Wed, 24 Aug 16
I trained at a local commercial gym down in the outer banks which shall go unnamed. I have been to several of them in the past and their weight rooms usually range from mediocre to pretty good. This one however, was a total pile of dung. There were about a million treadmills and then another million other cardio machines, which is all well and good taken by itself, but this took up about 2/3 of the weight room, leaving the other 1/3 for crappy machines (not all machines are crappy, but these definitely were), 4 benches with absolutely the worst barbells ever, some DBs and flat benches, and a smith machine. No rack at all of any sort. To make it worse (if that's possible), there was literally only one chunk of floor space that was open and large enough for me to deadlift in without totally blocking one of the narrow walkways between rows of machines. I did my thing and the few other people who seemed to have half an idea WTF they were doing in the weight room also were over there for parts of their training. It turned out there was actually the sign at the beginning of this saying no training in that area. I didn't even see it until I was done because I was just trying to get my training in before someone came and yelled at me and I had to talk them into letting me finish so they would never see me again in their lives. Had I seen it though, I still would have ignored it. If a gym doesn't want me to deadlift, then they shouldn't have bars (even awful ones) and plates.
Deadlift
10x45
10x135
5x225
3x315
1x365
3x415
3x470
3x530
Sadly, I used all but 4 plates in the gym to do my last set, which is just shameful. The bars had basically no knurling and the stupid screwed up rings that are everywhere except where they are supposed to be. I didn't bring chalk and was too lazy to use straps, so I actually had to put it down and re-grip after the first 2 reps. The floor was also not level and I was competing with two Canadian girls for space who seemed annoyed that I was deadlifting, even though I was following all proper gym etiquette and alternating sets with them to allow everyone involved to focus and do their thing. One of them did keep saying "eh?" at the end of most of her sentences, which was silently cracking me up.
Paused Band TKE/Stability Ball HS Curls/Seated Calf Raise
3x{15ea x all the bands/20xBW/20x90}
Notes on my accessory work:
-I literally used all three of the tube bands I could find in the gym for the terminal knee extensions.
-Blast strap HS curls are much more difficult than stability ball HS curls
-I enjoy calf raises
Both my girlfriend and I expressed our hatred of all commercial gyms in general and that one in particular as we were leaving and I will definitely never set foot in that place again.