nasty delt incident

Hi,

yesterday, during a set of shoulder presses, I got a big fright!

I had 3 guys around me to assist. One guy on each side of me and then my regular training partner standing behind me. The exercise was seated dumbell presses and after my warmup with the 50's, I felt pretty good so I went directly for the 60's. The guy on the left helped me pick up the dumbell from my knee to my delt and then the guy on the right helped me the same way, but this fucker for some reason rotated the dumbell as he helped me up. So it looked as if I was doing a superheavy cheat curl with a 60kg dumbell. This of course completely messed up my chi, so when we eventually corrected and stabilised the weights and I started pressing them up, my right shoulder just collapsed and the dumbell started falling backwards towards the spotter behind me. Fortunately he was awake and stopped the dumbell and got my arm in a vertical position again. But I felt a nasty twinge in my rear delt and knew that it was almost a tear! Regardless, I pressed on and managed a couple reps. Usually do the 65kg dumbells as well, but the near-miss completely blew away my courage and I went on to the next exercise.

This just shows you that it is important to always give proper instructions to the people that are assisting you and to try and always work with the same blokes/spotters. If my training partner did not catch that dumbell, I would have torn my delt or pec or bicep or something.

I train with extremely heavy weights and I can tell you, lifting really heavy weights requires a completely different technique as opposed to lighter weights. This is of course very relative.

Hope this post was useful.

cheers
b

Damn shoulder presses with 65's-that's some serious weight. I don't think the VA I'm at even has 65's.
Take it easy with the delts-you don't want a rotator cuff tear.
I hear you on the spotters.

Dude,

65's aint that much... Considering my length and weight that is. But thank you for the compliment.

Check this out. I was in California a couple years ago and trained at this gym where there were these massive dumbells. They had rubber padding around the plates. When I saw them at first, I nearly shat myself, but then quickly realised that the 80 on each of the dumbells must be 80 pounds. The rubber just made them look extra big.

So, one day I tried picking one up, figuring I'd use them for a warmup or such and sure enough, I nearly sprained my back trying to pick up that 80kg dumbell with one hand. I quickly walked away from those mofos and got me some 80 pounders!

A couple weeks later I saw this massive black oke doing flat dumbell presses with them for pretty high reps! Astounding! And truly inspirational.

cheers
b

HAHA mistaking 80 kg for 80 pounds. Classic.

My first time in the gym had me and a buddy doing cable extensions for tri's.(it looked cool) After shit loads of sets(we didn't know what the hell we where doing) I watched this teenager benching 20kg, (10kg plates on either side of the bar) and thought lets go rather do that, we can show this guy how its done.The gym is fairly empty and we the main okes in the gym now

Triceps being royally overworked, I tried to press this bar with 2, 10kg plates(thinking this is going to be a warm up) and failed on the 3rd rep. Bar on my chest my mate had to remove the weights and rack the bar.

That was the end of it for me. Serious. Was close to a year before I set foot in the gym again. :laugh:
I didnt get the fact that my tri's had been exhausted and that was why I couldnt bench...

HAHA, thats classic...

Always a treat when you see the teenagers in gym and think back to when you were in that same position. Wow we were clueless back then

When I first started training, I built this dingy bench press setup in my backyard. Basically it consisted of a hollow metal pole with thin metal rods that fitted into the ends of the pole. I put a train wheel on each end of the pole and then I put bricks (equal amounts) onto the metal rods. The bench consisted of an old crate with a foam padding (I attached the latter to the bunk with glue). The uprights which supported the pole (read: barbell), consisted of two empty paintcans that I filled with gravel to the top. On top of the gravel I put some bricks and then the thin metal rods rested on these bricks. Man, I did hundreds of sets of bench presses a week. Whenever I was home and had nothing to do, I would run to my little corner and start doing pushups and bench presses. I later made a make-shift chinup bar and also got some free weights with which I did some shoulder exercises and curls.

I was really thin but very cut and probably massively overtrained. Man, I had no idea what I was doing. Oh, but it was fun. How I miss those days.

Then after this december holidays, school started and us boys went to the PT chaning rooms to get dresses for pt. When I took of my shirt, the whole fucking class started going crazy and wanted to feel my pecs and abs.

That was a turning point in my life.

b

@ Spike
Clueless, yes very!!! I used to think leg extensions where the king of excersises for legs(maybe cause of the immense pain).I would work those extensions every time I got to the gym.

@ Bernie
Letting guys see your pecs ... cool
Letting guys touch your pecs ... not cool

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

@ Bernie

...always keep it real...and remember...I'm watching you...

:lol: just kidding

Strange but true, I think thats how every passionate BB starts out!

oh yeah, i had a wooden bench, no padding....

and my first barbell was made out of a steel pole with two paint cans on the end, filled with concrete... was about 20kilo

Dunno if I was very cool in school, but at least I was ripped!

:laugh: :laugh:

b

Oh yeah,

speaking of gym accidents...

Nowadays in the gym there is a big emphasis on guys half rep pressing the really heavy dumbells! To get the dumbells of the chest, the spotter has to work extremely hard and then the guy on the bench just lowers the dumbells about 5 inches. I see MANY young guys doing these half reps.

They have no bussiness handling those weights and it is dangerous for the spotter and the guy pressing the weights. I spent many years training properly and srtuggling upwards and onwards to get to the heavy mofos, then you get a 21 year old kid that comes over to me and asks me to give him a spot so he can get heavy pumpkins up only to do half rep dumbell presses.

I refuse to spot in these cases. I'm a pretty good judge of strength and when a high school kid comes over and asks me to spot him on the 60's for flat dumbell presses, I know he's not ready for them and I tell him flat out NO.

This is a very sensitive issue for me. Any thoughts?

b

Agreed, proper form and full range of motion are key to growth and strength.

But you gotta push the envelope. Every couple of weeks I get the next biggest weight and push it out for one or two reps. In the beginning I'll be honest, I struggle to keep form. No I don't let my spotter do any work but I may wonder off course (which is obviously dangerous for joints) and I've let quite a few weights just drop from dangerous overhead positions when I didn't have a spot. But after a few sessions those one of two reps become three or four etc...

I'm not saying continually compromise on form or range of motion, but when I go up in weight I allow myself some compromise for the first one or two sessions... Within limits of course.

Maturity is when you're bench press overtakes your ego

Yeah, I hear you Inja.

Sometimes after a new record heavy set or a new exercise, I take stock of what I did and I realise that I might have done some cheating on the last reps. I make mental notes of this and usually get it right the next time.

But these half rep wonders you see in the gym... I mean, that's how they always train.

B

bernie wrote:

Oh yeah,

speaking of gym accidents...

Nowadays in the gym there is a big emphasis on guys half rep pressing the really heavy dumbells! To get the dumbells of the chest, the spotter has to work extremely hard and then the guy on the bench just lowers the dumbells about 5 inches. I see MANY young guys doing these half reps.

They have no bussiness handling those weights and it is dangerous for the spotter and the guy pressing the weights. I spent many years training properly and srtuggling upwards and onwards to get to the heavy mofos, then you get a 21 year old kid that comes over to me and asks me to give him a spot so he can get heavy pumpkins up only to do half rep dumbell presses.

I refuse to spot in these cases. I'm a pretty good judge of strength and when a high school kid comes over and asks me to spot him on the 60's for flat dumbell presses, I know he's not ready for them and I tell him flat out NO.

This is a very sensitive issue for me. Any thoughts?

b

Well, yeah I have to agree with you. There are however two kinds of people in the gym who enjoy doing "half reps". The youngsters showing off but then there are also the "super strong" guys who do the same. We have a fellow where I train who always loads about 300kg on the squat rack and walks out with it(which is impressive in it's own right)but then he barely bends his legs. Most of his lighter sets look exactly the same.

Now what Inja mentions for me is completely acceptable. At the end of a few sets you can push by doing half reps. It's like doing negatives, quarter pulls(on deadlifts)or lockouts(bench). All of those cheat a little by not having a full range of motion but ultimately they help you to progress.

When I train at VA I basically never have spotters because I simply don't trust them. Ultimately that just means that I have to be extra strong and confident in the weights that I take so that I'm sure beforehand that I can handle them safely.

Hi

Yes I agree with all of you. Funny how with years of training we all see the same thing happening in all the gyms. There is some young guys in my gym mabe 22 years old and they pick up dumbells wich I can swear is heavier than them. Then I think to myself if 5 guys need to help you to pick up a weight surley you commen sence should tell you that something is wrong?

But EGO what a big word it has been hurting people for years.

The worst part is all the kids from 16 and up look at the weight and not the guys size and think jisss that guy is strong, I want to do that.... and we start all over again.............

EINA

Hey,

another pet peeve of mine is the screamers in the gym. I think this is a way of attracting attention. I very rarely scream. Maybe when I'm doing bar bending squats or deadlifts, but then it is not a conscious effort.I usually just kinda grunt loudly on the last couple of reps. In the last couple of months, there has been a scourge of screamers at my gym.

I've found that most often the screamers cannot really lift impressive weight without atrocious form (read: half reps with 5 spotters). And then of course there is the throwing down of the weight at the end of the set. Another way to make people look.

I remember the very first gym I trained at... when people threw around weights and screamed, he'd come over and kakked all over them. Hahaha. And he was big!

The posers should just fuck off.

peace
b

Agree 100% :throw

Another thing that just flip my boat is these arogant young pricks that sits at a workstation surrounded by half the weights. Eventually when they finished they just leave them there on the floor. The older guys dont do this. Has it got something to do with lack of respect or WTF?

I can take most things in the gym but these fuck nuts who don't put their weights back pisses me off the most! Even the older guys do it at our gym! I almost have a standing appointment with the manager at my VA to complain that their red shirt wearing dudes aren't enforcing the club rules!

They are fast to tell you that you're not allowed to take a bag into the training area but when it comes to other rules they are shit in enforcing them!

The other day I went to fetch the manager on duty and I had him put away all the weights lying around, pay back is a bitch!

AHHAHAHAHA vega5 u shud of filmed it and put it on this forum would of been awesome

SNOK1986 wrote:

AHHAHAHAHA vega5 u shud of filmed it and put it on this forum would of been awesome

Things are getting out of hand again so it'll probably happen again soon then I'll take a few pics! But I also hate people training with their phones so I'll have to fetch it out the locker first.

The same thing the other day-some turd had left dumbells lying all over the floor and then left. So I'm pressing at the smith machine and the snotty f$cking floor bitch comes to me mid set and says "have you finished with your weights over there because it's club policy to put them away." And then when I tell her they're aren't mine and have been lying there for at least an hour she tunes me "Are you sure they aren't yours?".
I increased her appreciation of the English language a bit, and am not even on cycle.

Eish Yohimbe...

Well i had a lakka oak come up to me to tune me to stop training coz i didnt have a towel, ok it was my fault for forgetting to bring a towel but come on... give me a warning or something but dont tune me to stop training.
Jayzuz just thinking of it makes me wanna lose control (*Y@$(*DU#$)(D*U#$

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