Karma Collection
I’ve decided to start tracking the number of people I help at the gym on the two machines I see them misuse the most – the calf extension and the torso rotation. Yesterday, I watched a woman put her face into the pads because she didn’t know to lower them and I stopped her before she got going.
The danger of this kind of tracking is it becomes an ego boost rather than a good deed. And indeed, I am tending to think ‘@$$@ can these people not see the %$#$@ picture on the machine right next to their face!?!?’, but I talk to them nicely enough on the outside and am friendly about it. I think it’s good for me to build up a little good deed balance tho. So we’ll see how it goes. My count is on the side under my weight stats. We’ll see if any other good ideas for tracking come up.
Posted on August 14, 2011, in Gyms, Personal and tagged exercise, gyms, karma. Bookmark the permalink. 7 Comments.
52 Weeks, 52 Pounds 
Ahhh…you’re all talk, huh? You seem all nice and non-judgmental when commenting on my blog about my fear of weight machines at the gym and you’re totally making fun of the girls who don’t know how to use them at your gym! Ha! My confidence has been shot! 🙂
yep, i’m judgemental. but that’s my problem.
also, 3 of the 4 people on the left were guys.
I see people with horrible form all the time – I wonder if my perfect form is only in my head, or if I actually lift correctly.
The only person I ever tried to correct was my husband, who was holding his breath while doing reps of whatever chest or shoulder exercise started our workout. He now refuses to do weights at all, and in fact, we go to separate gyms.
As long as you are being kind, and they seem receptive, I say think whatever mocking thoughts you want in your mind while you help them use the machines correctly and therefore reduce their chances of injury.
Yep, perfect form is tough. Good form is very achievable. I tend to notice on those two machines since wrong form tends to be quite obvious (bending knees or rotating entire body not waist.
I try to watch guys at the gym all the time cos LA Fitness staff members don’t teach you how to use the machines freely. If you want “training” you have to pay. And anytime I have asked, I have gotten the look of “thats not my job”.
So, I watch others… I found that I was using the rear deltoid machine incorrectly because of the guy I saw use it. Yeah, I did not look at the picture, bad me. But the machines are intimidating especially when you just join and are on the shy side.
I like my gym, but I don’t think they are the most helpful people to get you started correctly unless you pay for their training services. But if someone came up to me and said, hey you’re doing that wrong and actually showed me, I would appreciate it more than feel stupid.
Yep chain gym staff are all about the extra fees. In one of my weight lifting posts there is s link to some YouTube videos for just about everything