There’s an epidemic hitting gyms across the nation and it’s
starting from the ground up. Ever so
gradually, gym-goers (I refuse to use the term “weightlighters,” “bodybuilders”
or “powerlifters,” since they are immune) are skipping leg day. And, more importantly, they are utilizing the
holy Squat Rack for uses I have never seen before.
Anyone who has ever lifted weights for a purpose, rather
than because they saw “Johnny D’s Massive Chest Workout 3.0” in Flex Magazine
knows the importance of squats and the dreaded “Leg Day.” Unless you’re a bro-lifter and just looking
to have big arms and a six pack, you yearn for leg day. Without getting too technical and science-y,
let’s just face the obvious: The Squat works huge muscles and muscle groups, as
well as synergistically activating a lot of core muscle. Thus, you are releasing large amounts of
growth hormone (actually, the most of any exercise). You WILL get stronger by doing squats.
So here lies the problem: so many gym goers are skipping out
on squat day. They think leg day is
doing 3 sets of leg curls, 3 sets of leg extensions and running on the
treadmill for 30 minutes. Or my personal favorite, someone loads up 225 on the
squat rack only to drop into a ½ inch squat 8 times and call it a day.
Here’s a novel idea: leave your ego at the door. Put on a weight you are almost comfortable
lifting and drop your ass to the grass.
You don’t have to lift 500 lbs 10 times to make progress. A simple (and highly popular) way to squat is
a simple 5x5 or even 3x5 routine. No one
but you is judging you in the gym. And
if someone is judging you, do you really care?
Let them sit over there and do “Buster P’s Rock Solid Arm Blasting
Workout” 5 days a week and make zero strength gains because they can only
properly squat 100 lbs.
And one more thing, if you aren’t going to squat, THEN GET
THE HELL OUT OF THE SQUAT RACK. This
happened to me the other day: An
individual loaded up 225 on the Squat Rack on the safety bars so that they
could do shrugs. But instead of doing
just shrugs, they decided to commandeer the squat rack while they did shrugs as
1 exercise in a circuit of about 15.
Yes, because when I’m waiting on 1 of 2 squat racks in the entire gym, I
want to watch you struggle to shrug 225 twice just to then go over to a
medicine ball and do crunches and then bicep curls. What?!
And when I ask you how long you’re going to be (doing that stupid
workout), I don’t need you to respond by saying “yeah… it’s going to be awhile.” Yes, it is going to be awhile. Awhile for you
to make any progress since I see you in the gym every day, but you never work
legs. If you want to do a bunch of
random exercises in no coherent order while providing a nearly 100% change of
injury, you should just go join a crossfit “gym”. Until then, keep your nonsense out of the
squat rack.
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| "Ass to Grass" |
