Shawn Gets Angry

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A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from my childhood friend Shawn. He went to the University of Georgia for undergrad, and is now in law school. He lives in the Gwinnett County area outside of Atlanta. The subject of the e-mail was “You’re nothing if not a complete asshole”, and this is his story.
Note: All of you people who don’t like profanity are not going to like this.

I say you’re an asshole for the following reasons. To begin with, 3 years ago I was in search of a gym and of getting serious about training. I was completely blown away and baffled by the bitchiness of UGA’s “gym”. The basketball team and the football team both have SEPARATE buildings with strength training equipment and yet the “gym” for 40,000+ other students – as you saw – was equipped with 2 power racks and is all of 300 square feet – most of which is cluttered with treadmills.
When I was searching for a decent gym – you called from a sailboat and teased me into thinking there was a glorious gym opening up nearby…You got me man.

Here Shawn references when my professor prank called him from Key West posing as a gym owner in Athens, Georgia. As I recall, he was not amused.

Next, last week, I went to work out only to find out that Gold’s has closed it””s doors. Instead of an apology for no notice there was merely a letter saying our memberships were transferred to Bodyplex FITNESS ADVENTURE in motherfucking Grayson.

I went anyway. I was nothing if not disappointed. I weigh 215 lbs at 6’2”””” today, and there is absolutely no fucking reason I should be the biggest guy in the gym. Ever. At any time. In Bodyplex “fitness adventure” there is ONE power rack, which I assume should suffice for anyone wanting to squat and press, but forget deadlifting. There are 2 benches, and there are several benches for free weight exercise – however there are no free barbells. I attempted to deadlift, which I was probably doing wrong, when I was asked by an employee to “not bang the weights”. On top of this, I was attempting to bench 245 for 3 sets of 5. After my second set – I returned to my bench and there was a guy in some sort of superhero complete body spandex doing step ups or quasi-lunges on my mother fucking bench which was loaded and had my belt, keys, and humility beside it. I’ve always wanted to be in a sober fight, so I stopped him and said, “Hey man what the fuck?” and pointed to my bench. He said “Oh my bad bro, didn’t know you were using it.” After hearing this I had a small seizure and went back to working out – only to be interrupted by another employee. This employee walked up, leaned over while I was on my 2nd rep of 245 and said “Excuse me sir, you are going to have to keep it down.” I think we both know I left directly after saying, “What a bad ass gym”.

I came home to realize I have no gym to go to. As I perused the internet to find a decent and affordable power rack along with barbells, plates, and a bench, I find your video fucking TOUTING your ideal gym. Fuck bodyplex, and more importantly fuck gold’s gym for being complete asses to their loyal patrons. And further fuck LA Fitness for having a pool — the last thing I want is to pay $45 a month to swim in a pool of fat older people’s taint sweat.

I don’t actually think you’re an asshole, just jealous of your workout facility. Enjoy it, the closest strength training facility here is in Duluth and appears to be totally fagged-out since their website advertises the “300 workout!!”.

I’m building my own fucking gym. I’m using Rip’s advice from the book…

51 thoughts on “Shawn Gets Angry”

  2. ha – i can totally identify with this dude”s plight. and i live in a major city. you guys at WFAC should count yourselves among the very fortunate. there are very few gyms in the country that are so perfectly set up for what the average 70s big reader wants to do. a round of applause for Mr. Rip is in order.

  5. I feel this guys pain. I used to work out at the same golds gym in Snellville. Got tired of it and built my own gym in my basement. My brother was transferred to the same Homoplex gym this guy was.

    I”ve been trying to get my brother to just workout with me for free. He will come around soon.

  6. I feel for Shawn. I got fed up with the useless gyms in my area and built a home gym last April. Upside: my own music (or just silence and grunting), unlimited chalk, no mirrors. Downside: I”ll let you know when I find one.

  7. Gotta appreciate a decent gym. I was quite lucky to stumble upon mine, it only has one power rack, one normal bench and one squat rack, but also a few platforms and the staff tends to stay out of our way. Only real bad thing I can say about it is that some of the oly lifters are assholes, so I yeah, I count myself pretty lucky.

  8. As a resident of the Atlanta area, Shawn needs to check out Rock Hard Fitness in Tucker, GA. They have a couple of racks, DBs go to 160, their is a 5 gallon chalk bucket, and they have a sled and tractor tire.

    I have also seen people get mocked for not going heavy enough, frequently.

  9. I use the gym at a college I drive past every day.

    There”s only one bench and one set of squat stands, but there”s a shitload of weights and I can shout and grunt and use chalk and drop weights as much as I like.

    …only problem is England”s Strongest Man trains there, and all the bars are f”in bent!

    (ps. I am not him)

  10. I used to think I had a good place to train at (the local University Gym, which is HUGE). There used to be all sorts of old school weight plates and bars, platforms, 5 power racks, etc. etc. and the staff generally left everybody alone. Sure, there were a lot of douchy frat guys around, but they stayed away from the serious equipment. Well, about a year ago they finished a $70 million remodel of the whole place (yeah, I said $70 MILLION) and probably spent half of that on useless machines, etc. Well, they still have good equipment and even got bumper plates for olympic lifting and a couple platforms. The problem is that all of a sudden half the gym staff has a stick up their ass and has started harassing all of the serious lifters about having our gym bags on the floor, using the “wrong” plates with the bench (WTF?), too much noise when deadlifting, and crap like that. So now we have great equipment but the damn gym staff won””t leave us alone. I””m starting to really miss when the lifting area was a hole-in-the-wall kind of place with old equipment and the staff didn””t give a rat””s ass.

    I feel you on this one Rygor. Our schools gym staff harasses us for some of the same reasons.
    –A.C.

  12. At one time there was a decent gym in Athens. It was right across the street from Clarke Central HS. Well, across the street from the projects right next to CC actually. “Big Dog Gym” I believe it was. Had plenty of power racks and squat stands.

    Did all the Gold”s in Athens close? There was one downtown that was decent.

    sb

  14. Planet Fitness has taken over nearly every gym near me. It is truly a horrible place unless you like garish colors and machines. I built my own garage gym and am pretty happy, despite the cold during the winter months.

  16. I”m going to finish up my home gym this weekend. The thought of going to the local YMCA, paying nearly $50 a month, and not having a squat rack or power rack drove me over the edge. I couldn”t handle it anymore. I”ve got a rack, bench, bar, and bumper plates at home. That will keep me happy for a while.

  19. Miramont Lifestyle Fitness should say it all. i hate the place, but work pays for it and im a poor bastard. i dont feel like im too loud, but when i put over 400 for deadlifts people look on as if their offended im not doing one legged bosu ball 2kg medicine ball tosses with the “fitness professionals”. they used to give me hard time about my chalk bag but i didnt listen so now they just leave me alone. i hate 90s small

  20. my brother is much more confrontational then I am and you should have seen the kid one day at our local Y. he was squatting like 300 3×5 and busting his nuts and his last 3 reps yelled like a retard with 300 lbs on his back. i don”t give a fuck because he was busting his ass and getting stronger and hell squats hurt dammit. anyways we hear one guy scoff to his buddy after my brother”s set “you know, you just gotta lift with some decency and respect for other people” or some shit like that while wearing a sleeveless under armour with gloves on and weighing about 120 lbs.

    he said it on his way out so luckily my brother (5”10, 215) didn”t follow him out and eat him for saying that…

  21. I was asked to relinquish my gym membership last October due to DL, PC, etc… I live in a small town so there were no other options. So since then, I have been setting up a home gym in the garage and besides the cold over the winter, often it was below 10 outside, it has been great. Hopefully this year I will get it insulated so that will not be a problem next year. Anybody thinking of setting up a home gym it is great to do, you can find most everything on craigslist for 20-30% of retail, and you can just build your own platforms, etc…

  22. For those familiar with the movie Starship Troopers, the gym I go to is in the building where they filmed the sports scenes. Its a small independent gym on campus that has a power-rack and old platform with heavily worn bumper plates that look like they come from an old Soviet Bloc gym.

    In the Fall the $65million rec center will be finished. I have a bad feeling its going to be nothing but trendy machines.

  23. Finding a good gym can be very difficult and nerve racking, especially when you”re new to training.

    The only reason I”m at the gym I”m at today is because Rip told me to contact Welbourn for good coaching in SoCal. If not for that advice, I”d probably still be hurting myself in my garage, constantly having setback after setback.

  25. A few weeks ago, while setting a PR and breaking 300lbs on squat, I happened to grunt at a completely normal decibel level. I didn”t think anything of it as it was both not loud and completely appropriate. The uber-douche physics professor looking dork who was practicing his golf swing with a medicine ball looked at me in total shock. Not surprisingly, when I came back to the gym the next day, I was told that someone had complained that my “noises disrupted their exercise.”
    I decided I”d stick to the school”s gym until I had to wait 10 minutes for some guy who looked like Pauly from Jersey Shore to finish using the squat rack for his three intense sets of barbell wrist curls.

  26. My gym at my college is pretty good about noises, chest bumps, swearing, and doing real lifts, but I had an amusing run-in with the men”s soccer coach the other day while I was on the platform. I was dropping 90% snatch singles from overhead, and he told me from the power rack (while doing band pull-ups with the thickest band) that I am not allowed to “slam the weight down like that.” He proceeded to get extra menstrual when I attempted to explain that all of the equipment was made for such things.

    Nevermind that the he weighs about 160 and the kids on his team wouldn”t know what a barbell was if they sat on one; he apparently is the expert when it comes to bringing rubber bumper plates and an olympic bar back to the ground when on a platform specifically made for what was being done.

    I obliged and started lowering the weight on to my shoulders and then racking it until he left. Of course he left everything he had used in the gym (band, plyo box, etc) out and didn”t put it away. Some people are just ritards.

    However, after hearing some of these stories, I am grateful for what I am privileged to use for free…well for $50,000 a year.

  28. As a UGA Alum – I can relate to this guys pain. Ramsey center (student gym facility) was amazing for stalking pussy, but not so much for actually getting big.

    Good luck building your own facility. Its an awesome idea if you have the funds and patience to put it all together.

  29. Awesome post! I feel you man.
    “hey dude what the fuck” I could totally picture the scene while reading that thanks for the laughs.

    There”s a gym in my town where they have this “crossfit” functional room with a long nice pull-up bar and bumper plates. I was doing power cleans there the other day when one side of the bar literally unscrewed. I went to the front desk and asked the dude (a french guy with a mustache and a fancy kinesiology degree who hands out programs like they”re flyers) if he could screw it back together. He came back with a small toolbox only to realize he didn”t have the right tool. I changed for another bar and he stood there questioning about my form, to then realize I knew better than him. Then he told me that maybe their bars were not tough enough for that kind of stuff even though they had bumper plates in the first place… Needless to say I never went back.

    Now I train in a different gym with only one power rack but I compensate this by going at night just before it closes. Two 70”s big dudes totally train there (there”s a massive trophee with a deadlifter on it at the front desk) and it seems like their influence makes the gym so much better. One time I deadlifted with the older one (50 y/o+, he has a badass gray beard) and it was most inspiring!

  30. My college has a few gyms. One is pretty much a globo style fitness gym, with mostly machines and cardio and a small section with 2 racks and 1 bench. It”s on the 2nd floor and there are conference rooms below. They don”t like when we lower deadlifts too hard. Forget olympic lifts, they have no bumper plates.

    They have another gym that the rowers use, and it”s MUCH better. They have about 10 Eleiko bars and full bumper plates. But then they won”t let us drop the weights?!?!? WTF?!?!?

    Then there”s yet another gym that has almost-bumpers (not the rubber coated iron plates) that can be dropped. There”s no staff, it”s VERY and mostly empty. Lots of good equipment except… they have shitty barbells. 2 barbells, one doesn”t have a centre knurling, the other centre knurling but it”s very very mild. Both are cheap bars that are probably 32mm diameter. Makes deadlifts much harder.

  31. The Gold”s I went to did the same thing to us a few weeks ago. Close overnight with no notice to its members or employees. The closed it late Sunday night and moved a bunch of stuff out, and when the employees and members showed up early Monday morning, there was a note on the door that basically said go home. Must be Gold”s company policy to screw people over, because that”s what both locations here in town (Fresno, CA) did. Now I don”t have a gym to go to anymore either. Thinking of putting together my own set-up, just need to save up the money to do so.

  32. Hahahaha!! I love hearing these gym horror stories. Why? Mostly because I work at one of these “lame” “fitness centers” where there is actually little to no emphasis on powerlifting or Olympic lifts. We have two Smith Machines, and only one Squat Rack. But, I still happily do my deadlifts, squats and cleans with NO COMPLAINTS from members or staff, including the personal trainers.

    How is it possible? 1. Stop taking an “Us versus Them” approach. 2. Make simple concessions. 3. Get to know the other people at your gym. At least their names. 4. When someone makes eye contact with you, smile. Seriously…it helps so much.

  33. Reading emails like this makes me feel lucky. I grew up with what I now realize was a pretty sweet deal. My father is a professor at CSUS (Sacramento state university). In the bottom floor of his building is the Olympic weightlifting room. At the age of 14 when I first became interested in strength training, my dad took me into work with him and had one of his fellow professors coach me. That guy was a fellow named Bill Kutzer. What I didn”t know then but do now is that Bill is a Senior coach for the USAW and the CSUS weightlifting team is one of the best programs in the country. The first gym I ever stepped into featured 8 power racks/platforms and a competition lifting stage at the head of the gym. I trained there with Bill until I got an Ivanko competition Olympic lifting set and a power rack for my 18th birthday at which point I moved to my garage. Life and injury eventually got in the way and I didn”t lift at all for years (a major regret). So anyways, thanks for reminding me how lucky I was (and still am) and the knowledge that there are guys getting it done at crappy globo gyms is all the motivation I need to do work here at home by myself.

    P.S. consider this an open invitation to any 70”s big readers to drop in and lift if you live in northern California or are just passing through, my garage is always open.

  35. @Jesco – Nothing but racks benches and barbells from wall to wall, its like you took pictures of my ultimate fantasy.

    After reading all these stories I feel really fortunate to train where I do. I trained at a corporate chain gym for about 6 months before I just about lost my cool. It was always way over crowded, mainly with guys who only curl and bench so they can look good for the club, and often did this in the only squat rack they had. The women were hot, but the last thing I need while I”m squatting is some cougar in the mirror with her fake boobs popping out of her top to distract me.

    The gym I go to now is a diamond in the ruff. Several racks, benches, bumpers, and lots of bars to choose from. Some strong deadlifters train there also.

  36. Interesting, sounds like some of the gyms here in Brisbane.
    I went to check out a big gym in my local area as my mate gave me a free weeks long pass.

    First thing I spotted when I walked into the main weights area was a “NO Olympic Lifts” sign above 30k worth of bumper plates and bars. I asked the trainer that was guiding me around what the go was and he replied “Those lifts are to dangerous and no one that works here is qualified to train them and when patrons have done them they are are way to noisy.”
    I laughed pretty hard and asked him “Why do you have a F**k all the Ivanko plates and bars for then, to pretty the place up? To make the wankers in here look good?”

    I started to get pretty pissed off to find that they had 3 power racks 5 benchs and 4 squat racks aswell.
    I was told it was $72 a month and $250 joining fee!
    Thats when I LOL”D the hardest.

    I have all the weights, bars, platforms and racks that I need at home and dont have to pay SHIT plus I can scream, swear and carry on like an idiot if need be. And I can chalk up my bitch hands all I like.

    F**KING Big business gyms make me angry.

  37. Justin (or anyone with some experience and an opinion),
    Completely off topic, but I need some advice regarding weightlifting belts. Elite has discontinued theirs, do you have any other brand suggestions? I don”t want to end up buying a piece of crap belt, you know?

    Thanks for the help.

  38. Shawn needs to check out Quest Gym in Duluth. It is a power and olympic lifting gym period. That”s all they do. It”s not quite as fancy as Rip”s gym, but it is all cinder block, power rack, barbell banging gym with very cool owners, workers and members. Chalk, yelling and tossing your bumper plates on the ground are not only allowed but encouraged.

    I”m going to compete in my first power lifting meet in Alabama in March with the gang from Quest gym.

  39. I discovered Quest – yes discovered as they don”t advertise, you will find them if real weight lifting is what your looking for – after being told that chalking my hands was not acceptable and to please stop dead lifting at the American Bodyworks fancy neon fagnasium.

  41. Planet Fitness sucks big time. When the little unfit chick was giving me a tour and we got to the back part where there was a couple of benches and one power rack she pointed to the wall where there was a blue police light mounted and she said it would go off if you make too much noise. I looked down at her (I”m 6”3″, 220)and said, “this is probably not for me”, she looked up at me and said, “yea you”re probably right” and I walked out.

  45. Hit a highest bodyweight ever of 81 kilos @ 5”7.

    New personal bests:

    Full Squat: 160kg x 6
    Paused bench press: 110kg x 2
    Standing press: 60kg x 9 and 65 x 5

    Feeling great.

    Not here for PR Friday.

  46. @John B and Crouton
    Thanks for the help guys. All I remembered from the earlier post was how awesome the Elite gear was. Didn”t think to go back to the comments…

    @Simonsky
    I”m 5”7 and, at least according to Johnny at Greyskull Barbell Club, I need to be between approx. 200 and 235 for my height. Figure 3-3.5lbs per inch of height…

  47. @Loki

    I just got the Athlete belt from Dean at Bestbelts.net. My belt came with an average thickness of 12.75cm. If you want thinner, you can ask if he has a belt that is the thickness you want. Great service and a great product. Custom sizing and color for $54 shipped 2nd day.

  48. There””””s two great powerlifting gyms around Atlanta: North Georgia Barbell in Kennesaw and Quest in Duluth.

    No one has reason to bitch about their $14/month gym not having enough squat racks. Get on Google you bunch of whiners.

    Right, since these places are so close to Snellville, especially with traffic and all. Not everyone has the time to do that shit, especially somebody who is in law school like Shawn.

    –Justin

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