White Goodman aka Ben Stiller
How to Spot One and Offer A Cure
I have a major problem. I...I see douchebags.
More specifically, I walk into the gym and I see douchebags in their late teens, 20's, and early 30's, and they remind me of Nancy Freakin' Kerrigan, distractedly skating through the weight room totally unaware that someone (me) is about to take a barbell to their weak little knees.
Just the other day my local Gold's Gym was infested with guys wearing abrasive cologne, designer Ed Hardy t-shirts, iPod arm bands, and calling each other "bro" as they checked out their abs in the locker-room mirror.
"Nice abs, bro. They look real good. Can you pass me my mint water?"
Oh the agony.
It's time to stop the spread of douchebaggery, and I need your help. But why, you ask, must we find a cure? Because the gym-douchebag virus is highly contagious and prone to random, herpes-like breakouts. (I first thought it was spread by vampire bites on the neck, but have recently learned it's a sort of osmotic infection you can get by simply touching a rhinestone-covered t-shirt. Good to know.)
Here are the signs you may have spotted a gym-douchebag. Being the nice guy I am, I also offered a cure. But I must warn you: like naughty little children, they may refuse to take the medicine. If that's the case, you've done all you can do.
4 Signs You've Spotted A Gym-Douchebag (And How to Cure Him)
1. He starts his workouts with curls and ends his workouts with curls
I'm all for the occasional "arm day" – in fact, I'm incorporating more isolation exercises into my personal training program – but a program that starts and ends with curls isn't much of a program at all. He's not recruiting enough muscle or challenging his body in any way. Chances are good he's using the same curl variation with the exact same weight, too.
The Cure: Tell him to start off his "arm day" with a close-grip bench press and weighted palms-facing-him chin-up and go as heavy as he can. Then have him do an activation exercise for each muscle group: a close-grip plyometric push-up and barbell drop-curl (literally curling a light bar, dropping it, and catching it in the middle portion of the lift) to "wake up" the muscle fibers he hadn't activated before. Then he can do an isolation exercise or two.
2. He's training in a designer t-shirt or worse, a sleeveless shirt with a slit cut down the armpit all the way to the bottom.
We don't need to say much about this. It just plain looks fucking stupid.
The Cure: Get this man an Under Armour loose-fitting t-shirt (not one of the skin-tight leotards) or a basic t-shirt. He's only allowed to cut the sleeves off if his arms are over 17 inches when flexed. That's it.
3. He reads a magazine, newspaper, or watches videos on his iPod in between sets.
Some guys take rest periods way too seriously. "It said to rest exactly three minutes so that's what I'm going to do." And others have no concept of time at all and end up wasting four or five minutes in between sets.
The Cure: Someone should tell him he's spending way too much time in the gym, losing the metabolic effect of the exercise, and pissing off guys like us who are waiting to use the equipment he's monopolizing. Rest periods should be as short as possible and are over when you feel like you can perform at a high intensity again. For me, this is 30-60 seconds, tops. Maybe a little longer as the weight gets near my one-rep max.
4. He asks about the new "fill in the blank" supplement and thinks it'll take him from skinny-fat to stacked.
I know guys who take in more calories from supplements than they do from regular food. They're known as "idiots." Personally, I use a few Biotest supplements around the peri-workout window but I make sure my three main meals and most of my snacks come from whole food sources.
The Cure: Supplements are great but they're not the cure-all and they certainly won't turn you into a powerful, muscular, ripped guy over night. Want to know the best way to accomplish those goals? Eat high-quality food, train consistently, know which supplements to take at the right time, and get enough water and sleep. Not too fucking hard (though a lot of people will try to convince you it is).
+++++
Do you have any other ways to spot a gym-douchebag? How the hell would you cure them? I bet we could come up with at least 25 or more. Let me hear it!
Posted Nov 17, 2009 by Nate Green.
This entry is filed under gym douchebags, gym, and rant.
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Comments for This Entry
As a member of Gold's in New York, this article really hits home, but you forgot the guys that hiss with each rep as if their blown up muscles are deflating.
There is a "bro"-er or three at my office gym, but that's how they talk all the time, not just there, and it's well-intentioned and not accompanied by any other DB factors.
On with the show....
The Sign: "Yeah, I took some time off. Now that I'm getting back in the routine, though..."
The Cure: "Dude, you talk more than you lift. You may have been a bad-ass fifteen years ago when you were in the service, but, please, just because I'm politely not calling you a douche doesn't mean I'm taking your advice now." [This may be elided by turning one's music up and/or pretending you can't hear him.]
The Sign: Testosterone Poisoning (excessive machismo, grunting for show, questionable hygiene practices)
The Cure: Other than laughing and repeated exhortations of "Dude, people do pushups and situps here, hock your fucking loogies in the trash bin or sink," unknown.
The Sign: Colonel Sanders and his chicken legs
The Cure: Leg workouts. Anything lower than "ab day" is better than the nothing currently on their regimen.
There is a guy at my gym who is on his bluetooth every time he "works out." He does curls and bench presses while talking on the phone. The cure is to leave your phone in the locker and focus on the set.
I'm very torn on how to reply to this.
To all the very serious weight lifters: you do realize that you're a bit like the guy that drives the F350 super-cab, turbo charged diesel, with the chrome trim, nurf bars, and 10 inch lift kit to the office each day. Don't take me the wrong way here, I think we as americans frequently lack the intestinal fortitude to 'be extreme' and that we very much do need a good dose of that returned to the country.
On the other hand, a lot of people are quite happy to have just the chrome trim kit. Is that so bad?
All the above said...glad I've taken the time to slowly build up my own equipment. Saves me the label of douchebag.
Here's to inspiring exceptionalism.
The guy shadowboxing in between sets and rapping out loud, with huge BOSE headphones on. He clearly has never thrown a real punch and hasn't a fucking clue on how to box. My training partner almost killed this guy for his douchebaggery alone.
The guy(s) who stand or whore a piece of equipment while talking for more than 2 minutes, sometimes as long as an hour, about pointless crap that has nothing to do with the equipment or working out. Aren't there coffee shops for that kind of jibba jabba?
Mmmmmm....douchebags in the gym. One of my favorite subjects. I may have something to add to this:
http://www.athletecreator.com/2009/07/15/douchebaggery-in-the-gym/
A gym douchebag is someone who doesn't know how to work out, sees that YOU know how to work out, and tries doing exactly what you're doing, because he JUST learned how to hang clean. Or he's working out, sees you do a barbell complex, and decides to make up his own right then and there. I want to kill this guy.
douchebags are walking in the gym more than they are lifting
solution: hey bro, if there is nobody at the station for 2 minutes I presume that I can use it... and stop walking to your cellphone that you let at the other end of the gym.
Careful Nate, even the seemingly calm waters of your personal website may be infested with undetected douchebaggery.
I seem to recall getting barbecued for around 15 pages on this very subject:
http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sex_news_sports_funny_grok/on_matters_of_douchebaggery
Some reader even sent me some serious hate mail to my home address. Granted, he wrote the letter in lip gloss and sprayed it with Diesel cologne, but the threat was there nonetheless.
This is why I don't use my employees discount at LifeTime Fitness. The name should say enough.
For some reason people want to hit me when I try to let them knwo they're being a douche, maybe I should'nt start the conversation with "oi douchebag!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfloUK26rGQ Also how do i become master trainer like this fellow?
We don't have Douchbags in England - we just call them Knobheads! This isn't such a big problem with smaller gyms over here - but i have never used a large commercial gym. I have a simple solution - train in your garage with your mates like i do.
Thing is, as long as they aren't using the squat rack for curls, I'm all in favour of as many guys as possible doing isolation exercises only and making next to no progress month after month.
If everyone trained properly and walked around "built for show" - there'd be no advantage in being "built for show"!
A lot of this sounds like Semi-douchebaggery.
Yes, there was a time I would have called people like this full on gym douchebags.
But that was before I started trying to train in the Netherlands.
Have you ever had someone take weights off your bad DURING your set? When's the last time someone doing lunges with 25 kilos in the squat rack told you to "8, now piss off" when you kindly asked them how many sets they had left?
There are a lot of people in American gyms who are woefully misinformed and have a poor grasp of aesthetics. This is why they do the shit Nate was talking about. But I find it rare that you run across someone in a gym, at least in America, who is a full-on douche.
Ahhhh how to spot a real Douche-bag:
They have clearly spiked or gelled their hair... They do stupid lifts i.e. curls, curls, poor form shoulder exercises, and do way to many crunches... In between sets they loiter around the dumbbells and talk to their "boys"... They are permeating the smell of cologne and lack a scent of hard work (guys shouldn't smell like a fashion magazine while working out)... They have skinny legs and huge arms and chest, if they ever put a barbell on their back their legs would snap.... Shaved legs and arms, this makes you a douche bag unless you are clearly a bodybuilder or generally busting your ass in the weight room (not adhering the above criteria), the guys I have seen with shaved arms and legs are none of the above therefore huge fucking douche bags... Any article of clothing made by Armani Exchange is being sported with pride, this goes for all clothing generally associated with douchebaggery (you know exactly what I mean)... Finally, and I may get some shit for this but I don't care, mostly everyone on the T-Nation forums is a HUGE douche, a mega douche, they take lifting and "moving heavy shit, and putting it back where it came from" far too seriously, I get it you're really cool and probably doing everything right but you're still a douche bag simply because T-Nation is your life and if any of the coaches told you that eating dog shit raises T levels they would take it into consideration on top of their current nutrition plans
They have to grunt to let everyone know how jacked and tan they are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JMOh-cul6M
Just yesterday as I was training my wife (who by the way was deadlifting 200+lbs. without straps) a douchbag in a tight sleeveless shirt starts curling 65 lbs in the squat rack right next to us WITH STRAPS!!
How about the fat guy that thinks he is muscular and wears sweat stained wife beaters all the time. He then looks at you and tells you your doing your exercises wrong!
Also, there are the guys that are in their late 30s early 40s that think they are 25. They talk to all of the 20something girls, look like they just got back from Mexico they are so tan, and walk around like they own the place.
Yes! Yes!
Excellent comments guys.
I've got one more to add:
The dude who gets done with dumbbell chest presses and then throws or drops the weight on the ground. I've seen one guy who was standing by the dumbbell rack actually get his toe smashed by an errant dumbbell thrown by a douchebag after a set.
The Cure: Learn how to "get up" properly. At the end of your set, while the dumbbells are still in the lockout position, turn them so your palms are facing each other (neutral), bend your elbows slightly, bring your knees up to meet the dumbbells as you lower them and roll off the front of the bench where your feet are. This movement alone makes you look badass.
Keep 'em coming.
-Nate
I have moved to a powerlifting gym and I see none of this. Although sometimes I think they get bored and start doing crazy stuff with chains, but it's funny to watch at least.
About the rest periods, I usually keep them more relaxed during my maximal lifts. After that I usually superset some things together. Instead of looking at a clock I picked up a heart rate monitor on sale. When it starts beeping (usually 30-60 seconds) I go back to work. I've noticed that this has not only boosted my conditioning, but I'm starting to shed the last remnants of bodyfat pretty quickly.
Hey, Nick, time catches up with us all, and if you're lucky, you'll reach your late 30's, too. We're OLD, not BLIND. *grin*
I found that a good way to get people out of the squat rack or off whatever piece of equipment they're wasting is to just say, "How many sets you got?" Since I almost never smile or show any real sign of pleasantness when I'm working out, this seems to almost always elicit a response of "Uh... one more." Sometimes it's two, but seldom more than that.
Most of these guys are following something they read in a 1992 issue of Flex, so they're doing three sets of 15 reps at half a dozen different stations for their arms. This means that they're never gonna hang out very long, particularly when you put your headphones back on as soon as they reply and sit or stand right next to the squat rack as they finish. Douchebags tend to feel self-conscious when someone is watching them because they're aware of how stupid they look, so they'll get uncomfortable really fast, end their set and scurry away to continue their curls elsewhere.
If you time it right, the whole process never takes longer than two minutes or so, which serves mostly as a long rest interval. In this way you can work your way through an entire gym swimming with douchebags without having to take your headphones off for longer than it takes to say one sentence and never waiting more than two minutes for equipment.
Try coming to a college town; the amount of douche bags are endless.
Heres a few more descriptions of douche bags who just don't get it:
1. The Reverse Liberty Bell
I'm pretty sure the description says it all. These guys have the upper body of a bodybuilder and legs that look like they could fit on a 12 year old girl. These guys are also the ones who can bench more than they can squat.
2. Zoolander
These guys always got a "mean mug" going on. They never smile. They will wait to go for a set so they can watch how much you can bench. Tough? Fuck ya, I mean theyll never break eye contact bc that just proves how tough you are. (catch me in the shower pal with a ruler)
3. Bandanna
I have nothing against bandannas. Hell, I mean I think we've all wore won. But using them to get style points at the gym, thats just plain stupid. They aren't met for your arm, and they don't have to match your shorts, shirt, and underwear.
4. The pick up artist
These guys are by far the funniest. You can spot these dudes easily. They are usually wearing matching clothing and their hair is pretty done up. You catch them always staring at chicks and eventually they feel they have a good enough pump to go over and start mingling. You find these guys by the stretching mats and cardio machines. My favorite is the guy who pics the empty machine beside the hot chick and doesn't even smile or say a word. But somehow he figures since hes Cassanova she'll pick up on this subtlety and initiate a convo and it will end with something on the lines of "lets hang out, your super hot, be my bf, you wanna hit the showers".
As you can see 4.5 years with these people make me want to....(fill in blank)
Nate, why do you have to judge all of your fellow gym mates? You know you used to be a "gym douchebag" back in the day... that's how you know ALL of the signs! haha =)
Later bro!
Brandon
PS: Jus' messin' witcha tough guy!
I work at a gym and I see that guy who finishes his set and then goes and reads the morning paper for 10 minutes. People dont understand what true hard work in the gym is.
I saw this guy once doing barbell shrugs while simultaneously talking on his cell phone. Yes, thats right, his head was cocked to one side to hold the phone between ear and shoulder. While doing barbell shrugs. Brilliant!
Man, what I wouldn't give for a good underground gym. It'd be intimidating as hell since I'm still a pretty scrawny green dude. But goddamn, I'm sick of people sprawled out on the leg curl machines on their iPhones or two beefcake guys leaning on the squat rack shooting the shit.
When I walk in, they scan the little badge, and I have tunnel vision. I just walk in, drop off my stuff in the locker room, set up and get to work. I hate people who fuck around at the gym. I just want to choke them with their headphone cord.
a douchebag is a guy who takes a picture of himself in a mirror, and then puts it as his profile pic on facebook, myspace, etc...
cant cut your sleeves unless your arms are over 17 flexed...Im not skinny but I dont have 17 flexed pythons. so...what about the guys who train right trying to get bigger, can we wear cutoffs.......bro?
haha thx
How about the guy who is using 4 machines at the same time and wont let you get some sets in when clearly, hes using it about 2 minutes every 20.
There's also the guy that wont use the lockers in the locker room and will take his sweater, car keys, phone and other paraphernalia, and left them for his entire workout at whatever station he started. Not to mention, he may not only be a total bag of vaginal irrigation, he may be on roids. I don't know about you guys, but these guys scare me. They are so out of their minds, that when you move their "water bottles" thats sitting on a station hes not even using, he looks like hes gonna turn into the Incredible Hulk.
a douchebag is someone who works out while he's on the fucking phone. I train at a commercial gym in Alkmaar, Holland. This guy is in the gym every day of the week doing his bench press, bicep curls (god knows how many variations there are). Yesterday I was prepering for a max bench press (using max force sets and ramping the weight). This skinny legged guy walks up to me and says you've already done 4 sets..are you done?...At that moment I was fucking pissed right..3 seconds go by and his stupid phone rings. Saved by the bell! Haha wanted to rip his fucking head off!
The guys who wear tight sleeveless hoodies, with the hood on....
Oh, and they all seem to do preacher curls.
Ah yes, there are plenty in the gym I go to. It's like going to a fashion show. You have guys that look like male models wearing clothes that would do in any environment, except the gym. Cell phones are a big thing too. Many people take calls in the middle of a set, make you wait for the bench because they won't pull their ass off it. It's only too funny when their phones fall off their pants pockets and smash on the floor while they're dying on the bench.
The guy who tells you that you are squatting way too deep. He's also the guy who puts on 3 plates to do his squats for a 'warm up' and he goes no lower than a 1/4 squat. Oh yeah, he also grunts.
How about the guy who wears a lifting belt for tricep kickbacks.
This morning I saw 2 real-life examples in their natural habitat (chest day) As I started my session they were on the bench. I finishe 75 minutes later and they were just leaving having done flat bench, incline bench, smith bench, flat dumbll press, incline dumbell press, pushups, resistance maching chest press, cable flyes, dumbell flyes and incline dumbell flyes....All for multiple sets while wearing wifebeaters. The final act of DB-ery? Leaving weights on all of their stations!!!!
Can't we all just get along? If you read all these posts I'm sure each one of us is guilty of something another deems douchebaggery. My arms aren't 17" but half my gym shirts are tanks, not cut down to the waste I hasten to add. That said, anyone doing curls in a squat rack should have a barbell inserted into them forcefully.
A letter to my fellow gym-goer of last night...
"Dear Sir,
Thank you for picking up on my subtle non-verbal communication last night. The fact that the power rack still had my towel, water bottle, as well as the bar fully loaded with several hundred pounds, not to mention my soul trying to re-enter my body after the last set would have steered most people away. But not you! When i took several steps back, turned my back to the rack and bent over to catch my breath, only you heard what I was truly saying... "please someone unload my bar completely and use it to do bicep curls."
Sincerely,
Nate
Douchebags? I don't know about you guys but my gym is full of caring thoughtful people.
"I almost never smile or show any real sign of pleasantness when I'm working out". Wow Craig, that makes you king of the douchebags!
The Cure. Get over yourself, it's the gym not the octagon. You can work out hard and still have manners.
I count myself lucky to train at a non-douche bag gym. In fact, we have none.
We also have 10 power racks, sleds, tyres, chains, bands and all the good stuff.
Not having any mirrors helps a lot...
I'm not sure if this counts but I considered any trainer who has their client doing curls on a bosu ball a douche. I wanna say something but I don't want to make the guy look bad in front of his client.
Or how about the douche doing BB curls in the only power rack in my shitty LA Fitness Gym?
Field Study:
Today While training a female client I was fortunate enough to experience my new number one candidate for med ball target practice. I brought my client to a corner of the gym where there is a Smith Machine ( should of known the douche would find his way there ) As she is working her tits off through a Kettlebell circuit. 1965 Captain Of the JV football Team in his full sweats come barreling over to the Smith Machine in front of us. Due to the fact his fellow douches cannot grasp the concept of putting weight plates back in sensible order his precious 35 pound plate is all the way behind 3 tens a 25 and a 45 on the middle rung. The classic rock must have been blaring a little to loud in head phones for him to add 25 + 10 so of course the logical step would be to literally throw all the plates off the rung and act like he didn't even notice the crashing sounds they made as they hit the floor, where they would stay after his 3 sets of 10 incline bench on the smith machine. Do I even have to mention he left all his plates on the bar too? Maybe that was for the best and detered a token lazy douche bag from using the Smith machine and led to a possible free - weight exercise...wishful thinking. Anyway, about 20 minutes later we have moved on to Deadlifts - It's a pretty big day for her, 6 sets of 4 and she is pulling 145, mind you this girl is about 5'2 110 pounds. We have 2 25's on the side of the bar on top of two risers on either side because the full plates are too high. The whole set up is right in front of a squat rack next to an unused power rack. Enter Sir Douche. " Are you using the rack? " I am currently kneeling in front of the power rack watching her form from the side, assuming he is asking in a polite way for me to move the from infornt of the unised power rack, where mind you anything you can do on the squat rack can be done, I answer " No, It's all yours " and move the other side of my client. Douche stands there waching us for another minute when I realize he want the squat rack we are in front of. Ok guy, we move back a few feet. All I can think is - If this guy does curls in here right now I am ging to take this little 4kg KB I have with us and spike it off his dome. Well...Douche goes and get a flat bench and sticks it right in the middle of the rack...ok. Now I am super fucking confused, long story short he grabbed the bench to stradle it while doing bicep curls. God Bless.
CURE: When you see him doing his 15 min of elliptical after his weight lifting take a med ball and fire away.
Sorry for the perfect grammar and spelling.
@ Ty
I know what you mean, same goes for my LA Fitness gym. I find though that if you ask how many sets they have left, and then sit there and wait, they finish a hell of a lot faster.
Nate,
You forgot two key elements in your nutrition cure: Drink beer and Eat pussy.
Wife beaters and jeans. Are you shittin me.?? Only in America
If you can back it up with a 500+ lb deadlift i think you should be able to wear whatever shirt you want....but if wearing a cut off shirt is "douche baggish", then we should also add avatars of dudes taking shirtless pictures of themselves to the list.
Thanks for your time
wow, some tension building on here. nice.
just be careful who's judging who here.
even the newbie/intermediate who's doing one of the more "accepted" programs (BFS, NROL, Max Strength, etc.) need to watch themselves before judging anybody doing anything different, including body part splits or isolation work. besides, ill-informed does not equal douche bag.
at my old gym i saw a kid doing 15-pound dumbell curls while standing on a bosu ball. my 17-inch arms getting all swole themselves after chin ups and reverse forearm curls from Built for Show, i nearly had a heart attack watching this nonsense until i realized...this kid was ripped out of his mind, looked like a men's health cover model with great vascularity. and I'M judging HIM?
people need to look in the mirror and judge themselves before judging others.
also nothing wrong with cut-offs (does anybody else call them 'sleeve monsters' or is it just me? if not, i hereby declare cut-off shirts will be henceforth known as sleeve monsters) regardless of arm size.
one more point. whenever i do giant sets and have 4 pieces of equipment or different sets of dumbbells for 4 consecutive exercises with no rest, the rest of the people in the gym look at ME like I'M the douche bag. and, deservedly so. it's like I Am Legend (the book not the movie). the vampires think I'M the monster.
I'm the biggest douchebag where I lift heavy. My music goes on the sound system, and fuck anyone who doesn't like They Might Be Giants' "Birdhouse in Your Soul" for heavy DL's.
This is probably why it's a good thing I work out in my garage, and the only people who can hear me are the guys in the auto body shop next door. They probably think I'm nuts, but they're good neighbors.
Thanks for all the comments guys! No "rules" are set in stone; these are my general observations and opinions.
Also, all of us are douchebags depending on who you ask.
I mean, lifting weights? Wanting to get bigger arms? Caring about how much weight we're lifting? Watching our carbs?
It's all pretty douche-y.
Word to your respective mothers. :)
-Nate
hahah we might all be the biggest douche-bags out there but at least within the confines of this blog we are the coolest motherfuckers in the weight room... and at the bar. Shit, I'd take anyone here over the dude with an Ed Hardy bedazzled t-shirt, a blowout haircut, doing curls while thinking about Yager shots....
good stuff nate
J.C.
ps... give this a try when you're bored on a weekend afternoon, I'm giving it a shot this weekend while watching football.
http://www.the-feedbag.com/videodrome/meatball-madness-part-ii-building-the-meatball-superweapon
Seeing people with the KFC syndrome easily annoys me the most. Also when there is a really loud guy to attract attention to himself.
another one - when they wear shirts that are ripped on the sides down to their waist and in the front down to their stomach hair. its gross, unnecessary and out of control.
The worst I've seen was these "jacked up" (i.e. imaginary lat syndrome + internally rotated humeri + KFC syndrome) guys moving a preacher curl station into a power rack to do.... wait for it.... behind-the-neck barbell presses with spotters. Of course, these dudes have the same pair of balls to tell me to squat with a smith machine because "it's safer."
P.S. They're the employees.
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