Commercial gym horror stories from a decade of training
A 200+ kg squat dropped because someone walked into the bar, hauling our own equipment in for meet prep, and a tiny off-leash dog I nearly stepped on.
In the first part, I went through the equipment, safety and logistics reasons we left commercial gyms. This one is about the stories behind them.
Lots of stupid things happened over the years. People ducking under the bar that is already on my back to get weights from the rack I was using. One time someone even tried to take a plate off the bar literally between squat reps. Many of these could’ve ended really badly, but usually, due to me trying to be aware of my surroundings and paying a lot more attention to the mirror in front of me than should be necessary, mostly nothing happened.
That said, some of the stories stick out due to how funny, how dangerous, or just how dumb these were, so I thought I’d share some of them.
The 200+ kg squat someone walked into
So this gym had an Eleiko combo rack. An older version of this beauty. That was the only combo rack in the city 5-6 years ago and I believe even since then, only one more gym has got one. Well, and us, in our own private gym, but more on that in later articles. Either way, for some reason the people in charge thought it would be a good idea to put it in the middle of nowhere, surrounded with other equipment all around it.
One of the guys who trains in our gym now had a 200+ kg squat loaded and walked it out. I believe it was 240 kg to be exact. Someone got up from the bench next to the combo rack and started walking without paying attention to what was happening around him and straight up walked into the bar, knocking it off the back of the dude trying to squat.
Seen from above, simplified and not to scale.
- Lifter walks the bar out of the hooks and squats in front of the rack.
- Someone walks through the gap between the rack and the equipment next to it.
- They walk into the end of the bar.
- The bar comes down on the rack’s safety arms.
Thankfully, nobody got hurt, other than the poor Eleiko rack that took the hit on the safeties.
That said, if you are familiar with combo racks, you know that those safety arms are NOT meant to catch heavy squats. Those are often called “face savers”, because the role of these is to avoid crushing yourself when failing a bench, but dumping a 240 kg squat from shoulder height is an entirely different beast and that can easily make a combo rack flip, as Hansu demonstrates in the promo video of their new rack.
This time, although that specific rack has been flipped several times since, it didn’t happen, but one side of the bar fell on it before the other, so one single safety had to catch 240 kg on a single touchpoint and it did get bent quite a bit.
This could’ve easily ended in serious injury for several people and it made it feel a lot less safe to lift heavy in places like this.
Hauling our own equipment through meet prep
We were aware of the fact that the plates were light and the bars were way too bendy for a while, as several of us got caught out by the proper equipment in competition.
We+d been planning to get our own stuff for a while, when my now-wife and I were sitting in a laundromat, scrolling Instagram, and saw Strength Shop’s Black Friday sale announcement go live. We didn’t have a place in mind yet, but it was at a really good price, so even though we live in a small apartment, we bought a set of calibrated plates with some extra 25s and an IPF-approved bar. It was probably a dumb move, as we had to store them under the couch and our bed for a while, but honestly, it was worth it. I’ll probably write more about this little adventure another time.
Either way, from that time, for heavy deadlift days, we were taking our own bar to the gym. Just that one change made it harder to break the floor and removed 5-10 kg from our working weights.
So one guy was preparing for a meet. He and his coach decided to hold a mock meet to see where he really was, so he asked us to bring in the plates too. We only brought 3 pairs of 25s due to logistics, but even that was enough for him to only get his first attempts. These were supposed to be weights he was confidently handling on a random Tuesday, but they ended up almost crushing him, multiple times.
Of course, people looked at us like we were insane, but whatever, it was a pretty absurd but funny day.
The dog I almost stepped on
Look, I love dogs. We have our own dachshund and we even named him after the calf muscle in our language. That said, dogs moving around freely in gyms bother me to no end. I don’t think this is safe for people trying to lift heavy or the dogs themselves.
Maybe the time I’ll talk about now had something to do with why I’m feeling this way.
So the scene is a busy commercial gym, with loud music, at peak hours. Someone thought it would be great to bring their tiny Yorkshire terrier to the gym. While this dude was doing his sets (ironically, curling in one of the only two squat racks, again, at peak hours), the dog was just wandering around the gym, off-leash. I was mid-set on a bench next to the rack when they arrived, so I wasn’t aware of the tiny dog being right next to my feet.
Now, fellow big-boned lifters, I’m sure you know that sometimes, especially when you are gassed, you have to bring a little momentum into getting up from a bench by using your legs a bit. I did the same, as I had many times before, except this time, if I’d stomped on the ground 2-3 centimeters to the left, I would’ve ended that small dog right there, and I don’t think it would’ve been my fault, or the dog’s.
Voluntary spotters
It is a fairly common thing that if a bench slows down even remotely, someone jumps in to “help” to the surprise of the lifter. I mean, sure, they have no idea what is happening and in their mind they are trying to save you, so while it is unfortunate, I can’t really be mad at that.
That said, this one time that is captured in the video above will likely stick with me forever. Not in the “it makes me mad when I think about it” way, but more in the “what did I just witness” way.
So this dude was preparing for a lifetime PR of 200 kg. He was pretty talented too, as he was just a high schooler who’d started lifting maybe a year earlier. He was basically in a trance over the bar for 20 seconds at the point the video starts already, so he had no idea what was happening behind him.
This guy, who is the same clown with the dog by the way, started hovering behind him and tried to do… I have no clue what really, just watch the video.
Again, the kid had no idea that there was someone behind his back. I’m not sure what his reaction would’ve been if the clown had actually joined in and hugged him from behind, but I’m pretty sure it would have been REALLY damn funny.