'keep doing it and it'll start to feel more natural', but for now it is taking up every bit of my concentration just to do 5 in a row, and I'm still not entirely convinced I'm doing it properly.

do body weight squats to sort out the knees-staying-behind-the-toes situation. it might take awhile. as far as bar position and the rest of your form, there are videos etc. it does feel unnatural at first. in my case my shoulders were really not flexible enough for awhile. on a low-bar squat your elbows CAN flare back, that's fine.

How do I stop slouching - like I plank all the time but I feel like it is a different skill, like - relearning how to stand up?

I've been doing Pilates for a little over 6 months and it's almost impossible to slouch any more. A good plank is definitely part of it but I think it comes from all round correct strength and especially from the trapezius in the back. It also seems to be related to spinal mobility which always seems much better after a session and a good go on the foam roller.

deadlifting

actually doing it!

i'm sorta not kidding -- exercise and strengthening certain muscle groups will no doubt help, but you still have to DO it consciously for a while before it becomes second nature

i used to have pretty slouchy posture. i'm very long everywhere which prob made it look more pronounced. now it is good! and my back never hurts when i'm doing dishes and stuff.

thinking about switching gyms. a new one that is a local chain is coming within walking distance of me in may and today i was the most annoyed person in the gym. i wanted to squat so i was waiting for this guy to finish his rows, for which he was not using the rack but chose to be inside the rack anyway. then as soon as he left this shlubby guy came and did ugly deadlifts, for which he was not using the rack (obv) but chose to be inside the rack anyway. i should have been more assertive or something. also fanny pack was there. there is only one power rack and one bench press. i need more.

i'm getting stronger at walking lunges, which are torture

actually doing it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F3n80V_sb0

i have been to the gym 25 times since 1/28/17?

YES

meanwhile, i am now squatting more than i deadlift?!

i need to work on that

you mean getting your DL up? cause i am thinkin that 4 myself

no my squat

i have to say i'm so happy w my gym now. it's a decrepit stinky place with no windows, no machines and virtually no clientele. :D

what? no fanny pack, goat man, small israeli gym selfie guy, unqualified personal trainer dreads guy? how?

its main business is a pool where they do "aquabike" - stationary bikes underwater in a pool. there some other group classes upstairs in a big room. the weightroom is attached to that. a lot of the plates are like ancient red-painted metal plates that go CLANK when you load up the bar. there's a couple of crossfitty dudes in there sometimes. heaving bags around. one of them even had the nerve to be using the squat rack when i wanted it. he's probably gone there for five years, i've brand-new but it didn't matter, i was simmering inside. there's an Old BodyBuilder dude, the guy's a bear. he uses a couple of very old cable pulldown machines exclusively. who else. nobody of note really. so far. there's a "pro" who hands around at lunchtime for an hour or so. he once gave me unsolicited advice on my squat form which i - astonishingly - appreciated and thanked him for. i have since come to the conclusion that he is mainly wrong, of course. but he was cool about it, and it did at least make me get my chest up a little more, think more vertically, which i should always be doing anyway.

i was having a nice time at the gym. it was pretty empty because it snowed today. i had one more thing to do and then fanny pack appears, doing that stupid thing where you put a weight bar or other straight item on your back and twist like a maniac. WHY? i promptly left before he could ask me hey! how's it goin'?!

lololol.

what is the ilxsw0le GYM BAG GAME like? mine is all busted. considering the opportunity to level up

mine is a 40yo duffel I nicked from my parents basement a while back and needs replacing -- the laminate living the inside is flaking off

*lining