Box Gyms

So I went to the "Box Gym" in Huntington Beach as planned last night (on Main Street). I don't like going into this place. It's so crowded with equipment that I could hardly find space to do my own warm-up! Newer gym designs have a lot more open floor space for the functional stuff that requires more moving around on balls, with tubing, plyos with body weight, etc. This place is also a filthy environment even though it's a "major" gym chain which freaks me out because of today's MRSA infection issues--NASTY! Regardless, I've been in an iron mood the last week. Now, I of all people don't need ANY equipment to get a great workout, but, sometimes I'm just in the mood for old school iron. Nothing wrong with that! It's all good! The gym is a weird place in a way. I think it is actually good for me to get into these big box gyms once in a while to see what is going on. No wonder people get confused! Hell, I had to scratch my own head a few times. Example! A guy goes over to the Smith Squat Rack machine which if you don't know helps "track" the bar up and down in a fixed position--let's say a "stable" position and movement. But! He gets under it with a Stability Ball and proceeds to do a chest press. I found this puzzling...the Smith Machine "stabilizes" but the Stability Ball actually "destabilizes." It was an oxymoron exercise--or maybe he was an oxymoron! Maybe there was no flat bench available and the guy was forced to use the ball for his chest press--so he had no other choice. Who knows! There was a trainer training an obese guy. The client was doing multiple Olympic bar shrugs. I found this puzzling. When I work with obese people, I try to rev their metabolisms with interval workouts and working more of the larger muscles along with smaller stabilizers that keep their movement patterns clean so they don't get hurt. The shrugs are pretty old school--not a whole lot of functional or metabolic benefit to an excessive amount of shrug strength. Great for body building competitions, but most people are not body builders even though they use that general program design. Weird to me, so probably very confusing to others that know enough to think about it! Alas, it was all good though. Everyone in there was moving, and that is the main thing. Back to SIMPLE tonight! Heading to the beach to do a body weight only workout! Old school Jack LaLanne stuff--lots of push ups with some of the cool core stuff I do. No more Box Gyms this week! From my own "Muscle Beach" tonight, Coach RJ