People I Hate at the Gym: "Bad Form Guy"

My second least favorite person at the gym is the guy who lifts with such poor form that it makes you want to club him upside the head.

Caveat: if someone is lifting a small amount of weight and obviously doesn't know what they are doing... this does NOT apply to them. They are excused. This is meant for one type of person and one only.

The "poor form" guy that I'm talking about most likely has a few other stereotypical gym-douche characteristics, but he takes it to the next level by grabbing a weight anywhere from 50% to 150% too heavy and doing an exercise that only barely approximates what he's trying to do.

You see this a lot for biceps curls. Johnny Toughguy walks over to the rack and pulls off a 70 pound dumbbell. You're curious and you're thinking to yourself... "what's he going to do with that?" Your mind immediately gets blown to smithereens when he stars doing curls that are 90% accomplished by twisting and contorting his back. The exercise isn't even working out his biceps. Not only is this stupid and not only does it make him look like a douchebag, but it's also dangerous. It's this kind of behavior that leads to weekend warriors getting injured at the gym.

So you watch and you hope that the motherfucker just completely obliterates his back, because let's be honest... he deserves it. But he doesn't. So he moves on.

Shoulder press? Comes down approximately 10% from the top of his press. Muscle worked: mystery.

Bench? Same. Nice upper tricep workout on that 275 pound bench, buddy. We're all brimming with pride.

Dips without even lowering your body enough to work the lower chest and triceps? You're on the fast-track to success!

This is all made worse by the accompanying swagger and the look on their face that says, "did you see how much weight I was just handling." This person has no idea that anyone with a clue has already marked them as a clueless loser - but hey... dream big or don't dream at all.

Bonus: I don't see this any more since I left college but along similar lines: the team lift. You all know what I'm talking about. A guy comes in with his witty fraternity t-shirt (it says something like: we bring the balls if you bring the holes: SIGMA PI 2007 MIXER)... throws about 350 pounds on the bar. Has his two boys on each side and one in the back to "spot" him and proceeds to "lift" it 2 or 3 times with his three spotters doing over 95% of the lifting. Always the highest of high comedy. Usually followed by some grunting, some congratulating, and a lot of use of the word bro. Actual workout accomplishment? Minimal.

The problem here is that a lot of people use their time out of the house and at the gym attempting to show off for other people there (which is mostly other dudes - good job) and forget why they are there. No one cares if you're throwing around all that extra weight; if you're not using the proper form you're defeating the entire purpose of going to the gym in the first place. You go to the gym to look better when you're not at the gym. You don't go to look good while you are there. Please do not lose sight of this. You're not helping your cause and you're embarrassing yourself in the process.